Prompt: Bear or Bare
Word Count: 1000
Rating: Teen?
Series: Any and All I suppose
Characters: Alphonse, Trisha
Setting: Resembool
Disclaimer: I'm not Arakawa and I don't own FMA.
Summary: "On the day we left, we burned down the family home, and all the familiar things inside." – Al; Episode 4; 'A Forger's Love'
A/N: It's been a while, neh?
Grin and Bear It
If he could cry, he would.
He watches the fire crawl up the house in waves, cracking like gunshots against paper targets. Pieces of the roof fall off, blackened and charred, and shatter apart on the ground, sending angry sparks into the air which dissipate into nothingness. The night sky swallows the dark smoke rising from the flames, but ashes fall from it to the ground, white like snowflakes. Except these don't melt against his skin.
He doesn't have skin for them to melt against.
The inferno envelops their home like a cocoon, slithering over it and wrapping around it like a snake with its prey. Its tendrils clutch at his memories, reaching for the ones it has yet to burn, choking the life out of them in angry flames. Something in the place where his chest used to be feels heavy, like there's not enough air for his heart and his lungs to work at the same time, and one of them has to give. He doesn't know how to explain it.
Remember the time we watched the fireplace for hours when we were little, hearing the snaps of the tinder and trying to change the colours by throwing different powders into it?
That voice in the back of his mind calls to him. It's something he wants to ask brother.
This isn't the same. He replies to himself.
He imagines what part of his history it's consuming now, in all its wrath and glory. Has the soot reached the marks they used to measure their height on the kitchen doorway? Have the beds they used to jump on been taken by this violent blaze?
It is in these thoughts he realizes just what he had forgotten to retrieve before the fire was set.
"Alphonse!" Mother said worriedly. "What happened?"
Al wiped his nose of the tears that had gathered there and sniffled. "Brother and I, we were playing, and we tried to climb the tree out back because Winry said she wished she could climb trees and Edward said that's why boys were soooooooooo much better than girls because we already knew how but I don't know how so I tried to go after him but I lost my grip and fell on the ground and brother yelled at Winry asking her why she dared us up there in the first place and she said she didn't and if he only drank his milk he would probably be tall enough to help me up anyway and- and-"
He was crying too hard to continue, but Mother understood what had happened. And so she hugged him as only she could, kissed the scrapes on his knees to make him better, and carried him inside. After a washing and bandaging of the wounds, feeding his sore body with hot delicious food, (and reprimanding his brother,) he readied for bed. After a story he asked her: "Mother, why don't you cry?"
"…What?" she asked back, not sure what he meant.
"When you cut yourself, like a couple weeks ago with the kitchen knife, when you were making soup. You don't cry when you get cut."
She smiled at him, ruffling his hair. "I don't know, Alphonse. I guess I try not to think about it hurting and rather about fixing it. Then I just… grin and bear it."
"Grin and… bear it?" he repeated.
"Yes, it's like smiling through the pain to get to the happiness on the other side. Sometimes we have to do it."
"So… when do the bears come to help?"
Mother giggled and shook her head. "Get some sleep, Alphonse. You'll feel better in the morning."
Months later, Mother was sleeping herself, even when she didn't want to. She shook violently, coughing up blood, and lost all the battles against her fever as it pulled her under. He and Edward tended to her as best they could, and even Granny Pinako tried the remedies they'd never heard of. One day, the idea took over Al like a cold wind, and he rushed into the other room. He found chalk and drew the circle on the ground, as brother had when he made that bird out of the wooden floor, and out it came – a small wooden bear, to help her in her fight.
He ran back to her room, as Pinako wiped his Mother's head with a damp towel to rid it of the sweat that had beaded there. "Alphonse, your mother needs to rest, and you can't be in here with your mask on," she started. "I brought something to help her!" he said, handing her the trophy mixed from his work and her love.
She could barely grasp the tiny statue, and rolled it over in her hands. "To bear it, Mother. For the happy on the other side. I understand, now."
Mother looked at him the same way she looked when he asked her when Father was coming home, like her eyes saw some distant place behind him he couldn't. "Oh Alphonse. It's perfect." she said, with all the voice she could muster. A tear rolled down her cheek, as she gave him the last smile he would ever see. "Go be with your brother, Alphonse." Pinako said. And he did.
The next morning was cloudy because the night had taken his sunshine away.
The memory hurts too much for him to speak, so Edward does it for him. "There's no turning back for us, now." He says.
It hurts too much for him to weep, so Winry does it for him. "What are you crying for?" brother asks, not knowing that Al is in exactly the same state. He wonders where that bear is now, if he could run in and rescue it, letting Winry's tears drown out whatever flames have touched it. But he doesn't do that.
Instead, he watches the fire crawl up the house in waves, cracking like gunshots against paper targets.
If he could cry, he would.
end
A/N: So I guess technically it wouldn't be the first series since their mother died holding their hands in that one. Nyeh, details schmeetails. I don't like thinking of it that way, anyhow.
This won 2nd place in fma_fic_contest at livejournal. It's an awesome community which inspires all of the chapters in this story of mine. Please visit and participate if you'd like to read some excellent fma fan fiction!