After we fled, under cover of darkness we stowed away on a passing train. Little did we care how far away it would take us or where. I didn't feel the least bit sorry to depart its smoldering corpse. Let it burn to ash to be carried off by the wind.

I cradled Ed in the dark of the train car as he slipped in and out of consciousness. He had lost a lot of blood and I was still trying to staunch the flow from the wound just below his ribs.

"Hang on, Brother," I whispered, smoothing back his fringe and planting small kisses to his temple.

I would have gladly exchanged my soul for his restored health.

In the distance, the landscape was dotted with specks of light. It seemed we would be heading through a village in time with the sunrise.

The rest of the journey was a blur. Weak and wounded, we wandered the streets of the village in search of a doctor. I implored each passerby, please, a doctor, we need a doctor.

Just as I nearly collapsed under Ed's weight, a man came walking down the middle of the street.

But that was the last thing I could remember.

~ ~ ~

I awoke on a cot in a small, square room with wooden walls. I dropped my cheek to the pillow and saw Ed in an identical cot next to mine.

I pulled the blanket off, left my bed and climbed onto Ed's.

He was breathing evenly and deep. He had a bandage on the top of his cheek, and a few scattered, undressed cuts across the rest of his face. His hand, which lay still at his side, was wrapped in a ribbon of ivory cloth. A small circle of blood had seeped through to the surface.

"He'll be alright," spoke a warm, baritone voice from the doorway. "You boys must have been through Hell."

I didn't want to tear my eyes away from Ed, but it would have been rude of me not to acknowledge the man who had saved his life.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

He grumbled, as if to express that it was no big deal to pluck two young strangers off the street, one close to death, and take them in no questions asked.

Ed recovered slowly, but the day came when he finally opened his eyes. I had been sitting at the edge of his bed, as I had done nearly all day, every day since Doctor Marcoh rescued us, when I heard his gravelley voice behind me.

"Al?" he rasped.

I whipped my head around. "Brother!"

I wanted to say how glad I was that he was okay, to thank him for protecting me from Dante, to tell him I had never been more scared in my life than when I thought he might succumb to his injuries. But all that came out were tears.

I rested my head against his chest and wept. He wrapped his arm around me and rubbed my back.

"It's okay, I'm alright," he said softly and rested his cheek on the top of my head.

After he was able to soothe me, Ed explained how he had escaped Dante and the attic. He told me he was certain he hadn't killed her, but she had disappeared amidst the explosion, which was almost entirely accidental.

Through inexperience, misguided intention and pure rage was he able to produce such a serendipitous distraction.

And though Dante was unable to kill him, as was her intent, she did injure him severely. His arm was broken, tibia fractured, ribs splintered, and there was a large gash to his side where she had attempted to run him through with a transmuted blade.

The doctor attended him round the clock, applying healing salve to his lacerations, redressing his bandages and setting his broken bones in thick white casts.

I contributed by cooking for the three of us. While Doctor Marcoh was the consummate professional where medical care was concerned, he was much less adept in the kitchen. I was happy to earn our keep this way, and it was always a welcome distraction from the intrusive memories of the trauma we endured.

The next few weeks had Ed busy with physical recuperation. His stubborn head assured him he would be perfectly mobile days after our escape, but his body told a different story. The doctor, though by disposition a quiet man, was constantly yelling at Ed to return to his bed to heal properly.

The three of us often ate our dinner at Ed's bedside. We learned much about the doctor and his life at these gatherings. Employed by the Amestrian military, he was a research scientist in Central before retiring into the far less stressful career of town physician.

We regaled him with our tragic history. He offered empathy, but was also too aware of what humans were capable of when their grandiose aspirations got the better of them. He witnessed it firsthand.

The laboratories in Central, he told us, were designated facilities in which to create a Philosopher's Stone.

We had come upon this term in our alchemical texts. Legend had it that anyone in possession of the stone was able to best the spectre of Death himself, for it had the power to make humans immortal.

One evening, as Ed and I ate dinner alone while the doctor was away on a house call, I thought back to his tale.

"You don't think Dante has a Philosopher's stone, do you?" I asked before the fork reached my lips.

"It's a fairytale, Al," Ed scoffed, and kept chewing the piece of meat in his mouth.

"But what if it's not? She said she's been alive a long time, and she took over Lyra's body. How else could she do those things if not with a Philosopher's Stone?"

Certainly it could simply be alchemical lore, an exciting story to tell children at bedtime, perhaps a cautionary tale about the greed of man, but wasn't there a chance it could actually exist?

"Say it is real," Ed began, "then what? You want to go fight her for it? I don't know about you, but I could go without seeing her again for the rest of my life."

Of course I didn't! She nearly killed Ed, and she might have succeeded had it not been for sheer dumb luck.

But she had mentioned plans. Plans with our father. Besides immortality, what else could one do with a Philosopher's Stone? In Dante's case, it surely wasn't anything benevolent.

I stacked our empty plates and took them to the kitchen. I washed and dried the dishes, and quickly tidied up the rest of the kitchen before returning to our room.

I perched on Ed's bed beside him and grabbed the brush from the small bedside table.

"Your hair gets so knotted," I laughed, and brushed through his long, blonde hair from end to root.

When I was finished sweeping his long fringe through the bristles, he reached with his good arm and grabbed my wrist gently. I set the brush down.

"Thanks, Al," he said softly, his eyes cast down. "I don't know if I would've made it out of that house if you weren't waiting for me."

I smiled softly. "You're strong, Brother. And I know you don't have faith, but I do, in you."

He lifted his eyes to mine. He leaned over and placed a whisper of a kiss to my lips.

In our time here, I had browsed enough of the doctor's biology books to know that Ed, now a man at eighteen, had been experiencing certain urges with hormones coursing through his body.

But knowledge of biology said nothing for the ignorance of physical love.

I knew nothing of touch, but every time Ed kissed me I felt a heat, a flutter deep inside me.

I almost forgot about his injuries when I pressed my lips harder against his, my fist balled up in his blanket. Quickly I pulled away. "I'm sorry!" I stammered, examining his face for any show of pain.

"I'm fine," he said with not a trace of a grimace but a smile. "I'm strong, remember?"

I had every intention on sleeping in my own bed that night, not wanting to accidentally exacerbate his injuries in my sleep, but Ed was insistent I stay.

His heartbeart was my lullaby.