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CHAPTER 11:

THEIR RESPECTIVE HATREDS AND HOPES

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Everything that was and wasn't, and may be and can never have been, Winry, and her self; wanted to get up from the couch and sprint after the Ed she'd grown up with and had kept close inside her heart for almost all of her life, and the Ed she'd just recently meant but had adopted just as near, even though in different ways.

However, based on everything the Ed from the other side of the Portal had said, Winry couldn't think of a single way to convince him to remain with them.

And she knew what would happen to both Eds, and the other Al as well as this one; if she attempted to follow him, with or without this Al at her side.

The best thing she could do for both Eds, now; was to ensure the Al she herself had grown up with didn't fall apart even more than he already had.

And if she didn't, Winry wasn't sure anyone else was in a condition to do so; after what both Eds had caused to happen in Reole.

No one else had promised not to cry until he, or she, was happy.

Additionally, what the other Ed had just said and done had given her her answer; as to whether or not she wanted the Ed and Al she'd known for all her life to fulfill their dreams, or remain home with her.

There shouldn't need to be a choice, between dreams and promises.

An alchemist almost certainly would have rebuked her as naïve and arrogant to believe in this as her own Truth and answer.

So; for perhaps the first time in her life; Winry was genuinely glad to have spent much more time seeing the backs of two Eds, and one Al, and damaged automail arms and legs; than their grins and smiles, and intact automail legs and arms.

Because; as the tenets of Equivalent Exchange weren't as much of a foundation of her life as they were, in one way or another; to the two Eds, and the two Als; this was why she didn't have as many problems as the four of them, and any Eds and Als who lived on any other sides of the Portal; believing in both sides of the argument that had driven this Ed and Al apart.

One where she didn't close her eyes to the rest of reality, and she was willing to give anything she could if it would enable any Ed and Al to stop knowing lives of mostly hardship, and regain their ability to live in love and joy and home and hearth, without needing to fear each day would just bring more adversity.

And one where she, and any Winry and Granny and Mustang and Hawkeye and Rose, would never need to see the backs of any Ed and Al for the rest of time and boundlessly through all the forevers that lay beyond them.

Winry understood the other Ed's point; that the Ed and Al she knew, and she herself, lived in an Amestris that hadn't been strung along by Homunculi in the ways his had; so they weren't personally in a position to understand how much people could be hurt when they were dragged into messes and, unlike the people of the Reole here, didn't want to be a part of it.

But, with everything she herself had seen; she couldn't agree that the alternative; forcing people who did want to be a part of those messes, when they did want to be a part of them, to just stand by and watch as the people they loved and wished to protect and keep by a hearth or recall to kindness, were denied the chance to stop crying and regain warmth themselves; was any better.

One way or another; whether an Ed, or Al, did, or didn't, close his eyes to the people outside of himself, and his dreams, those other people who became involved in their messes would be sacrificed.

And Winry understood enough about Equivalent Exchange to know that sacrificing others, and not yourself, was a polar opposite of the work it required people to strive through.

She could still barely wrap her mind around everything Al had told her, and she'd learned in Reole; about the Homunculi, and all the other abominable ways alchemists could practice their research.

That didn't matter at all, in the here and now, however.

She'd promised the Ed she'd known since her earliest memories she wouldn't cry unless it was from joy or laughter.

Preferably from both.

If she didn't prove a theory of her own; that there was some way people could keep their dreams clasped without giving up on their promises to others; whatever the other Ed believed, and whatever the Al she'd grown up with believed, neither of them would be continuing to believe in the Truth, and the Law of Equivalent Exchange.

There must be a compromise somewhere.

And Winry was either going to find it; or keep attempting to prove her own theory as an automail mechanic, until she herself had no legs or arms or hands or feet, flesh or automail or armor, that had delivered a baby or who was willing to shoot a serial murderer, left to walk or run or leap or drag her way forward on her face and stomach if that was what it took.

"Ed is talking about choosing between lives," Al said; an amalgamation of feelings and thoughts in his voice; among them depthless shock at what this Ed had just said and done, self hatred that he had no way to stop it from happening, terror and horror at what the other Ed might do to the one they both loved the most, and contained disapproval and challenging disagreement with the road the other Ed was walking.

"He's telling us to just let him sacrifice his own life for others; and by extension, he's saying others, the three of us, should do the same thing.

"Taken to its farthest extremes; he's even saying it's okay, under specific conditions, for the Homunculi to not even just trick natural born humans into sacrificing themselves for them, but to be honest about it and tell them upfront to do it, and if humans refuse to under those conditions, they're supposed to be the ones in the wrong."

Winry's heart, and stomach, and all the rest of her insides, all distorted; and it felt as though all the surface of her skin did the same thing.

"That's true; but from what we've seen about this Ed, he doesn't even mean it that way a little," Winry said back, a mixture of terrified worry in her voice for why Al would take the other Ed's convictions this hard, and reproof.

"Why do the similarities bother you this much?"

"It's most likely just how useless I feel," Al answered.

However; there was a brimming angry and contained self hatred in his voice Winry had never heard before, and it caused all of her outsides and insides to contort in heart removing and breath absenting terror and horror that almost cleared all sensation and concepts from her identity.

Perhaps Al was now at last willing to tell her the precise details of everything that had happened since she'd returned to Rush Valley, and how he felt about what the other Envy had done in Reole.

"I hate feeling useless."

Winry felt her eyes fly wide, and her mouth open, as drawn horror and sick terror gouged a lacuna in even a vacuum itself within her.

As angry as the Ed she'd believed that known since her first memories often became, even at the lightest flick of a feather, she couldn't recall him actually using the word hate a single time in his whole life when he'd told anyone how he felt.

Not even when he let his feelings for Hohenheim, and how Ed blamed his father for his mother's death and much of what had happened to the Al Winry had blindly deluded herself she'd known for her entire life, as well as much of all of Ed's own torment; had Ed used the word hate, even then.

After what Ed had said to her when she'd discovered what Scar had done to her parents, and she'd almost lost him and Al to Scar as well; she'd begun to wonder if he truly was willing to hate anyone other than himself, or even talk about the hatred he felt for himself, due to what he'd done to Al.

But now Al, who was usually a lot more reserved in his words and actions than Ed, had actually spoken the word hate.

Winry didn't know if Al was at last opening up to her; as Ed had when he'd discovered Hughes had been murdered, perhaps partially because he'd overheard Hughes admit, at least in part, that he'd been wrong to stereotype males as willing to express themselves with their actions as opposed to their words, after hearing Ed and Al make up their argument about whether Al's memories were real on the hospital roof.

And, if Winry had needed additional proof that Hughes was almost wholly wrong about how males; or, at least, the Ed and Al Winry had presumed to know; preferred to express themselves with actions, than with words, more often than not; what Al had just said erased any remaining doubts this Al lived by that stereotype.

But it didn't matter why Al was saying this.

For the sake of the Ed from the other corner of the Portal, Winry would wait for a time to once more bring up to this Al that she didn't like being kept out of their lives; but at this point, focusing on whether the Ed and Al she'd grown up with wanted her to be part of their lives or not would be refusing to look at the world outside herself.

Al Elric; who had two primary reasons for wanting a human body back that were how much lonely dark nights, and how much his inability to cry for others and himself, hurt him; who regularly sought to collect stray cats from the fields and forests and roads and residential alleys, as well as any other given animal if he believed the stray needed shelter; was one of the very last people Winry had believed she would one day hear the word hate from a single time.

What had happened to him, since Ed and she had promised to each other Winry wouldn't cry any longer herself, unless it was cast from laughter and joy?

And what did that mean for the other Al; the one the Ed from the duplicate Amestris knew?

Based on the similarities the Ed from the reflected Amestris had to this Ed, and not their differences; was that Al, too, actually the brother who was willing to say, and perhaps genuinely feel, the word hate?

And not just say the words, I hate you; about himself, to an enemy; but say it to someone else, perhaps even that foe?

Winry compressed her lips together tightly, sweeping all feeling and concepts aside.

Now even that promise, although she was still determined to keep it, needed to be pushed to the side.

"If the other Ed hadn't thought of a way to beat the Homunculus leader when we first met him; after he initially gained the advantage when we took him on, I was even willing to tell Scar I hated being useless," Al went on, the self hatred and anger in his words now burgeoning in further adumbrated coronas into more and more contained fury and helplessness and powerlessness and despair.

Winry did need to push away a surge of sick hatred of her own, at that name.

"Once Scar proved he was in a better position to defend himself; I most likely would have, if I'd had the chance."

This time, there was no surge of even dislike for Scar.

However, even though self hatred of her own washed away all to need to do it; for the sake of the Ed who had just thrown himself away for them, Winry forced herself to feel a small amount of anger Al wasn't telling her this because he was at last letting her into his life, but because he'd have been willing to tell anyone, even an enemy.

"The reason we were facing off against Scar in the first place was because we wanted to put ourselves in danger to lure out the Homunculi, thus capturing one and forcing him, or her, to tell us what they're researching with the Philosopher's Stone."

The anger at Al for excluding her disappeared.

New terror, however, flooded up through all of her being.

Al must have seen something in her face, though, for he said, "Not through torture.

"Our plan succeeded, thanks to Lin and Lan Fan; but the Homunculus we snared had a chip on his shoulder of his own, as Mustang murdered one of the other Homunculi recently, and she'd been closer to him than we'd anticipated. This motivated him to escape captivity and take big brother, and Lin, captive in return. They broke out on their own, but before they did, I convinced the Homunculus who had turned the tables on us to take me to see the alchemist who had transmuted them, another Homunculus who knows alchemy.

"And until big brother and Lin got out, I wasn't sure they were alive or dead."

Winry's heart clenched a little, and reality rippled.

"But the other Ed got sent through the Portal, and possessed big brother, during their escape."

Winry barely remembered not to even think about crying this time.

"The last I saw of big brother, he was being dragged into a vertical maw on the torso of the Homunculus who repaid him for becoming a prisoner in kind, and I literally thought he'd been eaten."

Winry was on her feet almost before she'd decided to move, and she strode up to Al and wrapped her arms around him, pulling herself as close as she could to him and moving her arms as much around him as she could without needing to loosen them too much, even though she knew he could solely see it, and hear it.

"I'm still going to keep my promise to our Ed, but now I wish I hadn't made it," Winry spoke.

"You need someone to cry when you can't, now, more than most times."

"And you need to not cry, now, more than most times," Al responded, and while his voice was comforting and soothing, there was far more despair and self hatred in it now.

Al didn't embrace her back, or even grasp her shoulder or stroke her hair; and Winry knew better than to believe that was just because he didn't want to risk hurting her when she didn't need a hug, or other physical comfort, that much in a lot of the ways that mattered.

But she couldn't make her own hold any more soothing, or close, or protective, or tight; due to the size of Al's armor.

And, even if she had been able to; Al very likely couldn't have seen the difference, or heard it, that adroitly.

Without feeling it, it might not mean anything to him at all.

"I had my misgivings; but the other Ed turned out to be as reckless as big brother, so he attempted to beat the lead Homunculus researcher. That researcher performed a transmutation that severed us from the power source we use for ours," Winry's eyes widened. That could be achieved? "So all that Ed could accomplish was to temporarily separate him from the other Homunculi by sending him to another side of the Portal himself.

"You'd been threatened by then, so we pulled back for now and warned you.

"Then the other Envy attacked us in Reole."

Al's voice rose into a keening, broken wail; small and incredibly, ruinously young.

"After Hughes died, I promised big brother I wouldn't let anyone else die; and during the fight when Mustang beat the first Homunculus, I told Hawkeye I'd protect people from now on.

"But I couldn't subdue the Homunculus myself, and Mustang was forced to defeat her by murdering her.

"And since then, I haven't been able to protect one single person.

"I attempted to buy time when we confronted Scar; but that just resulted in Ed bringing up your parents when you were nearby, and I couldn't stop him.

"I'm so, so very, very sorry."

Al continued before Winry could even open her mouth.

"I tried to arrest Scar afterwards, but a girl from Xing he's been traveling with rescued him.

"I couldn't even protect someone who I thought was a stray cat afterwards.

"She turned out to have been traveling with the girl, and by taking her from the train station where she rescued Scar, all I accomplished was to separate the two of them.

"And they didn't reunite until the girl herself had become a prisoner of the Homunculi.

"I was all but powerless when we attempted to arrest the head of the Homunculi's research team.

"Then the other Envy crippled Rose, and mass murdered most of the people in Reole."

Winry pushed away all the memories that attempted to manifest at her efforts to treat the victims of the hazardous water.

This was a very bad time to remember that.

"And this all happened because I was busy exposing Cornello the first time we visited it, so I hadn't been able to talk big brother out of transmuting that statue to humiliate Cornello after he discovered Cornello's Stone was incomplete."

Winry's heart squeezed incredibly tightly and contorted redoubled upon itself in an unmoving vise, as she lost all of her ability to even remember what purpose her lungs possessed; and reality departed and returned and came back and removed itself from her awareness repeatedly; at the knowledge of what that meant for the Ed she loved the most, and had known, by far, the longest; if he was awake inside his own body.

Or even how he'd take it once he discovered he'd been the person who had enabled Envy to murder most of the people of Reole through horrific torture at the hands of an inhumane biochemical weapon, which had also led to Rose losing all her limbs, and becoming paralyzed below the neck.

"And because I ruined Reole the first time, whether they were okay with being part of our dreams, or not."

Winry at least knew what to say to this.

Once more, though; Al still didn't give her the chance to open her mouth.

Al began to shake and tremble and shudder so violently he felt as though he'd cascade into fragments within Winry's arms; and they'd all drain away and plummet past all never forever before and anywhere singularities of salvage no matter how home and warm and near and tightly and lovingly and close and protectively and securely she held onto them; whether for Al's sake and the sake of the Ed she kept the closest and the sake of every Ed and Al, her own, or a combination of the two.

But Winry didn't loosen, or alter, her embrace at all.

"And now the other Ed has taken big brother from me, and I don't know for sure he's not aware in there and we can't protect him from everything that just happened.

"Ed's not the Homunculus who sacrifices one group of lives for the sake of one, or more, others.

"I am.

"I should at least have kept Ed from abducting big brother, and holding him prisoner to use him as a living shield in order to sacrifice the people who want us to accomplish our dreams for the people who don't, with the very power and force he disapproves of."

Winry had the time to speak now, but she was practically unable to process how she was the person talking.

She just knew on the farthest off, disjointed horizons of her perspective.

"First; do you remember how upset I was with you, and Ed, when you were fighting after you investigated Laboratory Five?

"I do want to be part of your dreams; so much that I'm upset when you don't want me to be part of them, not when you do."

Blessedly, almost clearing her legs and toes and feet and knees from existence and history and perception and sensation and memories and outlooks and dreams and trust, Al's shaking and shuddering subsided to intermittent trembling.

"And you can't fight any Ed.

"Not for real, not when it's not just a spar or a sibling squabble.

"Not even for the sake of the Ed we know.

"If you even attempted to; particularly when you'd need to hurt your brother to protect him, in order to do so, you'll become more hollow inside than any armor could make you.

"Additionally, I've seen for myself by now how adept a Homunculus from the other Ed's Amestris can be at deception and maneuvering; and from what you've told me, the Homunculi researching alchemy here are just as good at it, if not better.

"If you think like that, and the Homunculi find out how you feel; they'll seek to widen that division between us in order to exploit that as much as they can, and use it against all of us to their advantage.

"Hardships that are generated from the outside become the greatest adversities when they're amplified on the inside; because they enable the hardships from the outside to divide, and conquer.

"If we don't stand together, we very likely won't be able to stand enough to move forward at all."

A small rush of disgust cut through Winry as she realized the first thing she needed to attempt to do, to prove her own theory as an automail mechanic who mended wounds and delivered babies; someone who taught people how reality worked in concert, not how it sacrificed each other, and one another, in recurring spirals.

However; she pushed every last string and thread away from it as far as she could justify without abandoning Mom and Dad, and all they'd lived as and for and left behind and were recollected for.

That was one of the very last things the Ed and Al she knew and loved; and all of the other Eds and Als she knew or didn't know but loved as much, or almost as much, even though in different ways; needed her to do for them now.

Or even her own dreams.

And, as hard as it was to belief the feelings and thoughts she'd believed she'd perceived, or the reason Scar had fled from Ed; meant what it appeared to; if it did, the concept of seeing Scar facing anything but a trial caused her insides to warp even more acutely than they had after she'd initially realized why shooting Scar would have been wrong.

If the concept she was beginning to develop worked; Winry was no longer sure she would be able to justify even shooting Scar to disable him, if she was given the chance.

"But if I'm not willing to harness all of my strength, if there's no other way; how can big brother keep standing and move forward into dreams of love and home and tears of joy and warmth?"

Winry wanted to retch violently at how she couldn't hold Al nearer and tighter.

However, she suppressed that illness, as well.

She disengaged herself from Al, stepped back, and took his hands in both of hers.

"By not giving up," Winry responded.

Winry herself was surprised by how much set resolve and undiluted determination was present in her voice.

"You initial attempt at using this strategy failed because you didn't know your enemy, but that doesn't mean the idea itself was flawed.

"I can do the same thing.

"I don't know how much you've heard about them, but I've studied enough about the special ways automail needs to be constructed up here to know that the officers and soldiers stationed at Fort Briggs; where they defend Amestris from Drachman incursion at the Briggs Mountain Pass nearby; order the largest stock of it of any military base in the vicinity of North City.

"That tells me they're among the, if not the, most capable military forces in this region of Amestris.

"Whatever the Homunculi are up to, however sacrificing people is connected to the Philosopher's Stone; Briggs is almost certainly a part of it, and that may be where Marcoh is going, if he hasn't already arrived.

"So I'm going to think of a way to lure Scar to us; through doing what you and Ed did, and using myself as bait for the Homunculi from this Amestris, if not Envy from the other; in such a way their attempt to take me hostage will convince them to bring at least one State Alchemist with them who Scar will feel inclined to target to murder, at least in part to attempt to atone for murdering Mom and Dad."

At least for these seconds; as much of a child's flight of fancy as it might have been, and very likely was, Winry refused to believe Scar hadn't fled from them when Ed had interposed his body between her gun and Scar's hand, because he regretted his murder of Mom and Dad.

"Then I'm going to come up with a way to blackmail Scar into working with us to enable us to infiltrate Fort Briggs, so we can look for clues about what the Homunculi want with Briggs there; and, if we learn anything that can enable us to make a difference, assisting us in defeating the Homunculi from both Amestrises before either Ed even needs to refuse to send a single other tear of adversity and pain."

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"Teach me sorrow

If your eyes are closed

You won't see sorrow either

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"If you live without knowing warmth

You won't get hurt

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"A soft voice I can't recall

Within the depths of my mourning heart

From my long forgotten past

Someone is calling to me

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"When will you take back

The sorrow with your own hands

This moment that will never come again

I see only you

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"Far away, quietly, shining

There's a gentle boat

Afloat on surges of grief

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"Between the waves, it disappears in me

Why, a warmth I shouldn't know

Searching the confusing depths

The ripples spread

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"Life's ship is sailing on

Can't see a single star

Advancing between the waves, going through

Beyond the darkness

I see only you"

'The Deep Sea's Solitude'

GUNDAM SEED DESTINY