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prose_alchemistTitle: Blood Ties (5/14: Sickness)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jordannamorgan
Archive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: PG for fantasy violence and blood.
Characters: A whopping big ensemble across two worlds, although the strongest focus is on Ed.
Setting: First anime. Same timeframe as CoS, two years after the end of the series.
Summary: Alternative to Conqueror of Shamballa. An old enemy plunges Ed into the dark secrets of his new world, linked to the alchemy he thought lost to him—while in Amestris, Al faces a life-or-death choice. Will the nightmare Ed is drawn into provide the key to both their fates?
Disclaimer: They belong to Hiromu Arakawa. I’m just playing with them.
The piercing train whistle awakened Winry Rockbell from an unintended doze. She opened her eyes and stretched, turning her head to see the rambling outskirts of Dublith beyond the window… and the letter she had absently slipped into her jacket pocket the day before felt suddenly heavy.
Alphonse is ill, and wants to see you. Please use the enclosed train ticket to come as soon as possible. – Izumi.
In the two years since Edward’s disappearance and Al’s return to flesh, Al had lived with the Curtises, in the hope that his alchemy teacher could help him regain his memories—and consequently, his beloved brother. Winry had seen him only a few times, and the last was more than eight months earlier. She knew little about his life now, for he had become as unreliable at letter-writing as Ed had been. She only knew they had not yet found a way to reverse his amnesia, nor uncovered any new information about Ed’s fate.
Now she could only suspect Al had pushed himself to exhaustion or worse in the effort. Even during that last visit, he hadn’t looked very well, although he tried to hide it. How much worse was his condition now, that Izumi should send for her with that subtle note of urgency? Could it be that Al’s struggle to regain what was lost had led him to yet another sacrifice of flesh and blood?
With those fearful wonderings in mind, Winry had made her travel arrangements quickly, and boarded the earliest train.
The journey did not take as long as it would have if she were traveling from Resembool. She had spent most of these two years in Rush Valley, working as an apprentice to the master automail craftsman Dominic. He was a demanding teacher and employer—but beneath his hard surface, he was kind. Upon learning the boy she loved like a brother was unwell, he tersely granted her leave for as long as Al might need her, and that was the end of it.
When the train came to a stop at the Dublith station, Winry picked up her suitcase and disembarked. It had rained there that morning, leaving a cool freshness in the air, but also splotching the ground with oily dampness. She gingerly began to navigate the busy station platform, trying her best to dodge puddles and passersby alike—until, with her eyes on the next water crossing, she suddenly bumped into what seemed like a one-man wall.
“Whoa, careful!” a familiar voice exclaimed, as a broad hand caught her elbow.
Her cheeks flushing slightly, she looked up at the brawny young man who towered over her. “Oh… Mason!”
Mason Curtis, Sig and Izumi’s nephew, had lived with the couple for years as an employee of their butcher shop. He was almost as enormous as his uncle, but where Sig was intimidating, Mason was sweetly goofy. Winry harbored a deep fondness for him, and she knew he liked her—really liked her. It wasn’t the sort of skin-deep, hormonal reaction some males had to her, but something deeper and gentler. Other young men’s indulgent eyes and wolfish smirks nettled her, but Mason’s shy attraction had a curious way of feeling safe.
“Izumi was pretty sure you’d be on the first train you could catch,” Mason offered with a grin. “She sent me to check for you, so here I am. Let me take that suitcase.”
A bit dumbly, Winry handed over her suitcase, and followed Mason as he used his muscular frame to plow through the crowded station. Her gladness to see him warred briefly with her concern for Al, and it was the worry that finally won out.
“Izumi’s letter didn’t really tell me anything. What’s wrong with Al?”
The question caused Mason’s swift stride to falter, and he turned to face her with a troubled frown.
“I won’t kid you, Winry. He’s… he’s not so good. It might be kind of a shock when you see him, so I guess you’d better get ready for that.”
Winry’s heart skipped a beat. “What’s happened to him? He hasn’t—transmuted part of himself, or…?”
“Oh no, it’s not like that!” Mason assured her quickly. “It’s just… he’s really weak, and he looks awful. He’s a sick kid.”
“Sick with what?” the automail mechanic demanded in exasperation.
Mason fidgeted, scratching the fingers of his free hand through his short dark hair. “You’ll have to ask Izumi that. As far as I can understand, it has something to do with alchemy, but it… it’s complicated.”
“I knew it had to be alchemy,” Winry said bitterly. “Hasn’t it done enough by now? When is it going to stop taking from all of us?”
She dropped her gaze. It embarrassed her to feel the warmth of tears spilling over onto her cheeks, and she hastily scrubbed them away with her fists.
“Sorry,” Mason murmured awkwardly, and from the corner of her eye, she noticed he was giving her the courtesy of looking away as she tried to compose herself. “I guess… nobody else has had any luck finding Ed, either.”
A touch of frustrated, directionless anger mingled with Winry’s hollow sadness, and she sniffled and straightened. “The military’s still looking for him even now, but… he’s just not anywhere. And sometimes I—I start to think…” Fresh tears stung at her eyes, tinged this time with guilt, and she shook her head fiercely.
“Al has never thought that way for a second,” Mason said quietly, as his strong hand came to rest on Winry’s shoulder. “Just do one thing for me, okay? Don’t let him hear talk like that. And don’t let him see tears. He still believes—and he’s still fighting.”
Those words were enough to pull Winry together. She drew a deep breath, blinked back her tears, and nodded.
The Curtises’ home and shop were within an easy walking distance of the train station. Winry kept pace beside Mason in silence for some time, fully collecting herself, before she finally launched into the polite conversation of a visiting friend.
“So… how is everyone else doing? How is Miss Izumi?”
“Oh, the rest of us are pretty good. Izumi’s really doing well. The doctor who’s taking care of her now has her on some new medication, and it’s made a big difference.” Mason frowned. “She still… you know… has one of her attacks if she really stresses out. So try not to upset her. But she’s handling things the best way she can—and Al couldn’t be in any better hands than hers.”
“I believe that,” Winry said sincerely.
For the remainder of the walk, they continued to talk lightly of other subjects, catching each other up on their relatives and their everyday lives. The conversation itself helped Winry to unwind a little, even though every step brought her closer to learning just how sick Al really was. She needed to calm herself before she faced that situation, and Mason’s earnest warmth was oddly calming. She even managed to chuckle at a few of his tentative jokes.
When at last they arrived at the Curtis household, they found Izumi Curtis sweeping the front step of the shop—and Winry couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her. The tall, dark-haired woman looked as strong and lovely as ever, wielding the broom like a weapon as she attacked the stray dead leaves around the door.
“Miss Izumi!” Winry called out, quickening her steps.
Izumi looked up, and smiled; and although there was a trace of sadness in the smile, there was also welcoming warmth. She set aside the broom and held out a hand as Winry came up to her.
“Hello, Winry. Thank you for coming so quickly—it’s nice to see you again.”
“It’s good to see you too.” Winry gave the offered hand a brief squeeze, but she couldn’t quite return the smile. “Where’s Al? How is he?”
The alchemy teacher sobered a little, withdrawing from Winry’s grip. “I’ll explain after you’ve seen him.”
She led the way into the house, and as they passed through the kitchen, they picked up Sig. The big butcher made a rumbling noise at Winry that vaguely resembled a greeting, and joined the procession on its way to Al’s bedroom upstairs. It was the same room where Al and Ed had stayed ever since they first came here as Izumi’s students.
Mason deposited Winry’s suitcase in the next room, and wandered back into the hallway with a questioning glance at Izumi. “You want me to check on him first?” he asked, and at a nod from his aunt, he knocked gently on Al’s door that stood closed. Then he stepped inside, and could be heard nattering cheerfully at someone—and Winry could barely make out the sound of a small voice in reply.
After a moment, Mason poked his head out. “Yeah, he’s awake. Got excited when I told him Winry’s here. He just wants a minute to sit up and get himself together… ’Scuse me.”
The young man retreated from the door, and when he presently returned, he beckoned for Winry to enter.
Almost reluctantly, Winry stepped into the bedroom. Like most of the other rooms in the house, it was sparing, furnished with little more than a bed, a bureau, a chair, and a shelf full of books… as well as an amorphous something that sat covered by a sheet in the corner.
Under other circumstances, the last object would have aroused Winry’s curiosity, but all that mattered to her now was the occupant of the bed. Her gaze sought him out urgently, even as her heart dreaded what she might see.
Alphonse Elric lay in bed, halfway sitting up against the pillows behind his back, his hands folded on top of the covers. His eyes were bright as they lighted on Winry… but they were set deep in a gaunt, ashen face. Even through his nightshirt and the blankets that covered his lap, it was clear that his too-small body had become shockingly thin. When he breathed, there was a ragged little catch to the sound, and his head leaned back against the pillows as if he didn’t even have the strength to lift it.
He should have been strong and healthy and almost an adult, but alchemy had robbed him of five years of hard-won life. Instead, his body was that of a mere child of twelve—and now it seemed he was even being cheated of this. The fragile flesh that may have cost his brother’s life was visibly wasting away, as if something was consuming him from within.
Then Winry noticed that his topmost blanket, deep scarlet in color, was not a blanket at all. She recognized the symbol of sin that was inscribed upon it in midnight-black… and she was forced to gulp down a lump in her throat before she could speak.
“Hello, Al.”
Her childhood friend smiled at her, but his voice was little more than a whisper. “Hi, Winry. I’m glad you came.”
“Oh, Al, you know I’ll always be here for you.” Winry sat on the bedside chair, refusing to let herself look away from the painful hollowness of his face. “I had no idea… You should have sent for me a long time before now.”
The faintest ghost of color touched Al’s sunken cheeks. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
She longed to take him by his bony shoulders and hug him for all she was worth, but she was too afraid his frail little body would break. Instead she laid her hands over his, and felt on his skin the clammy chill of something already half-dead. It startled her and made her want to pull away, but she resisted the urge. After all, she wasn’t afraid of contagion; Mason had already hinted that alchemy was at the root of this disease.
“I just don’t understand this, Al. How long have you been sick? Are you in any pain? What’s happening to you?”
Al squirmed a little at the rush of questions, and even that movement looked tiring. “Nothing hurts… I’m just so weak, it’s hard to move at all. It hasn’t been this bad for very long, but I haven’t really been well ever since…” He looked away with a troubled frown, and Winry wasn’t sure whether they had struck on something he didn’t want to talk about, or whether he truly couldn’t because of his amnesia.
“Since Ed disappeared?” she suggested faintly.
The question made Al wince, his brown eyes darkening. “I didn’t start to feel it until a couple months later. But… yeah.”
“Oh, Al… Does this mean something has been wrong with your body ever since you got it back?”
He gave her what passed, in his condition, for a mildly fishy look. “It’s still kinda weird hearing people say things like that. No, Winry, it’s not my body, it’s…”
By the end of the sentence, his voice became almost inaudible. He sighed out the little remaining air in his weak lungs, and his fingers twitched under Winry’s, as if making a small effort to pull away from her grip.
“Sorry. I can’t talk much this way. Teacher…?”
Whatever question was left unspoken, Izumi clearly understood. She frowned thoughtfully at Al for a moment, and then gave Sig a glance that sent her husband lumbering toward the mysterious thing in the corner.
Curiosity won out at last. Winry stood up for a better look… and gave a start when Izumi’s iron hand unexpectedly fell upon her shoulder.
“Don’t be frightened by anything you’re about to see. Al may be physically weak, but he’s still a gifted alchemist, and his experiences have left him with some… unique gifts. His way of finding relief from his illness is something you know very well.”
It was a bizarre warning that left Winry speechless. Baffled, she looked from Izumi to Sig—just as he withdrew the sheet from the large covered object.
The unveiling revealed a shockingly familiar, human-shaped hulk of polished steel, slumped lifelessly on the floor like a child’s forgotten toy.
Winry’s heart dropped into her stomach. “Al’s armor!”
It was true. The left shoulder bore a flamel cross, matching the one on the precious coat that lay in Al’s lap, and there were a dozen other marks on the metal that Winry recognized as surely as fingerprints. This was no mere reproduction: it was nothing less than the original suit of armor that had borne Al’s soul for five terrible, extraordinary years. Winry hadn’t even known it still existed.
“The armor was with him when he woke up in his own body,” Izumi explained solemnly. “With the confusion in Central at the time, no one gave it any thought—until a few months later, when Al suggested that seeing it again might jog his memory. It was General Mustang who found it at a military warehouse, and brought it here. I’m afraid it hasn’t stirred any definite memories for Al, but…” She gave a half-smile that was almost a wince. “He did discover another use for it.”
As Izumi was speaking, Mason moved to the bedside and scooped Al up in his sinewy arms. He carried Al to the corner of the room and knelt down beside the armor, placing it easily within the boy’s feeble grasp.
With a heartbreakingly obvious effort, Al raised his hands and brought them together in a gentle clap. Then he reached out, laying his hands on the chestplate of the armor; and in spite of Izumi’s warning, and all the things Winry had seen over the years, she couldn’t help being just a little bit terrified by what happened next.
The armor moved. It shivered and clanked and sat upright, raising its helmet to reveal behind the eye slits a soft glow of disembodied life… and at precisely the same moment, Al’s own eyes closed. His body went limp in Mason’s arms, like a puppet with its strings cut.
And Winry, of course, did the only sensible thing.
She let out an ear-piercing shriek.
With the intangible but very real expressiveness Winry had never been able to explain, the armor radiated an embarrassed alarm. It lurched to its feet so quickly that it almost bowled over Mason and his frail burden, its leather gauntlets flapping in a desperate calming gesture—and Al’s voice resonated from within the steel, sounding suddenly much stronger beneath the familiar metallic echo. “It’s okay, Winry! Really!”
“Oh, both of you settle down!” Izumi snapped, incomprehensibly reacting with nothing but irritation, as she strode brusquely to the armor’s side. “It’s not permanent, Winry. There isn’t a blood seal—you see?”
With that, she seized the upper edge of the armor’s chestplate, roughly yanking it down and forcing it to bend forward. Al’s voice gave a little yelp as Izumi’s other hand wrenched the helmet off, and she pointed to the inside of the hollow metal shell.
It was just as she had said. There was not one drop of blood to be seen on the smooth, cold steel… and yet somehow, all the same, it was clear that Al was once again inhabiting the armor.
With her heart still beating so hard she almost felt sick, Winry sagged into the bedside chair. She was trembling, and it didn’t make her feel any better to watch Mason gently place Al’s insensate body on the bed—or worse, to see the newly re-armored incarnation of Al watching, with as calmly detached an interest as if seeing his own body secondhand was a normal experience.
She noticed Al’s body was breathing, faintly but steadily. That much was a relief, at least.
Alright… she could deal with this. Somehow Al was in armor again, but it seemed to be of his own volition, and neither he nor the Curtises were the least bit distressed by the fact. Izumi had said something about this state of affairs being temporary, and at the very least, Al’s real body lay alive and intact on the bed.
“What is going on here?” Winry asked flatly.
Mason fidgeted. “Nothing he doesn’t do every day, actually…”
“What?”
Izumi sighed. “Calm down, Winry. Al is alright. His soul is still firmly attached to his body, where it belongs—but even without a blood seal, he somehow has the ability to transmit his consciousness through the armor. At least for short periods of time.”
“It just seemed to come to me naturally when the General brought the armor here.” The steel monster that was Al had recovered his helmet from Izumi, and rather sheepishly proceeded to replace it on his shoulders. “I’m sorry I scared you, Winry. But I thought… You told me before that you used to know me like this.”
“I did!” Winry snapped, suddenly angry at the fact that Al would even touch the armor again—much less allow any part of his being to return to that steel prison, even for a moment. “I knew you this way when the one thing you wanted in the world was to get back your real body. And that was before…!”
Before Ed gave everything to make that happen.
Winry managed to halt those words on the tip of her tongue, but perhaps Al was able to fill them in for himself. The helmet bowed sadly, and he moved closer to her with a rattling of steel. When he spoke, his resonant voice was soft.
“I don’t remember that, Winry. All I know is that in my own body, I’m so weak and useless that I… I can’t look for Ed.” Phantom eyes turned to the fragile body in the bed, white soul-light shading to the scarlet of intense emotion. “I’d gladly give it up, and be stuck this way forever—if it just gave me the chance to find him again.”
Tears welled up in Winry’s eyes, and she was only barely able to keep them in check, remembering that Mason had asked her not to cry.
Surely Al felt enough guilt and grief for his brother’s absence, even if he couldn’t remember the terrible events recounted to him by others. He didn’t need her to remind him of the sacrifices made for him—and he didn’t need her protesting his one means of respite from the ailing fraud of a body those sacrifices had won. He only needed her to understand that a wish to trade back what he had gained was not ingratitude, but the highest measure of love.
His body wasn’t what he cared about most, and it never had been. It was always his brother.
So Winry swallowed hard, and breathed deep, and forcibly pulled herself back together. Without looking up, she gently laid her hand on Al’s vambrace—the unfelt touch a token of acceptance. “I’m sorry.”
“No… I’m sorry. I should have thought about how you’d feel. I just—I want to enjoy having you here, Winry. It’s so hard now in my own body.” Al hesitated, and finished with an audible reluctance: “But I’ll go back to it now, if you want me to.”
Winry wasn’t quite sure the mist had cleared from her eyes, but she met his gaze nonetheless, and shook her head with a broken smile. “No, Al, it’s okay. If you’re really alright, I can handle it, but…” She wasn’t able to stop the smile, tenuous as it was, from twisting into a worried frown. “Are you absolutely sure you won’t get stranded in that scrapheap again?”
Al’s voice brightened. “Sure I’m sure. That can’t happen without a blood seal. I can go back to my body anytime I want—and if it needs water or food, it’ll pull me back anyway. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stay in the armor for more than a day or two at a time.”
The suggestion that Al had been testing the armor’s limitations frightened Winry.
“A day or two?” She glanced anxiously from Al to Izumi and back again. “This isn’t what’s making him sick, is it?—You’re not… draining your strength away or something by switching between your body and the armor, are you?”
“Oh, no! Using the armor is the only way I have to get away from feeling bad. It has nothing to do with my being sick.” Al paused, and the brief silence was like a thoughtful frown. “It’s kind of hard to explain, but—”
“Alphonse, I think it might be best if I tell her,” Izumi interrupted coolly. “Why don’t you and Mason go out and play with the children on their way home from school.”
It was something more than a suggestion, and although Al’s spiked shoulders slumped a little, he gave his teacher a small bow. “Yes Ma’am,” he said, and turned to follow an equally obedient Mason out of the room.
Winry blinked. “Wait a minute. So… you’re just going to walk away and leave your body here?”
Al looked back, and had he been capable of an expression then, it would have been the flustered incredulity of a child who found it necessary to explain the obvious to an adult. “You didn’t think I’d take it with me, did you?”
He clattered away into the hall, and Winry stared down dazedly at the small, sickly body that lay abandoned on the bed.
It might all have been funny if it wasn’t so unspeakably awful.
“What’s wrong with him, Miss Izumi?”
Winry and Izumi were standing on the rooftop balcony of the Curtis home, looking out over the small patch of grass that constituted the front yard. Al and Mason were down below, making a regular ruckus with a gaggle of neighborhood children. Judging by the way the kids climbed all over them, the armored boy and the strapping young man were the next best thing to a jungle gym—and they seemed to enjoy the sport just as much.
Mason was always playing with children, every time Winry had ever visited. It was one of the things she liked about him.
After a long moment of consideration, Izumi leaned against the parapet with a sigh. “Biologically… nothing is wrong with Alphonse. At the personal request of the Füehrer, the finest doctors in Amestris have examined him, and they couldn’t find a trace of any disease or defect in his body.”
“What? But that’s impossible! How could he be so sick unless…” Winry paused, her wide eyes narrowing slightly. “Wait. You’re not going to try to tell me this is all in his mind, are you?”
“No. What he’s suffering now is very real… but it goes deeper than his body or his mind.” Izumi turned to Winry with shadowed eyes. “Tell me, how much do you know about the blood seal that was on his armor before?”
The young mechanic winced. “I know it was what tied Al’s soul to the armor when his body was gone. I know Ed drew it with his own blood… and he gave up his arm to do the transmutation that made it work. That’s all I know about it, and I don’t even understand that.”
“Through alchemy, Al’s soul was bound to that blood, and the blood was bound to the steel by the iron it contained.” Izumi smiled bitterly. “It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Except that nothing is simple about the soul… especially when someone’s tampering involves two souls instead of one.”
Winry’s heart skipped a beat. “Two souls? What do you mean?” she asked, and saw an oddly demure expression pass across Izumi’s face.
“Honestly, even my understanding of it comes mostly from Al himself. You already knew he could transmute without a circle—and now you’ve seen what he can do with the armor. He may not remember the years of his journey with Ed, but something of the alchemic knowledge he gained in the Gate still comes through sometimes… and then he’s…”
The teacher’s pause, with the hundred possible conclusions that might have hung in it, was perhaps the most frightening thing of all.
At last Izumi broke the spell, with a firm shake of her head. “But that’s beside the point. The point is, a part of him grasped what’s happening to him, and he’s done his best to explain it. In the simplest terms I can give you, Al has grown so weak because something is still missing from his being… and this time, it’s a portion of his soul.”
Those bewildering words were slow to penetrate Winry’s mind, and she could only stare at Izumi. “…What?”
“It was Ed’s mistake again, really.” The faint tremble in Izumi’s voice was the hard edge of a laugh, and a little bit of something else. “Of course he didn’t know it then, and it can’t be helped now—but when he used his own blood for the seal, he managed to get himself tangled up in the transmutation. Instead of bonding to the blood seal on the armor… a part of Al’s soul bonded to him instead.”
Winry’s knees suddenly felt like water. She stumbled backward, and it was only her good fortune that a patio chair was there to catch her.
“Did Ed…” She swallowed hard. “Could he have known?”
“Obviously not. If he’d known he was carrying a fragment of Al’s life inside him, he wouldn’t have been so boneheaded about risking his own.” Izumi attempted a wan smile, but it faltered, and she sighed. “No, Ed would never have realized it—but it might account for the trouble Al felt he had with his memory, even before he regained his body and lost those five years.”
“But how could missing a part of his soul have made his body so sick now? Why didn’t it affect him like this before?”
“The reason is simple enough. The force of life itself is in the soul—and when it was bound to the armor, Al’s compromised soul didn’t have to bear the strain of supporting an organic body. But now that he has a body of flesh and blood again, with all its amazing complexities…” Izumi’s eyes darkened, and she looked away. “His soul just isn’t strong enough to sustain it.”
The implication underlying those words nearly stopped Winry’s heart. She clutched the arms of the chair, feeling herself begin to tremble.
“Miss Izumi… what’s going to happen to him?”
Izumi turned to gaze down at Al. To his delight, a little girl had brought a cat into the yard; one of Chiko’s kittens all grown up, Winry thought distantly. Al laughed as the friendly animal rubbed against his greaves.
“He’s dying, Winry.”
The words were like the sudden ending to a step off a cliff. Something clenched up tight in Winry’s chest, and she wanted to cry now… but no tears would come.
“The end is very near. His body needs more strength than his soul can provide, and without that… it will just keep feeding on itself until it kills him.” The teacher hesitated. “A week’s time may be too much to expect.”
“Does he know?” Winry asked faintly, and heard the words as if someone else had spoken them from far away.
“Oh yes. As I said, he understands it all better than I do.”
“But… isn’t there something we can do? Some way to replace what he’s missing—or get it back?”
“There’s nothing in the world that can replace the soul. You know what happened when Ed and Al tried.” Izumi turned to face Winry, looking tired and worn and far older than her years. “Only regaining exactly what he’s lost could save him. He thinks if he could reach Ed somehow, his soul would reabsorb the missing piece of itself, and he could recover. But…”
“But Ed is gone,” Winry whispered.
It was useless to deny it any longer. Ed was gone—and soon Al would be gone. Her best friends. Her brothers.
“…There’s still one chance.”
At the sound of those unexpected words, the tightness around Winry’s heart suddenly became a little less painful. She raised her head to stare at Izumi in desperate hope, blinking through tears she hadn’t even realized were streaming down her cheeks.
“It may not work—and you won’t like it. I told you how Al’s incomplete soul was able to survive when it was attached to the armor, without the stress of a body drawing life from it. Even now, if he was to give up the flesh he can no longer maintain, it’s possible his soul could live on by the same means as before.” Izumi lowered her eyes. “That’s why, in a few more days… he’s going to attempt a blood seal.”
A rush of instinctive horror swept through Winry. “You mean… he’ll try to permanently attach his soul to the armor again?”
“Yes.”
“But isn’t that human transmutation? It cost Ed’s arm before—who’s going to pay the price now?”
“I promise you, we’ve thought it all out carefully. No one else is going to be involved. He’ll use his own blood for the seal, and his body will be the material for the transmutation. He has no reason not to sacrifice it now, because he can’t exist in it much longer either way.” Izumi shook her head gravely. “Binding his soul with his own blood might not even work, or a hundred other things might go wrong—but if we do nothing, it’s certain he will die. His only hope of surviving is to go back into the armor… and this time it will be for life.”
The crushing heartache closed in again, and Winry’s head sank into her hands.
“So that’s it, then.” Her voice was a tremulous whisper. “Even if it does keep Al alive, he’ll be the way he was before. He’ll never sleep or eat or be able to feel anything again… and now he won’t even have Ed to give him hope.” She raised brimming eyes that desperately asked Izumi for an answer to make sense of the pain. “What’s going to be left for him at all?”
With a gentle sadness, Izumi stepped closer. Her hand came to rest on Winry’s shoulder.
“The strength to go on looking for Ed,” she answered. “You were wrong. Ed is his hope… and in a terrible way, I think it would be a relief for Al to leave behind the body that’s held him back from searching. The one thing he wants to live for is his brother—because he truly believes Ed is still alive.”
Winry sniffled and inhaled deeply, forcing up the courage for a question she feared the answer to. “Do you?”
A heavy-hearted smile crossed Izumi’s lips for only a moment. She straightened and turned away, to watch the antics taking place in the yard.
“Al has dreamed of Ed almost every night. He’s told us that in his dreams, Ed was the age he would be now, wandering in great cities, studying in the libraries—always alone. And knowing that a part of Al’s soul was with Ed, I… I wanted to hope…”
“That what Al dreamed was real?” Winry breathed.
Although Izumi’s back was turned, a visible shudder passed through her shoulders.
“Three days ago, Al woke up screaming from a nightmare he couldn’t remember. After that, his condition suddenly grew much worse… and he hasn’t dreamed of Ed since.”
With those words, the last fragile thread of hope Winry had nurtured was broken… and for the first time, she knew Ed was truly dead. She was sure of it because something within Al himself finally knew, even if he would refuse to accept it; even if his own hope was his one reason to exist.
“I see,” she said faintly. And she rose from her chair, because that pointless effort of movement was the only way to calm her sudden, intense desire to hit something.
Mostly Edward.
“I’m not going to stand in the way of Al’s hope… and as long as I have anything to say about it, no one will.” Izumi’s voice was suddenly hard, like a warning. Then her tone softened just as quickly, and she managed a painful smile.
“But for now, all that matters is to give him as much happiness and comfort as possible. At least he knows what it’s like to be in the armor, and he’s preparing as best he can to live with it permanently—but he’s also taking his last chance to experience the senses of his body. That’s part of why we sent for you, Winry. At first he didn’t want us to tell you until it was all over… but he wants to taste your apple pie, one more time.” At long last, a trace of mistiness crept into the iron-willed teacher’s eyes. “You will make it for him, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Winry whispered.
She told herself firmly that she wouldn’t cry anymore. For Al’s sake, she couldn’t. She scrubbed her fists over her damp eyes and cleared her throat, inwardly attempting to build a wall around the misery in her heart. “Can I… just have a few minutes alone?”
The older woman nodded, reaching out to give Winry’s arm a gentle squeeze. “I’ll ask Mason to start peeling the apples,” she said, and turned to go inside.
At the threshold, she was stopped by Winry’s voice, strained and numb with a grief that was simply too much to feel all at once.
“I’m kind of surprised. I didn’t think you’d approve of another human transmutation for anything… not even Al.”
Izumi did not look back, but her shoulders tensed, her left hand gripping the doorpost tightly. She was silent for a long moment, and Winry was strangely glad the look on her face was hidden.
“I can’t lose them both,” the teacher replied softly, and disappeared into the house.
Winry stayed where she was on the balcony for what felt like a long time. Children’s laughter continued to drift up from the yard, and at some point she heard Izumi at the door, calling Mason in for kitchen duty. Shadows were growing longer as the sun moved lower in the sky.
Finally, moving in a daze, Winry went inside and made her way downstairs to the kitchen—and she halted in the doorway as she saw Mason at the table. He was bent diligently over a heap of apples with a paring knife, and a woman’s ruffled pink apron that was far too small for him was stretched over his muscular chest.
And Winry started laughing, high hysterical peals of it, and she couldn’t stop herself; not even when she choked on the laughter, and it turned into dry, gasping sobs of uncontainable sorrow that wracked her entire body.
Mason dropped the knife and hurried to her. Strong hands seized her shoulders, and without a word he pulled her hard against him, wrapping his arms around her so tight she barely had the breath to cry anymore.
That was something else she liked about the Curtises. They rarely gave hugs, but when they did, their hugs were great and mighty.
“Two years…” she breathed against the fabric of that ridiculous apron, leaning into his arms. “Is that all Ed bought with his life? Two years for Al to live in a body he’s become too sick to even use? Where’s the Equivalent Exchange in that?”
“Shh…” Mason whispered soothingly, brushing his cheek against the top of her head. “I know it doesn’t make any sense. I guess we’ll never understand. All we can do is try to keep Al alive and make him as happy as we can… because that’s what Ed would want.”
What Ed would want…
The words gave Winry pause.
From the time they were small children, Ed always used to hate it when she cried. He would squirm and cross his arms and look away from her, with that awkward expression on his face that said he would rather be anywhere else. Once she had even become angry at him for never crying himself; but now she understood. She understood why he didn’t cry, or dwell on the past, or even let himself rest.
All of those things wasted time he could devote to taking care of his brother.
He wouldn’t cry now either, if he were there. He’d pick himself up and throw every fiber of his being into doing whatever he could for Al… and that was exactly what he would want Winry to do in his place.
She sniffed and straightened, gently pulling herself out of Mason’s comforting embrace.
“I’m okay now,” she said quietly. “Let’s get to work on those apples.”
Alchemy was beyond her, but there was one thing she could do. Alphonse wanted apple pie—and Winry was going to see to it that he had as much as he could eat.
Enough for a lifetime…
© 2011 Jordanna Morgan
Chapters: 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4 :: 5 :: 6 :: 7 :: 8 :: 9 :: 10 :: 11 :: 12 :: 13 :: 14 :: Epilogue ::
Author:
jordannamorganArchive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: PG for fantasy violence and blood.
Characters: A whopping big ensemble across two worlds, although the strongest focus is on Ed.
Setting: First anime. Same timeframe as CoS, two years after the end of the series.
Summary: Alternative to Conqueror of Shamballa. An old enemy plunges Ed into the dark secrets of his new world, linked to the alchemy he thought lost to him—while in Amestris, Al faces a life-or-death choice. Will the nightmare Ed is drawn into provide the key to both their fates?
Disclaimer: They belong to Hiromu Arakawa. I’m just playing with them.
The piercing train whistle awakened Winry Rockbell from an unintended doze. She opened her eyes and stretched, turning her head to see the rambling outskirts of Dublith beyond the window… and the letter she had absently slipped into her jacket pocket the day before felt suddenly heavy.
Alphonse is ill, and wants to see you. Please use the enclosed train ticket to come as soon as possible. – Izumi.
In the two years since Edward’s disappearance and Al’s return to flesh, Al had lived with the Curtises, in the hope that his alchemy teacher could help him regain his memories—and consequently, his beloved brother. Winry had seen him only a few times, and the last was more than eight months earlier. She knew little about his life now, for he had become as unreliable at letter-writing as Ed had been. She only knew they had not yet found a way to reverse his amnesia, nor uncovered any new information about Ed’s fate.
Now she could only suspect Al had pushed himself to exhaustion or worse in the effort. Even during that last visit, he hadn’t looked very well, although he tried to hide it. How much worse was his condition now, that Izumi should send for her with that subtle note of urgency? Could it be that Al’s struggle to regain what was lost had led him to yet another sacrifice of flesh and blood?
With those fearful wonderings in mind, Winry had made her travel arrangements quickly, and boarded the earliest train.
The journey did not take as long as it would have if she were traveling from Resembool. She had spent most of these two years in Rush Valley, working as an apprentice to the master automail craftsman Dominic. He was a demanding teacher and employer—but beneath his hard surface, he was kind. Upon learning the boy she loved like a brother was unwell, he tersely granted her leave for as long as Al might need her, and that was the end of it.
When the train came to a stop at the Dublith station, Winry picked up her suitcase and disembarked. It had rained there that morning, leaving a cool freshness in the air, but also splotching the ground with oily dampness. She gingerly began to navigate the busy station platform, trying her best to dodge puddles and passersby alike—until, with her eyes on the next water crossing, she suddenly bumped into what seemed like a one-man wall.
“Whoa, careful!” a familiar voice exclaimed, as a broad hand caught her elbow.
Her cheeks flushing slightly, she looked up at the brawny young man who towered over her. “Oh… Mason!”
Mason Curtis, Sig and Izumi’s nephew, had lived with the couple for years as an employee of their butcher shop. He was almost as enormous as his uncle, but where Sig was intimidating, Mason was sweetly goofy. Winry harbored a deep fondness for him, and she knew he liked her—really liked her. It wasn’t the sort of skin-deep, hormonal reaction some males had to her, but something deeper and gentler. Other young men’s indulgent eyes and wolfish smirks nettled her, but Mason’s shy attraction had a curious way of feeling safe.
“Izumi was pretty sure you’d be on the first train you could catch,” Mason offered with a grin. “She sent me to check for you, so here I am. Let me take that suitcase.”
A bit dumbly, Winry handed over her suitcase, and followed Mason as he used his muscular frame to plow through the crowded station. Her gladness to see him warred briefly with her concern for Al, and it was the worry that finally won out.
“Izumi’s letter didn’t really tell me anything. What’s wrong with Al?”
The question caused Mason’s swift stride to falter, and he turned to face her with a troubled frown.
“I won’t kid you, Winry. He’s… he’s not so good. It might be kind of a shock when you see him, so I guess you’d better get ready for that.”
Winry’s heart skipped a beat. “What’s happened to him? He hasn’t—transmuted part of himself, or…?”
“Oh no, it’s not like that!” Mason assured her quickly. “It’s just… he’s really weak, and he looks awful. He’s a sick kid.”
“Sick with what?” the automail mechanic demanded in exasperation.
Mason fidgeted, scratching the fingers of his free hand through his short dark hair. “You’ll have to ask Izumi that. As far as I can understand, it has something to do with alchemy, but it… it’s complicated.”
“I knew it had to be alchemy,” Winry said bitterly. “Hasn’t it done enough by now? When is it going to stop taking from all of us?”
She dropped her gaze. It embarrassed her to feel the warmth of tears spilling over onto her cheeks, and she hastily scrubbed them away with her fists.
“Sorry,” Mason murmured awkwardly, and from the corner of her eye, she noticed he was giving her the courtesy of looking away as she tried to compose herself. “I guess… nobody else has had any luck finding Ed, either.”
A touch of frustrated, directionless anger mingled with Winry’s hollow sadness, and she sniffled and straightened. “The military’s still looking for him even now, but… he’s just not anywhere. And sometimes I—I start to think…” Fresh tears stung at her eyes, tinged this time with guilt, and she shook her head fiercely.
“Al has never thought that way for a second,” Mason said quietly, as his strong hand came to rest on Winry’s shoulder. “Just do one thing for me, okay? Don’t let him hear talk like that. And don’t let him see tears. He still believes—and he’s still fighting.”
Those words were enough to pull Winry together. She drew a deep breath, blinked back her tears, and nodded.
The Curtises’ home and shop were within an easy walking distance of the train station. Winry kept pace beside Mason in silence for some time, fully collecting herself, before she finally launched into the polite conversation of a visiting friend.
“So… how is everyone else doing? How is Miss Izumi?”
“Oh, the rest of us are pretty good. Izumi’s really doing well. The doctor who’s taking care of her now has her on some new medication, and it’s made a big difference.” Mason frowned. “She still… you know… has one of her attacks if she really stresses out. So try not to upset her. But she’s handling things the best way she can—and Al couldn’t be in any better hands than hers.”
“I believe that,” Winry said sincerely.
For the remainder of the walk, they continued to talk lightly of other subjects, catching each other up on their relatives and their everyday lives. The conversation itself helped Winry to unwind a little, even though every step brought her closer to learning just how sick Al really was. She needed to calm herself before she faced that situation, and Mason’s earnest warmth was oddly calming. She even managed to chuckle at a few of his tentative jokes.
When at last they arrived at the Curtis household, they found Izumi Curtis sweeping the front step of the shop—and Winry couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her. The tall, dark-haired woman looked as strong and lovely as ever, wielding the broom like a weapon as she attacked the stray dead leaves around the door.
“Miss Izumi!” Winry called out, quickening her steps.
Izumi looked up, and smiled; and although there was a trace of sadness in the smile, there was also welcoming warmth. She set aside the broom and held out a hand as Winry came up to her.
“Hello, Winry. Thank you for coming so quickly—it’s nice to see you again.”
“It’s good to see you too.” Winry gave the offered hand a brief squeeze, but she couldn’t quite return the smile. “Where’s Al? How is he?”
The alchemy teacher sobered a little, withdrawing from Winry’s grip. “I’ll explain after you’ve seen him.”
She led the way into the house, and as they passed through the kitchen, they picked up Sig. The big butcher made a rumbling noise at Winry that vaguely resembled a greeting, and joined the procession on its way to Al’s bedroom upstairs. It was the same room where Al and Ed had stayed ever since they first came here as Izumi’s students.
Mason deposited Winry’s suitcase in the next room, and wandered back into the hallway with a questioning glance at Izumi. “You want me to check on him first?” he asked, and at a nod from his aunt, he knocked gently on Al’s door that stood closed. Then he stepped inside, and could be heard nattering cheerfully at someone—and Winry could barely make out the sound of a small voice in reply.
After a moment, Mason poked his head out. “Yeah, he’s awake. Got excited when I told him Winry’s here. He just wants a minute to sit up and get himself together… ’Scuse me.”
The young man retreated from the door, and when he presently returned, he beckoned for Winry to enter.
Almost reluctantly, Winry stepped into the bedroom. Like most of the other rooms in the house, it was sparing, furnished with little more than a bed, a bureau, a chair, and a shelf full of books… as well as an amorphous something that sat covered by a sheet in the corner.
Under other circumstances, the last object would have aroused Winry’s curiosity, but all that mattered to her now was the occupant of the bed. Her gaze sought him out urgently, even as her heart dreaded what she might see.
Alphonse Elric lay in bed, halfway sitting up against the pillows behind his back, his hands folded on top of the covers. His eyes were bright as they lighted on Winry… but they were set deep in a gaunt, ashen face. Even through his nightshirt and the blankets that covered his lap, it was clear that his too-small body had become shockingly thin. When he breathed, there was a ragged little catch to the sound, and his head leaned back against the pillows as if he didn’t even have the strength to lift it.
He should have been strong and healthy and almost an adult, but alchemy had robbed him of five years of hard-won life. Instead, his body was that of a mere child of twelve—and now it seemed he was even being cheated of this. The fragile flesh that may have cost his brother’s life was visibly wasting away, as if something was consuming him from within.
Then Winry noticed that his topmost blanket, deep scarlet in color, was not a blanket at all. She recognized the symbol of sin that was inscribed upon it in midnight-black… and she was forced to gulp down a lump in her throat before she could speak.
“Hello, Al.”
Her childhood friend smiled at her, but his voice was little more than a whisper. “Hi, Winry. I’m glad you came.”
“Oh, Al, you know I’ll always be here for you.” Winry sat on the bedside chair, refusing to let herself look away from the painful hollowness of his face. “I had no idea… You should have sent for me a long time before now.”
The faintest ghost of color touched Al’s sunken cheeks. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
She longed to take him by his bony shoulders and hug him for all she was worth, but she was too afraid his frail little body would break. Instead she laid her hands over his, and felt on his skin the clammy chill of something already half-dead. It startled her and made her want to pull away, but she resisted the urge. After all, she wasn’t afraid of contagion; Mason had already hinted that alchemy was at the root of this disease.
“I just don’t understand this, Al. How long have you been sick? Are you in any pain? What’s happening to you?”
Al squirmed a little at the rush of questions, and even that movement looked tiring. “Nothing hurts… I’m just so weak, it’s hard to move at all. It hasn’t been this bad for very long, but I haven’t really been well ever since…” He looked away with a troubled frown, and Winry wasn’t sure whether they had struck on something he didn’t want to talk about, or whether he truly couldn’t because of his amnesia.
“Since Ed disappeared?” she suggested faintly.
The question made Al wince, his brown eyes darkening. “I didn’t start to feel it until a couple months later. But… yeah.”
“Oh, Al… Does this mean something has been wrong with your body ever since you got it back?”
He gave her what passed, in his condition, for a mildly fishy look. “It’s still kinda weird hearing people say things like that. No, Winry, it’s not my body, it’s…”
By the end of the sentence, his voice became almost inaudible. He sighed out the little remaining air in his weak lungs, and his fingers twitched under Winry’s, as if making a small effort to pull away from her grip.
“Sorry. I can’t talk much this way. Teacher…?”
Whatever question was left unspoken, Izumi clearly understood. She frowned thoughtfully at Al for a moment, and then gave Sig a glance that sent her husband lumbering toward the mysterious thing in the corner.
Curiosity won out at last. Winry stood up for a better look… and gave a start when Izumi’s iron hand unexpectedly fell upon her shoulder.
“Don’t be frightened by anything you’re about to see. Al may be physically weak, but he’s still a gifted alchemist, and his experiences have left him with some… unique gifts. His way of finding relief from his illness is something you know very well.”
It was a bizarre warning that left Winry speechless. Baffled, she looked from Izumi to Sig—just as he withdrew the sheet from the large covered object.
The unveiling revealed a shockingly familiar, human-shaped hulk of polished steel, slumped lifelessly on the floor like a child’s forgotten toy.
Winry’s heart dropped into her stomach. “Al’s armor!”
It was true. The left shoulder bore a flamel cross, matching the one on the precious coat that lay in Al’s lap, and there were a dozen other marks on the metal that Winry recognized as surely as fingerprints. This was no mere reproduction: it was nothing less than the original suit of armor that had borne Al’s soul for five terrible, extraordinary years. Winry hadn’t even known it still existed.
“The armor was with him when he woke up in his own body,” Izumi explained solemnly. “With the confusion in Central at the time, no one gave it any thought—until a few months later, when Al suggested that seeing it again might jog his memory. It was General Mustang who found it at a military warehouse, and brought it here. I’m afraid it hasn’t stirred any definite memories for Al, but…” She gave a half-smile that was almost a wince. “He did discover another use for it.”
As Izumi was speaking, Mason moved to the bedside and scooped Al up in his sinewy arms. He carried Al to the corner of the room and knelt down beside the armor, placing it easily within the boy’s feeble grasp.
With a heartbreakingly obvious effort, Al raised his hands and brought them together in a gentle clap. Then he reached out, laying his hands on the chestplate of the armor; and in spite of Izumi’s warning, and all the things Winry had seen over the years, she couldn’t help being just a little bit terrified by what happened next.
The armor moved. It shivered and clanked and sat upright, raising its helmet to reveal behind the eye slits a soft glow of disembodied life… and at precisely the same moment, Al’s own eyes closed. His body went limp in Mason’s arms, like a puppet with its strings cut.
And Winry, of course, did the only sensible thing.
She let out an ear-piercing shriek.
With the intangible but very real expressiveness Winry had never been able to explain, the armor radiated an embarrassed alarm. It lurched to its feet so quickly that it almost bowled over Mason and his frail burden, its leather gauntlets flapping in a desperate calming gesture—and Al’s voice resonated from within the steel, sounding suddenly much stronger beneath the familiar metallic echo. “It’s okay, Winry! Really!”
“Oh, both of you settle down!” Izumi snapped, incomprehensibly reacting with nothing but irritation, as she strode brusquely to the armor’s side. “It’s not permanent, Winry. There isn’t a blood seal—you see?”
With that, she seized the upper edge of the armor’s chestplate, roughly yanking it down and forcing it to bend forward. Al’s voice gave a little yelp as Izumi’s other hand wrenched the helmet off, and she pointed to the inside of the hollow metal shell.
It was just as she had said. There was not one drop of blood to be seen on the smooth, cold steel… and yet somehow, all the same, it was clear that Al was once again inhabiting the armor.
With her heart still beating so hard she almost felt sick, Winry sagged into the bedside chair. She was trembling, and it didn’t make her feel any better to watch Mason gently place Al’s insensate body on the bed—or worse, to see the newly re-armored incarnation of Al watching, with as calmly detached an interest as if seeing his own body secondhand was a normal experience.
She noticed Al’s body was breathing, faintly but steadily. That much was a relief, at least.
Alright… she could deal with this. Somehow Al was in armor again, but it seemed to be of his own volition, and neither he nor the Curtises were the least bit distressed by the fact. Izumi had said something about this state of affairs being temporary, and at the very least, Al’s real body lay alive and intact on the bed.
“What is going on here?” Winry asked flatly.
Mason fidgeted. “Nothing he doesn’t do every day, actually…”
“What?”
Izumi sighed. “Calm down, Winry. Al is alright. His soul is still firmly attached to his body, where it belongs—but even without a blood seal, he somehow has the ability to transmit his consciousness through the armor. At least for short periods of time.”
“It just seemed to come to me naturally when the General brought the armor here.” The steel monster that was Al had recovered his helmet from Izumi, and rather sheepishly proceeded to replace it on his shoulders. “I’m sorry I scared you, Winry. But I thought… You told me before that you used to know me like this.”
“I did!” Winry snapped, suddenly angry at the fact that Al would even touch the armor again—much less allow any part of his being to return to that steel prison, even for a moment. “I knew you this way when the one thing you wanted in the world was to get back your real body. And that was before…!”
Before Ed gave everything to make that happen.
Winry managed to halt those words on the tip of her tongue, but perhaps Al was able to fill them in for himself. The helmet bowed sadly, and he moved closer to her with a rattling of steel. When he spoke, his resonant voice was soft.
“I don’t remember that, Winry. All I know is that in my own body, I’m so weak and useless that I… I can’t look for Ed.” Phantom eyes turned to the fragile body in the bed, white soul-light shading to the scarlet of intense emotion. “I’d gladly give it up, and be stuck this way forever—if it just gave me the chance to find him again.”
Tears welled up in Winry’s eyes, and she was only barely able to keep them in check, remembering that Mason had asked her not to cry.
Surely Al felt enough guilt and grief for his brother’s absence, even if he couldn’t remember the terrible events recounted to him by others. He didn’t need her to remind him of the sacrifices made for him—and he didn’t need her protesting his one means of respite from the ailing fraud of a body those sacrifices had won. He only needed her to understand that a wish to trade back what he had gained was not ingratitude, but the highest measure of love.
His body wasn’t what he cared about most, and it never had been. It was always his brother.
So Winry swallowed hard, and breathed deep, and forcibly pulled herself back together. Without looking up, she gently laid her hand on Al’s vambrace—the unfelt touch a token of acceptance. “I’m sorry.”
“No… I’m sorry. I should have thought about how you’d feel. I just—I want to enjoy having you here, Winry. It’s so hard now in my own body.” Al hesitated, and finished with an audible reluctance: “But I’ll go back to it now, if you want me to.”
Winry wasn’t quite sure the mist had cleared from her eyes, but she met his gaze nonetheless, and shook her head with a broken smile. “No, Al, it’s okay. If you’re really alright, I can handle it, but…” She wasn’t able to stop the smile, tenuous as it was, from twisting into a worried frown. “Are you absolutely sure you won’t get stranded in that scrapheap again?”
Al’s voice brightened. “Sure I’m sure. That can’t happen without a blood seal. I can go back to my body anytime I want—and if it needs water or food, it’ll pull me back anyway. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stay in the armor for more than a day or two at a time.”
The suggestion that Al had been testing the armor’s limitations frightened Winry.
“A day or two?” She glanced anxiously from Al to Izumi and back again. “This isn’t what’s making him sick, is it?—You’re not… draining your strength away or something by switching between your body and the armor, are you?”
“Oh, no! Using the armor is the only way I have to get away from feeling bad. It has nothing to do with my being sick.” Al paused, and the brief silence was like a thoughtful frown. “It’s kind of hard to explain, but—”
“Alphonse, I think it might be best if I tell her,” Izumi interrupted coolly. “Why don’t you and Mason go out and play with the children on their way home from school.”
It was something more than a suggestion, and although Al’s spiked shoulders slumped a little, he gave his teacher a small bow. “Yes Ma’am,” he said, and turned to follow an equally obedient Mason out of the room.
Winry blinked. “Wait a minute. So… you’re just going to walk away and leave your body here?”
Al looked back, and had he been capable of an expression then, it would have been the flustered incredulity of a child who found it necessary to explain the obvious to an adult. “You didn’t think I’d take it with me, did you?”
He clattered away into the hall, and Winry stared down dazedly at the small, sickly body that lay abandoned on the bed.
It might all have been funny if it wasn’t so unspeakably awful.
“What’s wrong with him, Miss Izumi?”
Winry and Izumi were standing on the rooftop balcony of the Curtis home, looking out over the small patch of grass that constituted the front yard. Al and Mason were down below, making a regular ruckus with a gaggle of neighborhood children. Judging by the way the kids climbed all over them, the armored boy and the strapping young man were the next best thing to a jungle gym—and they seemed to enjoy the sport just as much.
Mason was always playing with children, every time Winry had ever visited. It was one of the things she liked about him.
After a long moment of consideration, Izumi leaned against the parapet with a sigh. “Biologically… nothing is wrong with Alphonse. At the personal request of the Füehrer, the finest doctors in Amestris have examined him, and they couldn’t find a trace of any disease or defect in his body.”
“What? But that’s impossible! How could he be so sick unless…” Winry paused, her wide eyes narrowing slightly. “Wait. You’re not going to try to tell me this is all in his mind, are you?”
“No. What he’s suffering now is very real… but it goes deeper than his body or his mind.” Izumi turned to Winry with shadowed eyes. “Tell me, how much do you know about the blood seal that was on his armor before?”
The young mechanic winced. “I know it was what tied Al’s soul to the armor when his body was gone. I know Ed drew it with his own blood… and he gave up his arm to do the transmutation that made it work. That’s all I know about it, and I don’t even understand that.”
“Through alchemy, Al’s soul was bound to that blood, and the blood was bound to the steel by the iron it contained.” Izumi smiled bitterly. “It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Except that nothing is simple about the soul… especially when someone’s tampering involves two souls instead of one.”
Winry’s heart skipped a beat. “Two souls? What do you mean?” she asked, and saw an oddly demure expression pass across Izumi’s face.
“Honestly, even my understanding of it comes mostly from Al himself. You already knew he could transmute without a circle—and now you’ve seen what he can do with the armor. He may not remember the years of his journey with Ed, but something of the alchemic knowledge he gained in the Gate still comes through sometimes… and then he’s…”
The teacher’s pause, with the hundred possible conclusions that might have hung in it, was perhaps the most frightening thing of all.
At last Izumi broke the spell, with a firm shake of her head. “But that’s beside the point. The point is, a part of him grasped what’s happening to him, and he’s done his best to explain it. In the simplest terms I can give you, Al has grown so weak because something is still missing from his being… and this time, it’s a portion of his soul.”
Those bewildering words were slow to penetrate Winry’s mind, and she could only stare at Izumi. “…What?”
“It was Ed’s mistake again, really.” The faint tremble in Izumi’s voice was the hard edge of a laugh, and a little bit of something else. “Of course he didn’t know it then, and it can’t be helped now—but when he used his own blood for the seal, he managed to get himself tangled up in the transmutation. Instead of bonding to the blood seal on the armor… a part of Al’s soul bonded to him instead.”
Winry’s knees suddenly felt like water. She stumbled backward, and it was only her good fortune that a patio chair was there to catch her.
“Did Ed…” She swallowed hard. “Could he have known?”
“Obviously not. If he’d known he was carrying a fragment of Al’s life inside him, he wouldn’t have been so boneheaded about risking his own.” Izumi attempted a wan smile, but it faltered, and she sighed. “No, Ed would never have realized it—but it might account for the trouble Al felt he had with his memory, even before he regained his body and lost those five years.”
“But how could missing a part of his soul have made his body so sick now? Why didn’t it affect him like this before?”
“The reason is simple enough. The force of life itself is in the soul—and when it was bound to the armor, Al’s compromised soul didn’t have to bear the strain of supporting an organic body. But now that he has a body of flesh and blood again, with all its amazing complexities…” Izumi’s eyes darkened, and she looked away. “His soul just isn’t strong enough to sustain it.”
The implication underlying those words nearly stopped Winry’s heart. She clutched the arms of the chair, feeling herself begin to tremble.
“Miss Izumi… what’s going to happen to him?”
Izumi turned to gaze down at Al. To his delight, a little girl had brought a cat into the yard; one of Chiko’s kittens all grown up, Winry thought distantly. Al laughed as the friendly animal rubbed against his greaves.
“He’s dying, Winry.”
The words were like the sudden ending to a step off a cliff. Something clenched up tight in Winry’s chest, and she wanted to cry now… but no tears would come.
“The end is very near. His body needs more strength than his soul can provide, and without that… it will just keep feeding on itself until it kills him.” The teacher hesitated. “A week’s time may be too much to expect.”
“Does he know?” Winry asked faintly, and heard the words as if someone else had spoken them from far away.
“Oh yes. As I said, he understands it all better than I do.”
“But… isn’t there something we can do? Some way to replace what he’s missing—or get it back?”
“There’s nothing in the world that can replace the soul. You know what happened when Ed and Al tried.” Izumi turned to face Winry, looking tired and worn and far older than her years. “Only regaining exactly what he’s lost could save him. He thinks if he could reach Ed somehow, his soul would reabsorb the missing piece of itself, and he could recover. But…”
“But Ed is gone,” Winry whispered.
It was useless to deny it any longer. Ed was gone—and soon Al would be gone. Her best friends. Her brothers.
“…There’s still one chance.”
At the sound of those unexpected words, the tightness around Winry’s heart suddenly became a little less painful. She raised her head to stare at Izumi in desperate hope, blinking through tears she hadn’t even realized were streaming down her cheeks.
“It may not work—and you won’t like it. I told you how Al’s incomplete soul was able to survive when it was attached to the armor, without the stress of a body drawing life from it. Even now, if he was to give up the flesh he can no longer maintain, it’s possible his soul could live on by the same means as before.” Izumi lowered her eyes. “That’s why, in a few more days… he’s going to attempt a blood seal.”
A rush of instinctive horror swept through Winry. “You mean… he’ll try to permanently attach his soul to the armor again?”
“Yes.”
“But isn’t that human transmutation? It cost Ed’s arm before—who’s going to pay the price now?”
“I promise you, we’ve thought it all out carefully. No one else is going to be involved. He’ll use his own blood for the seal, and his body will be the material for the transmutation. He has no reason not to sacrifice it now, because he can’t exist in it much longer either way.” Izumi shook her head gravely. “Binding his soul with his own blood might not even work, or a hundred other things might go wrong—but if we do nothing, it’s certain he will die. His only hope of surviving is to go back into the armor… and this time it will be for life.”
The crushing heartache closed in again, and Winry’s head sank into her hands.
“So that’s it, then.” Her voice was a tremulous whisper. “Even if it does keep Al alive, he’ll be the way he was before. He’ll never sleep or eat or be able to feel anything again… and now he won’t even have Ed to give him hope.” She raised brimming eyes that desperately asked Izumi for an answer to make sense of the pain. “What’s going to be left for him at all?”
With a gentle sadness, Izumi stepped closer. Her hand came to rest on Winry’s shoulder.
“The strength to go on looking for Ed,” she answered. “You were wrong. Ed is his hope… and in a terrible way, I think it would be a relief for Al to leave behind the body that’s held him back from searching. The one thing he wants to live for is his brother—because he truly believes Ed is still alive.”
Winry sniffled and inhaled deeply, forcing up the courage for a question she feared the answer to. “Do you?”
A heavy-hearted smile crossed Izumi’s lips for only a moment. She straightened and turned away, to watch the antics taking place in the yard.
“Al has dreamed of Ed almost every night. He’s told us that in his dreams, Ed was the age he would be now, wandering in great cities, studying in the libraries—always alone. And knowing that a part of Al’s soul was with Ed, I… I wanted to hope…”
“That what Al dreamed was real?” Winry breathed.
Although Izumi’s back was turned, a visible shudder passed through her shoulders.
“Three days ago, Al woke up screaming from a nightmare he couldn’t remember. After that, his condition suddenly grew much worse… and he hasn’t dreamed of Ed since.”
With those words, the last fragile thread of hope Winry had nurtured was broken… and for the first time, she knew Ed was truly dead. She was sure of it because something within Al himself finally knew, even if he would refuse to accept it; even if his own hope was his one reason to exist.
“I see,” she said faintly. And she rose from her chair, because that pointless effort of movement was the only way to calm her sudden, intense desire to hit something.
Mostly Edward.
“I’m not going to stand in the way of Al’s hope… and as long as I have anything to say about it, no one will.” Izumi’s voice was suddenly hard, like a warning. Then her tone softened just as quickly, and she managed a painful smile.
“But for now, all that matters is to give him as much happiness and comfort as possible. At least he knows what it’s like to be in the armor, and he’s preparing as best he can to live with it permanently—but he’s also taking his last chance to experience the senses of his body. That’s part of why we sent for you, Winry. At first he didn’t want us to tell you until it was all over… but he wants to taste your apple pie, one more time.” At long last, a trace of mistiness crept into the iron-willed teacher’s eyes. “You will make it for him, won’t you?”
“Of course,” Winry whispered.
She told herself firmly that she wouldn’t cry anymore. For Al’s sake, she couldn’t. She scrubbed her fists over her damp eyes and cleared her throat, inwardly attempting to build a wall around the misery in her heart. “Can I… just have a few minutes alone?”
The older woman nodded, reaching out to give Winry’s arm a gentle squeeze. “I’ll ask Mason to start peeling the apples,” she said, and turned to go inside.
At the threshold, she was stopped by Winry’s voice, strained and numb with a grief that was simply too much to feel all at once.
“I’m kind of surprised. I didn’t think you’d approve of another human transmutation for anything… not even Al.”
Izumi did not look back, but her shoulders tensed, her left hand gripping the doorpost tightly. She was silent for a long moment, and Winry was strangely glad the look on her face was hidden.
“I can’t lose them both,” the teacher replied softly, and disappeared into the house.
Winry stayed where she was on the balcony for what felt like a long time. Children’s laughter continued to drift up from the yard, and at some point she heard Izumi at the door, calling Mason in for kitchen duty. Shadows were growing longer as the sun moved lower in the sky.
Finally, moving in a daze, Winry went inside and made her way downstairs to the kitchen—and she halted in the doorway as she saw Mason at the table. He was bent diligently over a heap of apples with a paring knife, and a woman’s ruffled pink apron that was far too small for him was stretched over his muscular chest.
And Winry started laughing, high hysterical peals of it, and she couldn’t stop herself; not even when she choked on the laughter, and it turned into dry, gasping sobs of uncontainable sorrow that wracked her entire body.
Mason dropped the knife and hurried to her. Strong hands seized her shoulders, and without a word he pulled her hard against him, wrapping his arms around her so tight she barely had the breath to cry anymore.
That was something else she liked about the Curtises. They rarely gave hugs, but when they did, their hugs were great and mighty.
“Two years…” she breathed against the fabric of that ridiculous apron, leaning into his arms. “Is that all Ed bought with his life? Two years for Al to live in a body he’s become too sick to even use? Where’s the Equivalent Exchange in that?”
“Shh…” Mason whispered soothingly, brushing his cheek against the top of her head. “I know it doesn’t make any sense. I guess we’ll never understand. All we can do is try to keep Al alive and make him as happy as we can… because that’s what Ed would want.”
What Ed would want…
The words gave Winry pause.
From the time they were small children, Ed always used to hate it when she cried. He would squirm and cross his arms and look away from her, with that awkward expression on his face that said he would rather be anywhere else. Once she had even become angry at him for never crying himself; but now she understood. She understood why he didn’t cry, or dwell on the past, or even let himself rest.
All of those things wasted time he could devote to taking care of his brother.
He wouldn’t cry now either, if he were there. He’d pick himself up and throw every fiber of his being into doing whatever he could for Al… and that was exactly what he would want Winry to do in his place.
She sniffed and straightened, gently pulling herself out of Mason’s comforting embrace.
“I’m okay now,” she said quietly. “Let’s get to work on those apples.”
Alchemy was beyond her, but there was one thing she could do. Alphonse wanted apple pie—and Winry was going to see to it that he had as much as he could eat.
Enough for a lifetime…
© 2011 Jordanna Morgan
Chapters: 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4 :: 5 :: 6 :: 7 :: 8 :: 9 :: 10 :: 11 :: 12 :: 13 :: 14 :: Epilogue ::
no subject
Date: 2011-04-12 03:13 am (UTC)I am confused about one thing about the dhampirs. It's always been my understanding that it was vampires who couldn't bear the light of day while it had only minimal, if any, effect on dhampirs. You've completely switched that around! Any particular reason why you've gone against conventional wisdom like this? :)
More fic soon please!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-12 03:31 am (UTC)As to the sunlight issue: as Noa pointed out and Ed has learned, vampires in this world aren't exactly as folklore claims them to be. I suppose it was a creative choice on my part. I wanted the dhampirs to have that vulnerability (and Noa's sharing of her blood with Ed after the sun burned him was obviously important to the plot). But since the Hunters have found vampires/homunculi here to be seemingly indestructible, it wouldn't have made much sense for them to have that weakness too.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-13 01:56 am (UTC)Big "D'OH!" moment for me here! *^_^* Now that you point it out, it does make sense. Not that I wouldn't mind seeing Envy roasted to a crisp in the noonday sun mind you! ^_^ It doesn't make me wonder tho how the vampires of legend and lore survived/adapted to/got around this particular weakness. :)
I meant to compliment you on the last line of chapter 3! "Such, it seemed, was the supper of the damned." Damn that was good! :D Real visceral that line, brought it all home all too clearly. It was as if Ed drinking that bottle of blood was the final acceptance of his death, the acceptance of a whole new existance. I almost shed a tear at that.
Lastly, where did you get your Blood Ties icon? Was it made from fanart? I'd love to see it! I can almost make out fangs in Ed's mouth! :D
no subject
Date: 2011-04-13 02:56 am (UTC)Your interest in my icon is also a compliment, because it's an image manipulation I made myself. (Same with baseball!Ed in the icon I'm using here.) You can see full-size versions of the manips here, at my personal archive of FMA creative stuffs. And yes, those are indeed fangs. *g*
There is real fanart from the
no subject
Date: 2011-04-14 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-14 02:19 am (UTC)You are evil.
Date: 2011-04-13 05:01 am (UTC)That said, imagine the rest of this review as incoherent babbling while I sniffle and whimper and cry holding an Alphonse plushy.
So there. ;_;
::sits back and waits for the next installment::
Re: You are evil.
Date: 2011-04-13 05:16 pm (UTC)