A/N: Wow it's been over four years since I posted the first part. This fic was pretty much abandoned, but wecanflyawaytoGallifrey's review (sorry, had to take the full stops out – site thought it was a link ugh) gave me the incentive to finish it. Thanks a lot!

It's been so long that I don't actually remember what I had in mind originally for this chapter, but I went ahead nonetheless and wrote something that I thought would be fitting.

Chapter Two: Renewal

"Brother. Hey. Brother, whatcha doing?"

Shuffle. Sniff.

"Did you break another toy? We can fix it, you know. Like you fixed my teddy."

Sniff. Cough.

"Bro-ther." Bounce, bounce. "Bro-ther!" Creak. "Did you hurt yourself? Where does it hurt?"

Sniff. A big sniff. "Go away."

Thud, thud, thud.

Creak.

"Mmph – oi!"

"There. All better?"

Sniff. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. "Mm."

"Goodnight, Brother."

"Mm."

Edward screamed. It was the raw, hoarse sound of agony stripped bare, so feeble that Winry only knew it was a scream because she'd been sitting at his bedside for the past few hours, listening to his intermittent cries as they tore at his throat and grew progressively weaker. His voice was nothing but a raspy squeak now, his face pale and splotchy with fever. Every breath that rattled past his lips sounded excruciating, as though he was choking on his own nightmares.

"Ed." She reached out, and then drew her hand back, biting her lip. She was afraid to touch him. Afraid that if she did, he would break apart like delicate porcelain.

How had it come to this? Gone was the laughing boy who chased her along the riverbank, who had declared in a loud, imperious voice that he wanted to marry her and tried to wrestle his brother to the ground to prove it. Gone was the serious-eyed boy who had quietly sat by her when her parents died and squeezed her hand like he was determined to fill the void they left in her life. All that remained was a damaged, quaking mess driven half-mad by endless torment.

He always thought he could take on the whole world all by himself. He always shovelled food into his mouth as if every meal was his last, and didn't realise he had taken too large a bite until he choked and spat it out and got yelled at by Pinako for dirtying her house.

She should have known. She should have thought about what it was like for him, living in a house that was suddenly too big for two little boys, with the bitter memory of his father slamming the door in his face and the cold loneliness of losing the shining centre of his universe he had thought would always be there. Winry had Granny, at least. Edward and Alphonse only had each other. Maybe that wasn't enough. Maybe she hadn't done enough.

She dipped a cloth in the bowl of water on the floor, wrung it out and sponged his sweaty forehead as gently as she could, brushing aside his damp, tangled hair. Edward made a weak noise of protest and tossed his head restlessly on the pillow.

"Ed, don't move. Please." It wasn't as though he could hear her, but she couldn't help it. "It'll start bleeding again."

His body lurched with a harsh intake of breath, and he flicked his tongue over his cracked lips and tried to shout again, emitting nothing more than a thin croaking sound. "I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry . . . no, stop – stop – don't – I can't – I can't –" He took several painful, squealing breaths. "Help . . . please . . . help . . ." His voice trailed off, and then out of nowhere he was shrieking and sobbing and twisting the blankets convulsively in his fist.

"Don't. Don't do that." Winry loosened his fingers and took his clammy hand in her own like he had done with hers. Tears were springing to her eyes. "Shh. You're here now, dummy. Nothing's going to happen to you. Shh."

His hold tightened and his face relaxed, and he went quiet. His laboured breathing eased. Winry winced as his fingers dug into hers, and couldn't help wondering if he could still beat the boys in town in an arm-wrestling contest while unconscious and delirious and missing an arm and a leg.

She smiled a little, but the tears dripped silently onto the sheets, a smattering of grey spots on the white.

Crunch. Crunch. Twitter.

"Uh-oh."

"Where are we?"

"Gimme a second."

"You don't know, do you?"

"I – I do! I . . . will."

"You still don't know, do you?"

"Well, do you?"

"No." Gulp. "What are we gonna do?"

"We'll . . . find a way back."

"How?"

"We just will!"

Crunch. "Okay."

The lane was completely deserted at night. It stretched over the hill, lonely and bare in the moonlight. The clanking of Alphonse's armour seemed to surround and close in on him from every side as he walked, and he cringed inwardly with each step. The noise was deafening in the silence. He felt hundreds of miles away from civilisation, as though it wasn't merely a field or two that separated him from the Rockbell house.

He didn't have muscles that could tire. He didn't have a stomach that could rumble, or a mouth that could dry up and tell his brain that he was thirsty. He simply existed as something that shouldn't exist, something that went against the natural order, something strange and wrong. He walked without stopping, picking up his pace, trying to induce fatigue in himself even though he knew he could go on like this forever, a virtually invincible hunk of cold metal that protected his mortal soul from hunger and pain and exhaustion. From crying and feeling and being truly human.

He walked on, his steel feet dislodging little rocks in the dirt but numb to the discomfort they would normally cause. He passed the graveyard and put his head down, running until the black silhouettes of the headstones were out of sight and crashing to his knees by the roadside. Gasping as if he was out of breath, but of course he wasn't. Panic swelled within him, and the night spun wildly, tipping this way and that.

Don't think about her. Don't think about her.

He sat there with his head in his hands, trembling, until the world righted itself. He was being selfish, he knew. His mother had been one of the sweetest, kindest people he had ever known, and this was how he expressed his gratitude to her. It was shameful.

Edward was probably sleeping now, caught in a long, hellish barrage of nightmares and pain. Alphonse owed it to his brother to stay by his side, to be there for him after what Edward had sacrificed for his sake, but all he had done was run away. Even though there was nowhere to run.

No matter how hard he dug his fingers into the ground, he still felt absolutely nothing. It ought to be cold, it ought to be damp, but instead it was just there, a solid barrier preventing him from falling down, down, down, deep below the surface of the Earth. When he had cradled Edward's limp, broken body in his arms, he had been seized by a terror the likes of which he'd never imagined was possible for one person to experience. He couldn't tell if his brother's skin was still warm, or if the blood had drained out of him forever, the only indication that he wasn't dead being the shaky, choked breaths he fought for every once in a while. Alphonse had wrapped his arms around him, wanting so much to feel the familiar softness of his hair and the texture of his clothes, any sign that things were still the same as they had ever been – any sign that they were both going to be okay.

But he didn't know if they were ever going to be okay again.

"I want to sleep," he whispered. "I want to forget about everything. Please . . . just let me sleep. Please."

He didn't know who he was asking. There wasn't a benign god he could turn to. He was alone, alone in the prison of his cursed body, far away from warmth and reassurance, incapable of even feeling the solid ground beneath him to steady himself.

"Al! Al!"

"What is it, Brother?"

"Gimme your teddy bear. I think I can make it as good as new."

"But you already fixed it. It's fine."

"Just give it!"

"Okay, okay."

Scrape, scrape, scrape. Flash!

"Wow! You really did it."

"Told you so. I've practised a lot."

"Thanks, Brother. Now I have to get as good as you. We're gonna keep practising, aren't we?"

"You bet. We'll practise more than anyone, and one day we'll be the best!"

The front door opened with a click. Alphonse turned to see Edward standing on the porch, leaning heavily on a crutch gripped under his left arm. He started forward in alarm.

"Brother, you should stay inside!"

"I've had enough of inside," said Edward, tentatively inching towards the steps, the new automail leg he'd been fitted with dragging behind him. Noting the way he was eyeing the steps, with the stubborn determination nothing could beat out of him, Alphonse hurried towards him.

"Brother, no, you'll trip and fall on your face –"

"I won't," said Edward calmly. "You'll catch me before that happens, won't you?"

Alphonse gave an exasperated sigh. "I might not, you know."

"That makes you a terrible brother." Edward's eyes were fixed on the first step. "I have to do this. Don't try to help me. Soon I'm going to be able to walk properly again."

"But you only have one working arm at the moment –"

"I don't care."

He balanced the crutch on the step and hopped down clumsily with a grunt. Alphonse stood on the grass below, shaking his head at him. Edward went for the next step, wobbled and fell forward, crashing ungracefully into Alphonse's arms.

"Ow – ow – ow."

Alphonse set him upright, shoving the crutch under him none too gently. "What did I tell you?"

Edward made a sound somewhere between a laugh and groan of pain. "You have no idea," he huffed. "You have no idea how much these things hurt, dammit." His arm was tense and shaking, glossed with a sheen of sweat.

"Brother . . ." Alphonse laid a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Let's go back inside."

"No." Edward's face was screwed up in a grimace, but his eyes burned with a fierce, unquenchable light. "I'm going to walk to Mum's grave."

"No you are not."

"Yes I am."

Alphonse knew it was pointless to try to dissuade him when he got like this. "At least get Granny to disconnect the automail."

"Reattaching it later would hurt even more. Besides, I've got to get used to it." Bewildered desperation flickered in his face for a moment. "I said I'd do it in a year, but it weighs a goddamn tonne and I have no idea how to control it and when I try to even lift a finger it's like someone slicing my shoulder open with red-hot knives –"

"Brother –"

"Sorry." Edward squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. When he opened them again the uncertainty was gone and the steadfast resolve had returned in full measure. "You coming?"

There was only one answer Alphonse could give him. "Do you think I'd let you fall into the river and kill yourself?"

It was a slow and painful walk, but Edward gritted his teeth and rode out the pain until they stood before their mother's headstone, and the sun sank in exhaustion against a russet sky. Edward was flushed and panting, sweat running down his face, but his eyes shone bright and triumphant.

And although Alphonse scolded him, there was pride and hope in his voice, and in the fist that bumped his brother lightly on the arm.

Trisha needn't have worried. They'd strayed and stumbled and cut themselves a hundred times over on a bed of thorns, but they were okay. Battered and scarred, but okay.

Thanks for reading!