WARNING: Spoilers for the FMA movie, The Conquerer of Shambala, are contained in this ficlet. If you don't want to be spoiled/confused, pleaserefrain fromreading. Thank You!

Edward Elric awoke, his vision immediately enshrouded in darkness. He sat up in his sea of blankets, looking around, his gaze landing on the clock nearby. With the incredibly dimmed lighting he couldn't see the exact time, but it had to be well after two o'clock in the morning. He let out a sigh of frustration, falling back onto the bed and staring upward at the ceiling. For several nights now, he had awoke at various times during the night. There was a reason, though only his younger brother, who lay in the bed across the room from him, knew. A recurring dream. A vision of sparkling blue eyes and pale skin, blonde hair tied back into a ponytail cascading down her back. His regret for leaving his prior home; his childhood best friend, aside from his brother. It seemed to him that it was near impossible for her to escape her mind, no matter how hard he tried to forget what he had left back in Amestris.

"Brother?" a tired, childish voice arose from the bed across the room. Edward sighed, rolling over and facing the nearest window.

"Go back to bed, Al."

"Brother, are you all right?" Both brothers knew the answer to that. No, he thought, No, Al. I'm not all right. Neither of us are. A sigh was released on the other side of the room, and a creaking sound was made as Alphonse Elric shifted in his bed, rolling over to his side to peer out of another window.

"You know, Brother ..." He suddenly started, "She tried hard not to show it, but I could hear her crying at night." Edward's expression became saddened on the other side of the room as he tried to concentrate more on the snow falling outside of the window. He remembered when he and Al would have snowball fights .. she was there as well. She was always there, no matter how hard he tried to push her away.

"I always came into her room when she was crying. I tried asking her what was wrong a few times, brother .. she never told me. She always said that she was fine, and that I should just .. go back to bed ..." Alphonse could hear his older brother chickle slightly from his bed.

"But then one night .. I heard her repeating your name over and over ..." Edward closed his eyes, trying to keep from remembering the tears she had cried for the two of them.

"That's when I figured out her reason for crying." Edward opened his eyes, staring blankly out the window once more, trying ever harder to focus on the falling snow. Oh, how pretty it was ..

"Brother .. Brother, why did we leave Amestris ..?" Edward closed his eyes, rolling back onto his back and opening them again to stare once more at the ceiling.

"You know why, Al. We had to protect everyone .. we had to make sure that the gate was never opened again, that nobody could be harmed .." There was an awkward pause.

"You weren't supposed to come with me, Al .. you were supposed to stay safe over on the other side." Another awkward pause.

"But I wanted to," Alphonse finally answered, "And I'm sure .. that if Winry were given the chance, she would have wanted to come along as well." Edward smiled sadly, though his younger brother couldn't see it.

"Well .. things .. things are better this way," He finally said, "Winry will stay with the people she knows and loves .. she'll start her own automail business, get married ... start a family .." Edward trailed off, finding that even imagining it was hard.

"She knew us, Brother." Edward sighed.

"Yeah Al. I know."

"She loved us."

"I know .."

"She loved you." Edward remained silent, trying to keep his composure. He had only realized just how strongly he had felt for her when he came back to Amestris about a year ago, to seal off the gate for good. She had loved him always, and he supposed that he had felt the same way for that long as well.

"Brother ..?" Alphonse asked again. Edward took a shuddering breath and replied.

"Yeah?"

"You don't want her to get married to someone else, do you?"

No matter how hard Edward searched through his brain for an answer, he couldn't come up with anything other than 'no.'

"It's too late now, Al. She's .. probably already moved on." The creaking sound from the bed across the room from him told him that his younger brother was standing up from his bed, and the creaking sound that the floorboards made suggested that he was moving out of the room. Before he exited completely, however, Al paused at the doorframe and looked back to his elder brother, a mixture of supressed anger and sympathy showing on his slightly-lit face.

"You don't want that, though." And with that, Alphonse walked into the other room. Edward sighed, rolling back over to the window, trying to supress the urge to release a cry of anguish out loud.

"He's right," He whispered to himself and sighed.

"I don't want that."