"He's going into respiratory arrest!", a nurse yelled as the young blonde's breathing stopped, his heart pumping blood in a futile effort to deliver oxygen to the boy's cells. But the oxygen wasn't there to be given, the boy's lungs had stopped functioning and were now just the same as balloons, empty and shriveled.

Alphonse felt like he was in a fog, his whole body felt heavy and the darkness was sinking in around him, he couldn't breathe and he didn't know if it was because his lungs had decided that he wasn't worth their efforts or if he was mentally choking off whatever chance of living that he had. Either way it was the same so he supposed it didn't matter; his body was screaming, his lungs hurt, he could feel himself dying and surprisingly he couldn't find it in him to fight it.

Am I giving up…?

The mask came over him like some misguided angel of mercy, keeping him alive for some reason that was unfathomable to him. He wanted to stop it, he wanted to push it away, but he just didn't have it in him. He was sorry, so sorry; he wanted to apologize, to tell Edward everything, not in the way that he had last night, but alone, privately, where he could reach and hold him permitting that the elder didn't hate him after what he had done.

Please no…, he thought with desperation, please don't hate me…

Tears burned into his eyes and Alphonse felt himself being pulled back to the land of the living as the nurses and doctors worked their magic, just like the sewing life alchemist had, though his talents hadn't been wasted on forcing a dying shell to continue it's existence. The urge to cough came back to him as the oxygen mask did it's job, he breathed in with it's assistance, then tore it from his face and started coughing, phlegm and blood erupting to the floor. Then the coughing subsided, though the restriction and need were still there; he returned the mask to his face.

The hospital personnel fritted around him, their masked faces seeming impersonal to him as he was moved to lay back onto the bed, the machine helping him breathe. They situated him, made him as comfortable as he supposed he could be in the state he was in and assured to his muffled ears that he was going to be alright for the time being and that there would be others to come check on him through the rest of the night.

"Would you just leave?", he hadn't meant to ask the question, and it was just that a question, not an argument, not an order; it had been meant to stay in his mind, but it had escaped through his lips.. The doctor looked a little taken aback but slowly nodded and gave a quick order to the team around him that Al was to be checked up on every half hour by someone and his condition, constantly documented; then he ushered them out and Alphonse laid back and stared at the ceiling, halfway seeing it, halfway not.

He wanted Edward, needed Edward, needed to resolve this before his life ended, and with that final thought, he drifted into a half sleep, letting his oxygen mask breathe for him, not having the strength to do it himself.

**

Edward stood outside the hospital room looking at the door silently, it had been a month, one month since that night that he had caught Alphonse and Roy; two weeks since he and the others had pooled their money and paid the hospital for the use of streptomycin, it had taken a call to everyone that Edward knew, everyone whom they knew and then more, but they had come up with the money.

He wasn't mad at Al, he couldn't be, it was impossible for him he supposed, but he was having a damn hard time touching the doorknob. According to the doctors the boy was still relatively weak, and would be for the rest of his life thanks to the extensive damage that his lungs had sustained and were now healing from.

Stop being a damn coward!

Reaching for the doorknob, he stopped before he touched it again and drew his hand back; it had been continuing like this since he'd gotten there nearly an hour before, he just couldn't find it in him to go in. Not when he was so sure that the Al he was going to see was one so little like the brother he knew. The tired, crippled figure that had been beneath Roy the last time he had seen him, that was not his brother; that was not his Alphonse, it was just a shell, a disease wracked shell that had somehow taken the form of his beloved little brother.

He reached for the doorknob again, wrapping his fingers around it and holding onto it. Gods above why was it so damn difficult? Was he afraid of what he would find? Shaking his head, he took a deep breath and turned the device in his hand, pushing against the wood of the door; it opened.

There he was, sitting in his hospital bed, looking better than when the elder had last seen him but still not quite himself. The oxygen mask that he had been told they'd had to use before had been removed, Al was getting better it seemed and now could breathe on his own. He didn't seem to notice as Ed walked in, maybe he assumed it was another doctor who'd come to check up on him.

"I finally come to see you and you're too stubborn to look at me? How rude", it was a gentle joke, one he knew would not bruise the younger male too eagerly. Alphonse jumped at the sound of his voice and turned to look at him, the look on his face a cautious wondering, probably thinking that the elder was still angry with him. No, he wasn't angry anymore, he had long since been angry. True he had been so when he'd first found his brother and his lover, but having your loved one so very close to dying had a way of putting things into an interesting perspective.

"This room really is boring", he said with a smile, "I don't know how you have survived here, just the boredom would have killed me already" The sickling cracked a smile, realizing that his brother was teasing him.

"It doesn't really matter when all the free time that you have is spent sleeping and being prodded by doctors", he replied lightly before looking away. "Edward about- about before I-"

"It doesn't really matter", the elder said softly, using the younger's words against him, "what happened, happened, I suppose we should move on, after all, dwelling on the wrongs of the doesn't bring much except pain." Al said nothing and Ed reached to hold his cheek in his palm, "You could have come to me; you should have come to me…", leaning he kissed the younger male's forehead, "but as I said, it doesn't really matter…what's done is done, we can't change it and we wont try, we will move on…"

**

Alphonse almost couldn't believe what Edward was saying, but found himself not daring to renounce this encounter as a dream either. It very well could have been a dream, but he didn't want to find it to be one just yet. Wrapping his arms around the elder, he held on for dear life, there was nothing he could say. Perhaps it was best that way, perhaps there was nothing to say or do except to accept what the object of his affection was telling him. Still he held onto him, wanting to say something but remaining silent.

I love you…

**

Roy-standing in the doorway-watched the scene with a feeling something between detached curiosity and empathetic happiness; normally he wouldn't have taken such initiative into the scene before him, but it was a different matter with this one. There was nothing really to be said about it, Edward had been struggling with his feelings for a month now, it was no surprise how the scene was playing out. The golden haired male didn't want to bury the experience, but there was no doubt that he didn't want a repeat; from the tongue lashing that the dark haired man had gotten- oh there was no doubt at all.

But perhaps it was better that way, perhaps that was what was needed to keep them all happy. Though he had never been a monogamist, it was a little difficult to fully understand his attachment to the two of them; he loved Edward, and he loved Alphonse, not necessarily in the same way, but he did. Edward loved the both of them and perhaps Alphonse did too, so maybe it really didn't matter that he didn't understand it; whoever said that you had to understand what you felt, anyway…?

Le droit coutoumier…, he thought with a grin, stepping into the room, it was the price that all men paid…when they were in love…

End.