Hello readers. My name is Wilderness, and this is my first shot at an FMA drabble... fic... thing. All of my other work has been for Avatar: The Last Airbender, in which I feel I have much more knowledge(read that as "Ack! Since this is my first FMA fic, if I get something wrong, pleasedon't come after me withbaseball bats and toaster ovens!")
The dear Captain Kase did a drabble for me, so I am returning the favor.She likes her Edward angsty, so that's what I'm giving her. I hope you enjoy it. (DISCLAIMER: this is not my new epic. That will hopefully be coming out before the end of June)
Just so ya know, it's an alternate ending to the anime. (Spoiler for end of series ahead) Instead of going into the alternate world, Ed was spit back into his world, and Al got his body back. But why...?
The stone-row fence was comfortingly solidbeneath Edward's crossed arms. He leaned wearily against it, staring at the expanse of midnight sky that stretched forever over the rolling hills and valleys of Risembool.
It was a peaceful night, with a gentle wind coasting lowly over the meadows, setting the grasses rippling under the moonlight like a silvery ocean. The breeze tugged at Edward's coat and twisted sinuously beneath the fabric, but he was indifferent to the prickle of the early-spring chill, his eyes gazing at some faraway point only memory knows.
It hasn't changed at all. Edward thought incredulously to himself. It seemed impossible. How could something remain so untouched, an island of serenity, while the world around it had been dragged through a sea of blood? Edward couldn't suppress the cold twist in his stomach as he ruminated on the unfairness of life. The past ten years had not been easy on him. He had lost his innocence somewhere along the way.
Somewhere in the whir and clank and agony of automail limbs fused to raw nerve and muscle. In the stench of the warm, spilt blood of a slaughtered race. In the cruel smiles of those who love to kill, and in nights spent wondering if he'd be next. In moments of desperate choice between good and evil, life and death, right and wrong, made in the split second between the hiss of a knife as it swung through the air and sickening sound of impact.
The scenery may not have changed, but the child had. No blinking light would call him home tonight, and the innocent boy who had once looked up at the stars with untainted naivete had been replaced with a man who could not see past the failures and haunting memories that hung forever in front of his eyes.
Regret rose like bile in his throat, choking any sense of peace from the landscape, and left him gasping and aching.
"What did I do wrong?" Ed groaned into the cold stillness of the night, but his question was met only with the sound of the wind moving over the fields, a backdrop to the accusations that crashed mercilessly through his mind.
Edward screamed a curse into the night before burying his head in his arms, the night providing cover for the weakness that he had kept carefully hidden from Al, from Mustang, from Winry. They wouldn't have understood.
He should be celebrating. Everyone else was. It had been a victory, they said. The leader of the homunculus defeated, her bitter creations either dead or vanished impotently into the night. And, most importantly, he'd gotten what he'd wanted all along:
His brother's body back.
It was as much as he could ask for. It was the culmination of all his hopes and efforts since that night when he and his brother had committed the forbidden and had started down the long road of agony leading to repentance.
In what should have been his last sacrifice, his life for his brother's, Ed had been spit back to the earth. He'd awoken to find himself sprawled on the cold floor, vomited from the gate like Jonah from the belly of the whale. His brother was beside him, his flesh-and-blood brother, embracing him with arms that were so wonderfully soft.
He should be thankful. Thankful that his life was spared, despite the equivalent trade he had been prepared to make.
But instead he found himself empty, filled only with the maddening questions that echoed relentlessly through his head, giving him no rest. He dared not voice his unease to anyone, not even to Al.
Why was I spared? Why didn't the gate consume me? Dissolve me?
If everything is supposed to have a purpose, a reason for existing in the circle of all is one and one is all, then what is my purpose?
Why didn't I get my limbs back? What do I still have to give for it to be an equivalent trade? What haven't I given?
Edward flexed his metal hand, the gears whirring and the alloy tendons pushing and pulling with smooth, precise movement. It was a work of art...
...and he hated it.
He would never tell Winry. It wasn't her fault that her masterpiece served as a continual reminder of his failure.
The gate had given his brother's body back. Why did it withhold from him his limbs? What had he left undone? Edward sighed and slumped in the darkness, fingering a small piece of paper between his fingers, feeling the softly frayed edges with delicate, sensitive flesh.
His brother's cherubic face hovered in the back of his mind. Eyes wide with hope and worry, plump cheeks dimpled in a frown, Al was offering to help him get his body back. Their conversation repeated itself in his head.
No, Al, not after all we've been through. I should be dead. So should you. No, I'm not going to put you through that again.
But brother! It's not fair! You shouldn't have to live with the pain of automail!
Why not? Lots of people do. What makes me any different? I can stand a little pain.
And he could. But it wasn't the pain that was driving him crazy these days. It was the itching feeling of something left undone. A glitch in his equation.
He began to stroke the paper absentmindedly with his thumb. When he'd first received the letter, he'd dismissed it laughingly. But now... now it burned in his pocket, tumbling and wrestling in his thoughts, consuming his attention like some twisted form of Tolkien's ring.
Edward leaned back against the old fence and winced as he settled heavily on his shoulder. The screaming pain of nerves set on edge arced into his shoulder blade and sent tendrils of agony racing through his body. He sighed, it was the price he would have to pay for this moment of peace.
He'd come out to Risembool on the pretense of needing to get his automail fixed. What he'd really needed was time to think and clear his mind without everyone saluting him and slapping him on the back, without Mustang's smug grin, as if Ed had done something wonderful and he had been behind it all.
The hours of reattachment agony were hardly equivalent trade for a chance to sit still and think, but one look at Al made it worth it. He loved coming to Risembool. For him, it was coming home. Somehow, when Al sprinted through the doors of Pinako's old farmhouse, face lit up and glowing, it was almost as if nothing had ever changed. As if he'd never spent several long years trapped in a suit of armor and fighting for his life against psychopathic humunculi. When he tussled with Den on the green grass, he looked like a kid again, as if he'd entirely forgotten their hellish quest for the philosopher's stone.
Ed slowly extracted the paper from his pocket, watching as bits of paper fibers floated from the frayed edges to litter the ground like early snow. He opened the letter and spread it out before him on the wall. He could not read it in the darkness, but he didn't have to. He'd read it enough by now to know exactly what was written on it.
Ed, (it began, in loose, scrawled handwriting, lopsided and jerky and barely legible)
I am learning something! It has been hidden, but I know the secret. Still unstable, still unstable. Hangen 5
-ST
Edward folded the letter carefully again and put it into his pocket with a sigh of resignation. Bending down, he lifted the old leather satchel that had rested faithfully by his feet all night. With one last parting look at the old farmhouse where Al, Winry and Pinako were sleeping in careless ignorance, he began to walk down the dusty old road leading west.
There would be no goodbyes. Because if he'd had to say goodbye, Al would never let him go. He would beg to come with him, and Ed wouldn't be able to resist. Partly because he could hardly deny his brother anything, and partly because he was scared, himself.
But no, he wouldn't drag Al into this. He had suffered enough already. It was up to Ed to go now and find out what ST (which, he reasoned, must certainly stand for Shou Tucker) meant of a hidden secret (which, he also reasoned, must certainly involve something of an alchemic nature). Maybe he could get his limbs back. Maybe he could just get some questions answered. Either way, he had to go. Curiosity had always been his weakness. He could only pray it would not be his downfall.
The road was lightened with the coming dawn, gilding the dust with a sheen of gold. Edward shouldered the pack, feeling not only the weight of his provisions settle on his shoulders, but also the consequences of his decision. What had ST meant by 'hidden secret'? What would it mean for him? And just how far was he willing to go to accomplish his goal?
There ya go, sweetie. I hope it was okay. I had to end it on a note of hope. I couldn't leave Ed all sad and angsty, which is why I'll never be a good FMA writer. :)