The Cycle of Pain and Hope

By Teenangel

Summary: a different ending to FMA, reaching from Alphonse getting his body back, to far into the future. Not what you expect at all! Blood, violence. Future fic. edxwinry alxelysia spoilers.

Author's note: some things may not be accurate to the anime, bear with me. And I swear this story has a happy ending!

Disclaimer: Got bored the day after finals, college student, so broke, wouldn't even bother.

1967—Central, Basement of "abandoned" building

General Allison Elric ripped her jacket off and changed her arm bands into blades, charging through a maze of stone hallways. Trails of dried black and wet crimson blood on the walls whizzed by her. Alchemy circles drawn in black, white, red on the ceilings and floors.

She'd told him never never to go off on a mission alone, no matter what the circumstance. Michael, the fool. They'd been gathering information on a rogue alchemist for weeks. Several grotesque and dying chimeras had been captured roaming the streets of Central—the most recent being partly human. It infuriated him; he put all his energy in the case. A couple days ago he'd made a break through, a probable location, but Ali was in Lior and insisted he wait for her to return.

Bloody fool, just because he got a promotion to Colonel didn't mean he could ignore orders.

The hallway suddenly opened up to a candle lit room full of books, papers, and cages with glowing eyes; Ali tripped to a halt. She instinctively went to put her blades at the ready, but stopped. The scene before her filled her golden eyes, but her mind rejected it. Slowly it seeped in; she couldn't breath, she couldn't think, she wished she couldn't see.

A giant complex circle was drawn on the concrete floor—in shiny red. She was standing on it; the toe of her boot moved and smeared it. A body lay in the center, an old bald man, eyes bulging, riddled with bleeding holes, lost in the drenched red gore of his once white shirt. The candles simmered and the room felt like it was shaking. She caught a glint in her periphery vision and picked up a pair of small shattered spectacles.

The form of her cousin finally seeped from her eyes to her mind. Propped against a bookshelf, dried brown lines going down his head and neck. She walked across the circle, leaving a trail of wet red footprints. Her fingers touched his face and shot away when his eyes opened.

"Oh god, Mike."

One of his eyes was completely black, half his hair was a mirky green, and snake scales dotted the right side of his face. It all slowly came to her, the pieces put together. She was tempted to turn to the body of the rogue alchemist and add insult to injury by tearing his lifeless body into shreds.

"Hurt, everywhere, nowhere, inside," he rasped with a forked tongue.

"It's okay." she caressed his smooth cheek, " I can take the pain away."

"I'm sorry," he said, "Tell them, sorry, love them."

"I will." she held him close, wrapping her arms around him. She balled her fists against his back, feeling the pulsating tense pain in his muscles, then she shoved both blades into his body, into a lung into his heart. Hot, slick wetness poured over her hands. His muscles relaxed.

XXXXXXXX

Resembool

Al was half-destroyed by the death of his son. He did not reach out to his wife or his daughters for support, but he came to her to pull him out of his dark hole. Allison should've suspected it. She remembered the bond between her father and her uncle, it was only fitting that Al would latch onto her, purposely mistake her for his brother.

The funeral was small, Al couldn't bring himself to attend it.

Allison kneeled in front of Michael's grave after everyone had dispersed. He'd been promoted to Brigadier General posthumously like his grandfather. Ali scowled, recalling how her father told her that 'life is a viscous cycle, repeating itself'. She didn't want to believe it.

She clapped and put her hands on the ground, but the focus wasn't there. A couple weak flowers sprouted up. Gentle hands came down and rubbed her shoulders. Whirling around she grabbed fiercely onto her husband and sobbed, drenching his shirt in hot salty sorrow, pain, anger. He held her close, but timidly, unsure and unused to this show of emotion from her.

She clung to him, to his scent of musty paper, glue, and leather, the scent of a librarian. Michael had introduced her to him; his annoying plot to get her married. She couldn't imagine back then that she'd fall for a quiet, kind hearted, yet strict librarian. But now it made sense; he reminded her of Al. This was an Al to her Ed-ness.

Facing the tombstone, she sniffed away the sadness and was composed again. He sat down next to her, big blue sympathetic eyes.

"He lost his life, his son lost a father, his father lost a son. Life is so cruel." She said and wiped away a tear-to-be from her eye, "Life comes and it goes. It's—it's, I don't have a word for the irony."

He quirked an eyebrow, "There is something else?"

She sigh and dropped the ball, "I'm pregnant. I know we weren't planning on it, but maybe it's a type of balance…but, nothing can replace Mike."

"No," he squeezed her hand. He was looking at her with that uncertain look, begging her to tell him what kind of reaction she was looking for, what kind of reaction she could deal with. She couldn't explain to him the feelings cursing and melting in her. How she felt about taking life when life was just beginning inside her—although she had not known at the time.

Yet, if Michael had never gotten them together this child in her would never have existed. Mike had left his mark on the world, the only thing now was to have hope for the future.

Her husband silently watched her barred from her thoughts, but he knew there were things she protected him from, things he accepted as closed doors without question. "Can we name the baby Michael or Michelle," he blurted.

She blinked and then let a grin escape, "Yes, good names."