"The truth is incontrovertible.

Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it,

but in the end, there it is."

-Winston Churchill

"Hey Al?" I asked suddenly, turning to my brunette, grey eyed younger brother. He perked up, blinking those impossibly large eyes.

"What is it?" He asked in his distinctly child's voice that had a rasp to it that indicated what it would turn into when he got older.

"Well…" I bit my, looking down at the old and dusty book in my lap. I smoothed my hand over the cover, bits of the leather crackling under my fingertips. I moved my hand along the spine, feeling the delicate ridges that might've had golden or silver paint on them at one point. A lot of the books in our house were like that. Old and dusty, but the stained pages and dog eared pages meant they were well loved. I guess they went along with our house so well because they were symbols of each other. Mirrors really; like the same design on two different coins. Alike, but still different.

"Well what?" Alphonse questioned, snapping me out my thoughts. I looked up at him, seeing his pudgy cheek planted firmly in his hand.

"W-Well…" I stammered and looked back down at the book in my lap. "I was curious about what would happen if…I-If one of us was ever selected to be…Tribute…" I mumbled the last part, but judging by his wide eyes when I glanced up at him, he'd heard me perfectly clear. His eyes quickly narrowed and his little pink tongue darted out of his mouth to wet his lips.

"You shouldn't talk like that Ed…" He said in an admonishing tone as he shut the book with a soft THUMP. I frowned, my eyebrows scrunching together.

"I'm almost old enough to start participating in the drawings, so I'm gonna think about, Al…" I explained to him, my eyes darting between him and the book in my lap. The leather was such a pretty colour…there was just something about it that I liked…That along with vanilla and almond soap Alphonse always insisted on using. I guess in a way…it reminded him of Mom. She always seemed to smell like some strange combination of apples, vanilla and almond.

I heard him sigh softly and I looked up at my younger brother. His head was turned to the side, trying to hide his face with his short, almost blonde-ish brunette bangs, but he was doing a poor job of it. I almost wished he could actually hide so I wouldn't be able to see the pained expression that covered his face and the sadness in his deep, grey pools.

"I-I don't wanna hear you talking about, or thinking about, stuff like that…you won't be chosen, so…yeah…" He said quietly, his eyes dropping halfway, darkening his grey pools to the colour of stormy clouds. "It scares me to hear you talk about stuff like that…It makes me feel like… " I saw his throat bob like he was swallowing. "It makes me feel like it's gonna actually happen I'm gonna lose you…" He whispered, his eyelids drooping till they covered his irises. I blinked a few times, surprised by his sudden and emotional confession. Although, I felt a small, sad smile tug at the corners of my lips. Leave it Alphonse to think about something like that…but I could never blame the kid…

"I'm not gonna be going anywhere, Al…I-I promised you. I won't leave you here all alone." I said quietly, looking at my little. I had every intention of keeping my promise, but something in the back my mind said that it was promise I wouldn't be able to keep…

8 years

5 months

25 days

It was late, but, for a reason I knew quite well, a lot of the time I couldn't sleep. I knew it stemmed back from all the time I spent in the Capitol…

2 years

7 months

31 days

4 hours

I quickly brushed the thought away with a soft exhale that clouded in front of my lips. Even after all these years of being away from that white room and Al cradled in my arms again, the thought of the place still brought back a flood of emotions and a deep, blackened abyss. The soft sound of groan deep in the throat rescued me from my thoughts and drew me back into the light of reality.

"You know…" I smiled softly, hearing his soft and sleepy rasp whisper. I knew he had been awake for awhile, but I had figured he'd slip back into his waking dreams before too long. "You never did keep your promise…" His voice had a sort of sadness that was…weird and didn't belong in our bed. I sighed softly again, searching through the darkness to find his growing mass of off blonde hair. I felt him shift, his legs tangling further with mine as he laid his head on my chest, his bangs tickling little. "You're growing chest hair…" He mumbled, his voice full of a tone I knew all too well…

"I'm sorry..?" I mumbled with a rumble of a chuckle deep in my chest. He huffed a little and I just bit my lip to stop a grin.

"Whatever…you need to shave it or something…I don't like it. It tickles." He mumbled and I bit back a retort about his hair tickling my chest.

"Alright…I'll shave it off." I replied and I felt his breath ghost over my skin in a happy sigh. A comfortable silence settled over us and it lasted so long that I thought he'd fallen asleep…Alphonse had always been a silent, and heavy sleeper.

"You never did keep your promise you made to me years ago…" He repeated, surprising me a little.

"…" I sighed heavily and tilted my head away from him. "You should've known I could never keep a promise like that, Al…" I admonished him, reaching up to run my fingers through his soft and vanilla scented hair. I felt him sigh against my skin again.

"Still…" He told me and I frowned, opening my mouth to object. "I was young…we were both young…I would believe anything at a time like that, especially if you told me…" He said quietly, a certain tone in his voice that sounded like he was blaming me.

"I know…" I said quietly back to him, my eyes dropping halfway. "Those were the days that we'd go home and cry about Mom then, the next morning, we'd sing and play happily with Winry…we were contradictions and hypocrites in the form of children…all the damn time." I felt Alphonse tense up before he suddenly sat up, sending the blankets flying.

"Then why couldn't we, why couldn't you have kept your promise?! If we were so damn contradicting like you said, then why didn't we learn better so you could keep your promise?!" He demanded to know, his grey eyes shining in the faint light of the grey night. I sighed softly, looking down his bare body as my eyes traveled to the sheets.

"Like I said Al, we were young, just children. We never learned because we were young. We went around making promises we knew we couldn't keep. Even when I made a promise like that, I knew I couldn't keep it…" I said quietly, looking up at his bang hidden face. He sniffled a little before collapsing on top of me, his body tangling with mine.

"I-I just missed you so much, Ed…" He murmured, burying his face in my bare chest. "T-Those years were horrible; I hated being here all alone…" He sniffled again and I wrapped my arms around him, running circles up and down over the valleys and mountains of his smooth back.

"I missed you too, Al." I told him quietly. I knew he had somewhat of a grasp on what had all happened to me and the depth of the pain—emotional and physical—but there were just come parts of it I knew he couldn't understand. I guess it was made equal in the fact that I didn't understand his pain—the pain of me leaving him all alone. It was equal…but no where near whole or full. No way were we true parts of the same whole. We were incomplete in and of each other; a contradiction—pretending to understand when we really didn't. We were cracked gold and silver mirrors that reflected children in their distorted depths.

And we certainly would never learn.