Prompt: Rain

Rating: Mature
Word Count: 500
Characters: Ed, Nina
Disclaimer: Me no own, you no sue, yesh?
Setting: Episode 7 of the [original] Anime
Summary: She had called him 'big brother' like they had really been family.

A/N: This was probably my favourite episode and the one that got me into the story in the first place. I hope it's not too confusing. (And no, I can't believe I used intermittent italics again. I don't know how this happened.)

GOODNIGHT, INNOCENCE GONE

This form of precipitation was less than ideal.

It should be snow, like the kind they played in together. Snow, as she would have wanted it to be - she, the little girl with pigtails and the face full of smiles. Nina, the little girl filled with laughter, who had enough happiness for the whole world.

Why must all the good be taken? His body begged to shake with grief as he contemplated innocence and sacrifice. His pride did not let it, but with clenched fists he indulged himself in memories of her giggles and joy. She had tried to tell jokes, with success on the timing but not in actual concept.

"Hey Edward, what do you call an egg and a book?"

"Um, I dunno, what?"

"An EGGBOOK!" she said, erupting into furious cachinnation at her own nonsense. He couldn't help but grin.

Silly girl. Her merriment still rang in his ears, overpowering the sirens and the pitter-patter of droplets falling around him. They would wash her blood away so that it would no longer contaminate the sidewalk, although the stains would forever linger on his heart.

She was adorable… she had called him 'big-brother' like they had really been family. She drew pictures of him and her and Al together and had no qualms interrupting their studying with her giddiness and absurd quips about irrelevant things. She tried to 'teach him' how to draw and he tried to teach her alchemy in return; she wanted him to start with cooking since he said that's what alchemy had started from in the first place. When his failed attempt at pesto sat before her, she had reprimanded him for it.

"Ew, I can't eat this! It smells ugly."

"…It's what you wanted!" He was flustered. "You should eat it. How would you feel if you made me something and I said that to you?"

"I would be happy."

"No, you wouldn't. You'd be sad that I wasn't going to eat what you had worked on just for me."

"No, I would be happy, because then I could eat it all myself. So there."

Even that amused him. He should have made her something special, something she would have really loved, even more than the rose petals falling from the sky. He should have done a lot of things.

"Brother?"

"…Yeah?"

"Sorry, I know you're sleeping but… I hope you do well tomorrow. I love you big brother."

She couldn't have loved him; she was just a child saying what she thought she was supposed to say. But none of that mattered anymore, because she wasn't a child, was she? She was an experiment strewn across the pavement. She was gone like stars in a stormy sky. Gone like the quiet of the night, suppressed now by the sounds of angry thunder. She was gone.

And at that, he finally started to cry. She hadn't deserved this.

…He was glad for the rain which masked his tears falling on the ground.

END

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