Back Together Again: Roy/Maes fic, Chapter 3

[harmonyopc]

TITLE: “Back Together Again”
GENRE: Yaoi/Drama
RATING: Overall Hard-R to light NC-17 (or just M, if you prefer) for violence, language, sexuality and adult concepts
WARNINGS: Violence. Grief/PTSD. Sexuality (including some borderline non-con). Angst/Darkfic. Hughesmunculus. And finally: THIS FIC MAY CONTAIN HETEROSEXUAL SEX. <-- consider yourself warned!
PAIRING(S): HUGHES/ROY!!!!! (with a dab of Hughes/Gracia and a pinch of Roy/Gracia - sorta)
SUMMARY: A still-grieving Roy Mustang is visited by a ghost made flesh - a ghost in the form of Maes Hughes! Did Roy actually succeed in bringing back his dead best friend using alchemy … or is he being haunted by a homunculus?
DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Ms. Arakawa, I just take them out to play.

This Chapter contains fanart by the lovely  greenfire_mantl . She also designed the icon I used in this post. :) Her deviantart site is http://solusauroraborealis.deviantart.com/ .


Chapter Three: Distracted

Tonight I’m screaming like an animal

Tonight I’m losing control

Tonight I’m screaming like an animal

Tonight, oh I’m getting so low

And all I want is to be with you again

Yeah, all I want is to hold you like a dog

All I want is to be with you again

With you again, just to hold you like a dog…

-          “All I Want”, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (the Cure)




To Mustang’s surprise, he did not fall apart.

Instead, he picked up the letter and examined it. The inkstrokes. The punctuation. The choice of words. Everything. Could it be a fake? He put his head to the paper and inhaled deeply through his nose. He could not smell anything but ink.

He could pull out some of his friend’s old letters, letters he had packed away in one special crate, but hadn’t looked at in years. He could compare.

But he already knew. Maes wrote this.

That’s impossible, his heart gibbered. He’s dead, he’s gone, we’ve mourned him …

All right, his scientific, alchemist-mind replied calmly. You tell me which is truly impossible: Maes, who you thought was dead, turning out to be alive, or re-created as a homunculus; OR, someone being able to FAKE Maes’ handwriting and an extremely intimate knowledge of your recent and distant past.

Maybe I did it, his heart countered. If I’m losing my mind, I could have easily written myself a goddamn letter and then forgotten it...

In his handwriting. While you were at work. Sure sounds plausible to me.

Gracia, his heart threw out desperately.

Would never do this, his mind admonished. And doesn’t have a key … although …

The last person we gave a key to … his heart reminded.

Was Maes, his mind finished quietly. Not that that makes any difference. For one thing, you weren’t living here back then. For another, a skilled alchemist could transmute one of your walls to get in, and you’d never know.

Maes isn’t an alchemist, his heart said stubbornly. When his mind didn’t protest, his heart sighed. Okay, you win … for now. A thrillshock shot painfully through Roy’s body. Still alive maybe … back from the dead … oh …

Or a homunculus. We will compare the old letters, his mind said sternly. Later.

Later, his heart agreed.

For now, he thought, with some of the internal debate resolved, it might be a good idea to make sure the house is really empty.

Roy looked up at his watch. The whole ordeal had taken three minutes and thirty-six seconds.

He shoved the letter, together with his letter to Maes from that morning, inside the writing desk, closed the desk’s top, pocketed his watch, and strode from the room without a backward glance.

He checked the rice. It was ready.

“Ah, Alphonse,” he called out casually, removing the pot from the heat. “Would you mind getting us a couple of plates and cups? I need to change and get this uniform hung up.”

“Sure,” Alphonse chirped back, and Mustang heard a book close with a thump. The teen brushed past him into the kitchen, opening and closing one cabinet after another, never bothering to ask Mustang where he kept which kinds of dishes. Again, with a pang, Mustang was reminded of the other brother; it was so something Ed would do, rushing right in, never asking for help. He smiled softly to himself and padded down the hall to his bedroom.

True to his word, he changed into house-clothes, threw his shirt and underclothes in the hamper, and hung up his uniform … but not before checking every corner of the room, the underside of the bed, and the closet. No one was hiding. The window was locked. From the look of the thin layer of dust on the lock, it had not been opened recently.

He also stopped briefly in the little guest bedroom - if Alphonse saw him, he could just say he was making sure everything was in order. No one was hiding there, and there was no sign that anyone had entered or disturbed anything.

The washroom yielded the same results … not that anyone could have hidden there. Or in the linen closet. A turkey couldn’t hide in there, Mustang thought ironically.

He did wash his hands before returning quickly to his dining table. It was a practical drop-leaf affair, with a no-nonsense plain white tablecloth draped over it. With the leaves down, as it was now, two could eat comfortably.

Alphonse had found plates and glasses as well as silverware. For some reason Roy could not fathom, the boy had chosen wineglasses instead of regular drinking cups, and pulled Roy’s finest Xingian dishes from the top shelf rather than the ordinary plates.

Al saw his raised eyebrow and said, “I just … thought they looked fancy.”

Roy stared at him and blinked for a moment, then laughed. After another moment, Al joined him.

Roy emptied the vegetables and meat into one giant serving-bowl, the rice into another. He placed both bowls between them on the table and bade Al dig in.

Al didn’t need to be encouraged further. He ate enough for any two people his size and asked for more water so often that Roy finally just left the water-pitcher on the table so the young man could serve himself. Roy ate moderately but neatly, as was his habit. Between the two of them, they finished all the food, which left Roy feeling like a good host. Against his better judgment, he opened one of his nicer bottles of wine and poured himself a glass (once he had drunk the remainder of the water in the glass, of course). Alphonse didn’t look at him or at the wine; Roy couldn’t tell whether he wanted any.

“I know you’re technically still a boy, Al,” Roy said gruffly, “but the way I see it, if you count the years you were in armor, that gives you a leg up … if you want, I will pour you a little.”

Alphonse tilted his head to the side, looking thoughtful. “Um, sure,” he said. “Thank you.” He pushed forward his empty glass. His expression, for once, was unreadable.

Roy poured Al half a glass and sat back in his chair. Mustang didn’t drink right away, and neither did Alphonse. For the moment, the gregarious youngster seemed to have run right out of words.

Finally Roy broke the ice. He brought the wineglass to his nose and inhaled as he had been taught, holding in the aroma as he took a small drink. Setting the glass back on the table, he said,

“So … what’s really on your mind?”

Alphonse copied his gesture with the wineglass and then leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He stretched out his long legs under the table and folded his hands behind his head. “How’d you know?” he asked quietly, getting directly to the point. That was like Ed too, Roy thought helplessly.

“I’m not a General for nothing, Al,” he replied just as quietly. “Back at Central Headquarters, I saw. You need to talk. I will listen.”

Al’s eyebrows drew together; he pursed his lips thoughtfully, looking down at the table as though it were going to tell him something. “Gener - Roy, I want you to hear me out. You’re the first person to hear this, and I need you to keep it confidential,” he said. At that last statement, he drew his head up and focused that bright-bronze gaze on Roy’s dark-black one.

Roy nodded once.

“It’s about Brother,” Al continued. “I - I think I need … some help.”

“Alphonse, I’ve told you everything I remember from being your brother’s commanding officer,” Roy reminded him gently. “And you wrote it down. Probably word for word, at the speed your pen was flying. I really don’t know anything about where he could be.” Roy congratulated himself for speaking about Ed in the present tense; he was personally convinced that Edward was dead, but he knew Al became visibly upset when other people said so.

“Not that kind of help.” Alphonse drew in a deep breath and took a gulp of the wine, nearly finishing his small portion. “I know I’ve told you this before and I know no one believes me, but … I know Brother is alive. He’s somewhere else, but he’s alive, and … he’s searching for me just as hard as I’m searching for him.”

“The dreams?” Mustang queried. “Still going on?”

“More than that,” Al continued earnestly. “It was when I was … in the country. With Russ and Fletch. Something came back to me.”

Mustang blinked. “Came … back?”

“Yeah.” Alphonse closed his eyes, and Mustang was startled to see tears leaking from the corners. “From when … from inside the Gate.” He stopped.

Mustang said nothing. He knew exactly what Al was talking about. He found it so ironic that he knew, now that he had lost the use of his alchemy, what the Alchemy texts meant when they obscurely referred to “the Black Gate” or “the Forbidden Passage” or “the Veil Between”. But he had never told Alphonse about his own experience.

“It started with the stars,” Al continued. “I mean … I mean real stars. The same ones you can see in our sky. But there were so many. And there was more…” He stopped again. “There is more to them. You know that some of what look like stars from here are actually planets, we know that because of ancient astronomy and modern far-viewing telescopes. But…” he stopped again.

Roy said nothing. He barely breathed. The Gate. What a different experience he had had…

“Sensei told me that one time, Brother said he received almost the entire spectrum of human knowledge while he was in the Gate. But then the gate … took its toll.” Al drew a deep breath. “That … didn’t happen to me.”

“Wh-why not?” Roy demanded. “You didn’t …” he stopped.

“Hold on. Let me start with when my memory came back,” Al said in a rush. “In Xenotime, I walked outside one night after Russ and Fletch had gone to bed. We were in this cabin we built, out in the middle of the fields - made it easier to work with the plants if we lived among them. And there was no light. Not even the moon. I looked up at the stars. It was just me and them. Nothing else was moving … and I remembered.”

Roy didn’t dare breathe.

“I was the Stone, Roy,” Al said, and his voice trembled with a reverence and wonder Roy had never heard the boy express before. “There was Brother’s soul, right outside the Gate. I touched him and told him that his body was waiting, drew a link between the two that could not be broken, placed in my intentions for his body to be whole by the time the soul reached it. The Gate felt my transmutation beginning. It opened, it gave me what I had asked, and at the same time, I stepped through. I felt Brother leaving the Circle, and I knew my transmutation was working. The gate closed behind me, and there was only darkness.” He paused, and this time he made no attempt to stop the flow of tears. His voice thickened. “I didn’t feel anything … I was calm. Stars. I saw the stars. I saw the planets, I saw our planet, its creation, its destruction in a million different possible ways, animals and humans, our sun, all the suns, all of it. Everything was whirling, but at the same time everything was so still. Everything was the past, but at the same time it was the future, and the whole thing was … encompassed in … the present. Everything was now.

“The black creatures, I remembered them from before, but they didn’t notice me, and I didn’t really pay attention to them. They were … part of the … they were threads in the fabric. And … so was I. I wasn’t an intruder this time, and they had no intention of harming me.

“Then I felt the Gate open behind me. The calmness, the peace, the stars, all started to fade away. I could feel time again. I could feel something, something pulling me out of this perfect calm. The Gate, the inside of it, it isn’t the bad place, Roy … it’s outside the Gate that there is chaos, death, everything … and when we see it from out here … it looks like chaos to us, but that’s just because - ”

“Because we can’t understand it while we’re here,” Roy broke in. He was holding back his own tears with a monumental effort. “I … I think I can see what you mean.”

“Yeah,” Alphonse said. His head hung low for a few more heartbeats; then he looked up.

“It was Brother,” he said reverently. “I could feel his power, his signature. It was his transmutation, taking all that I am, my … essence, my self, back out of the Gate. I tried to scream at him to stop, that I belonged here, but I had no … voice. No lungs. And then …” He trailed off.

“Then,” Mustang said, “You woke up … in your body?”

“Not yet,” Alphonse said roughly. He continued to weep, without appearing to notice he was doing so. “As soon as I was outside the Gate, I could feel my body, just beyond the Circle - pulling me to it. There was no resisting that force. Brother was there, and he smiled at me. He was - running toward the Gate, almost flying, he was so eager. The look on his face was pure joy, joy so great that he couldn’t stand it. And I knew why he was so happy, just as clearly as if he had shouted it in my ear … he wanted to go, wanted inside the Gate with all his heart, because he knew that when he got in, it meant success. That I would be … alive again.”

“So … Alphonse …” Roy’s onyx eye widened. “You’re telling me … you …”

“He did it on purpose,” Al continued in a ragged whisper. “He was whole … he had both arms again, and I know Brother had automail before. But he was so happy to sacrifice … for me.

“I still don’t remember being in the armor. I remember when we tried to transmute Mom, and I remember waking up in a place I’d never seen and asking that lady - Rose - where Brother was and then we had to get out all the sudden and then I met Russell and Fletcher. For the longest time … that was all I knew. But I remember the Gate now, too. And …”

Al trembled like a wet puppy. Mustang waited patiently, feeling profoundly grateful that he was the first human being to have heard this story.

“And I know where Brother is right now,” he said quietly. “I saw it … in there. The place I’ve been dreaming about … it’s just one of many. One of thousands, maybe … but it’s very close. Closer than any of the others. But my point is … it’s a real place. It’s not just something I dreamed up.” He looked up at Mustang with red, defiant eyes. “I know if Brother can get there, so can I. And I want you to help me.”

“Al,” Mustang said, a bit distantly, “You realize what you just told me … if your memory is correct, that means you are - ”

“A created human,” Alphonse said. “Brother’s creation, maybe even? Yeah. I know.” He paused. “But there is no way in hell you can tell me I don’t have a soul.” Al didn’t say the word homunculus. He didn’t have to.

“That’s - not what I meant,” Roy said. Maes … Maes, oh … if I had only done it right… but I didn’t have your soul right there and handy, like Ed did … no, it can’t be… “What I am trying to say is … your soul - it’s not really attached to your memories, is it? The two can exist independently, I know that very well,” and here he smiled, remembering the echoing, disembodied voice inside the huge suit of armor. “So what if your memory of the Gate is false?”

Al opened his mouth, then shut it; then opened and shut it again. He reminded Roy of a fish. Roy would have laughed if the situation had been even one whit less serious.

“Roy,” he said finally. “I can’t tell you how I know. I just do. I guess,” he laughed a little, “if you want proof, well, I can transmute without circles now … and I can transfer part of my soul into other things, and yet not lose any of my soul … at least, not yet ...” He looked thoughtful. “I can’t prove my memories are real, any more than I can prove … hell, that this entire conversation isn’t a dream. But …” He looked earnestly into Roy’s face. “Have you ever had something in your life happen to you that you had no explanation for? Something that you knew was real, but you couldn’t prove?”

Oh … oh. Yes, he had. How very much he had … He saw Maes’ face again, unbidden, felt his breath in his ear, his lips so gentle on his throat … Roy felt like the wind had just been knocked out of him. His control cracked. His eye stung with unshed tears, and he gasped for breath.

“Roy? Roy? General Mustang?” Al’s voice was low and urgent. “What is it?” A warm hand was insistent on Roy’s back.

Roy paid no mind to Alphonse. Only one thing stood out clearly to him. Prove. Proof. He couldn’t believe he had missed it. When he’d gone into his bedroom to change, scoured the room for signs of a break-in, how had he failed to notice that the Ouroboros ring was gone?

He hadn’t taken it with him to HQ, he knew. He had not moved it after his initial breakdown; he’d placed it back on the nightstand and continued to rock in grief on his bed.

“Oh …” he choked out. “By all the gods…”

“General - what’s going on? Are you ill?” Roy shook his head. “In pain?” Another headshake. “Roy - please, talk to me. What is wrong?”

It was the genuine concern in the young man’s voice that brought Mustang back around to full awareness. He had to pull himself together. He couldn’t, couldn’t let Al know…

“I - I’m sorry,” he gasped. “Just - a minute. Wine - went down the wrong pipe.”

It was a transparent lie. Mustang hadn’t taken a drink anytime recently. But Alphonse didn’t say anything. Roy was quite grateful.

After a long moment, during which Roy tried and failed to hold his tears back completely, Al said quietly:

“What is it really, Roy?”

Mustang shook his head. This was one matter on which, no matter how much Al had just trusted him, Roy could not spill his heart in return. I’m not an alchemist anymore, anyway, he thought bitterly. Equivalent exchange doesn’t apply here.

However, Al was more perceptive than Roy gave him credit for. “You do understand, don’t you. Something happened, didn’t it? Something you couldn’t explain? But you know was real. Didn’t it. Didn’t it?!”

Roy took a deep breath. He mastered himself. “Alphonse Elric,” he said formally, and felt the young man stiffen behind him. “Please sit down. I promise you, I am fine. And … yes …” He stopped. “I’ve decided I’d like to help you,” and here he looked up at Al, “if I can.”

He knew Al was not entirely satisfied with his answer, but that the last sentence would distract him enough to leave the other subject, like a child shown a shiny new toy.

“Oh, General,” he breathed, and his eyes shone. “Will you really?”

And at that point the young man broke down again in tears of his own.

They left for Liore the very next morning. Mustang spent the better part of an hour on the phone with Hawkeye, arranging matters so that he could be off for a few days (Alphonse was entirely confident that it would take no longer than that). When she inquired about his destination, and he told her, there was a long silence followed by a fifteen-minute debate about whether he needed military escort. At his solemn assurance that he would be quite well-protected already, she finally gave in, though not at all gracefully.

Next came the call from Al to Pinako and Winry. The call took only a few minutes, and Roy (who was loading a few last-minute things into his suitcase) could guess the reason. Alphonse hadn’t told them what he was planning. He wouldn’t want them to worry. That was so like him … and so like Ed.

Throughout everything, Mustang was in a strange kind of daze. He was like a man walking in a dream as they boarded the train and settled into the private car allowed Roy by his rank (he had no qualms about taking the trip in uniform if it meant they would get the perks). It was still like a dream when they settled in for the first leg of their long journey; the dream continued as the hours passed in deep conversation, or sleep, or reading books and newspapers. In a dream, Roy watched the cities and towns pass, become countryside.

And yet a deep, persistent unease beat in Roy’s heart. It wasn’t about his home or possessions. Alphonse had locked and shielded Roy’s home with alchemy, and Roy would like to see anyone or anything get through that defense. His worry was not for himself, but for his friends and comrades … though Maes, homunculus or resurrected or whatever the hell he was, would not have any reason to approach them. Nothing had been seen or heard of any of the (other?) homunculi for years, but those close to Mustang knew about them, and (in the case of Envy) about their potential shape-shifting power. Unlike Roy, they would have no reason to accept that this person was really Maes Hughes and would very likely shoot him on sight.

But still … Maes was out there. Somewhere. Or something that looked like him. And talked like him. And remembered Roy as only Maes could. So … in what way was he not really Maes? Was it because if he was a homunculus, he didn’t have a soul? What the hell was a soul, really? If he was soulless, how did he walk and talk and … do the other things he did? If Alphonse was created, or at least put back together, by Edward, how could anyone be certain Al had a soul? Because he had childhood memories? Because his personality was the same as it had been when he was in the armor? Was a soul nothing more than a personality or memories? Or an arcane spark that animated a body and mind?

The Ouroboros ring spoke volumes to Roy’s logical mind, but his body and heart would hear nothing of these arguments; his body remembered only the touch, the heat, the delicious feel of his best friend in his arms, and his heart heard only the whispered offer in the letter he’d found: Do you want to do it again?

They arrived in on the last wagon from the train station nearest Liore, dusty and tired, and checked into a hotel that was finer than anything Mustang had expected to see this far east. Just glancing around, he could tell that the small city was almost completely restored from the damage it had taken during what the military termed “The Liore Incident”. The citizens looked hardy but cheerful. Their glances at him and Al were curious, rather than suspicious or distrustful.

They were too tired for much conversation that night; they shared a room (when Mustang offered to get Al his own room, Al refused, saying they wouldn’t be here that long). Alphonse took a quick bath while Mustang hung up his uniform along with a clean dress shirt, and lay out civilian clothes for the next day. Then it was his turn in the bath. By the time he emerged, Al was curled puppy-like into a small ball on the little makeshift sofa, fast asleep with his head pillowed on his brother’s red coat. Mustang thought about waking him, but Al looked so comfortable. Roy sighed. He draped a blanket over the young man, turned out the lamp, and crawled gratefully into the bed, being sure to stay on one side of the mattress in case Alphonse awoke in the night and decided he was tired of the tiny sofa. What a tame, civilized creature I have become, he thought, remembering the creaky little cots he and Hughes had somehow managed to share in their camp tents in Ishbal, or their younger academy days when he would fall asleep on his back on the concrete floor of one of their dorm rooms, his book on his chest and his head propped up on Maes’ leg …

Swathed in memories of his best friend, he fell into the arms of sleep, and sleep held him in a silent vigil, keeping away the dreams.

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” growled Mustang.

“Yeah,” Alphonse shot back over his shoulder. He wormed his way through the clustered citizens of Liore; there was some kind of gathering going on, but Al barely seemed to notice. “This is what I saw,” Mustang heard him mutter. “Hmmm… that statue wasn’t here, though…”

Mustang looked up. To his startled amusement, there was a life-size statue of Alex Louis Armstrong, every muscle carved in distinct relief … only his sparkles were missing, Roy thought with a grin. He’d heard that Alex had retired from the military and gone into local politics, but this was the first direct evidence he’d seen. He had endured far too many lectures on The Artistic Alchemy Passed Down Through the Armstrong Family Line for Generations to have any doubt who the sculptor was.

And there was the man himself! He was shaking hands, kissing babies, and working his way toward a makeshift stage where it looked like someone was to give a speech. Roy almost waved before he realized that would make him stand out … not that the presence of Al dressed in the very distinctive clothing of a boy who had been missing for years would help that problem. He wished he’d thought of that before they left the hotel.

To Mustang’s surprise, Alex kept his shirt on throughout the entire speech. He was there to demonstrate a promise to the people of Liore, to improve the town and make it ever more secure and prosperous. At the conclusion of the little speech, he struck the ground with his iron glove. A newly-remodeled shop sprang up, crowned by a giant metallic monument depicting him in all his half-naked glory. The people cheered and Alex beamed and bowed in return. They really did seem to love him, Roy thought.

In the excitement, Mustang had lost track of Al. He turned in time to see the small red-coated figure treading the outside of a huge carven-and-paved area in the ground - the shapes were circular but it was clear this was the true town square. Oddly enough, few people walked across it. People did not seem afraid of it - rather, they treated it like another monument or work of art. Mustang looked over at Al again. He was still examining the area in the ground. Roy turned back and sought Alex through the crowd. He was sure if anyone could help them, it would be Armstrong.

A sudden loud, solid clap of hands caught his attention. He turned back to Alphonse, who was placing both hands on an array that had appeared out of nowhere. It responded with a bright, bluish glow, as though it recognized his touch.

“Alphonse! AL! What are you doing?” Roy shouted at the top of his lungs, and sprinted toward the boy.

He was not even halfway there when the ground started to shake. People screamed and stumbled around, heading in all different directions. Alphonse’s head was bowed in intense concentration; not once did he look up.

Out of the corner of his eye Roy saw the huge figure of Armstrong muscling his way toward Al as well.

And then all hell broke loose.

The ground opened where the array had been, and the sky opened as well, and between the two, out of the whirling chaos, came giant suits of armor that looked nothing like any Amestrian armor Roy had ever seen. The suits were so large they dwarfed Alphonse’s former armor-body. Their heavy steps shook the earth.

Armstrong, whose military training had never gone astray, went to work immediately, punching and alchemizing the armored figures into unconscious lumps. Weaving in and out of the huge, lumbering armor-suits was little red-coated Al, clapping and slapping, transferring his will and his soul into these alien beings with utter calm confidence, then watching the suits he had touched fight each other until they fell, flailing at the air like overturned turtles.

Then Alphonse froze, his eyes wide as saucers, focused on something on the ground. He was clearly oblivious to the remaining suits of armor approaching him. His arms fell uselessly to his sides. He screamed, a shrill, piercing sound that cut through all the other noise and chaos, and fell to his knees.

Mustang was still nowhere near the circle, and even if he were, he had no alchemy to fight with. Even a gun would be worse than useless. He bellowed helplessly, “ALPHONSE, BEHIND YOU! WATCH OUT!” He had no idea if Al could hear him. Then someone in the crowd shoved into him almost hard enough to knock him down. He tried to avoid being trampled long enough to get back on his feet. When he finally arose, he saw two things happening. First, Alex was sprinting away from the Circle carrying a person in each of his massive arms, one of whom was Alphonse, the other Mustang didn’t recognize. At the same time, the whirling-chaos-light was returning, the ground and sky opening again, and the suits of armor were being pulled inexorably toward the upper portal.

Mustang, struggling free of the press of people, ran so fast he actually collided with Armstrong. Without missing a stride, the big alchemist tossed Alphonse - who was screaming and struggling - at Mustang, who did not so much catch Al as wrestle him to the ground, and that with some difficulty (Alphonse was strong for one so slender, and Mustang was not a large man).

“LET ME GO!” Al cried, thrashing wildly. “HE’S GOT HIM - HE’S GOT MY BR - LET ME GO!” Alphonse struggled to clap his hands together, and Mustang frantically pinned him, sitting on the boy’s chest with his knees on Al’s elbows. Al shrieked again. That was when Roy noticed that everything had gone quiet … quieter. The ground was no longer moving. There were shouts and sobs and confused voices, but no screams.

“Alphonse,” the General said into Al’s ear. “Come on. It’s over. Calm down.” Maes had always told him that the best way to soothe a horse was to hold its head and speak quietly into its ear. He joked that it worked almost as well on a human. He had used that technique to quiet Mustang’s hot temper more than once.

Al responded to it, too. Abruptly, the fight went out of him. His arms went slack under Mustang’s grip, and his wide eyes stared unseeing at the sky, leaking tears. Roy sprang to his feet and pulled the young alchemist up, shaking him out of his daze. “Not now, Al,” he hissed. “We have to find Armstrong…”

Al’s head shot up, and he tugged on Mustang like a dog on a leash. “B-Brother,” he squeaked. Roy followed his gaze to a spot some fifty yards away, where Alex was crouched over a man Roy didn’t recognize, in strange clothes, with a blond ponytail. He released Alphonse, who flew to Alex’s side with Roy hot on his heels.

Ignoring Armstrong completely, Al fell onto the man on the ground. “Brother, please, wake up, WAKE UP!” he cried piteously, shaking the blonde’s shoulders. “Brother - ”

“Stoppit, Al,” the man said weakly. He batted at the young man with one dirty white glove. “Gettoffa me … can’t breathe.”

“Brother, brother, you’re alive, brother,” Al sobbed. He did not move, but he also did not protest when Alex slung an arm around his chest and lifted him off the blond man. He contented himself with dropping to his knees beside the man and gripping his gloved hand so hard Roy saw Al’s knuckles turn dead white. “Brother, you’re gonna be okay, I swear, you’re alive, you’re - ”

“Ow, I said quittit already,” the blonde responded weakly, slapping at Alphonse with his free hand.

Something about the motion of the man’s arm was restricted, almost mechanical … something about the voice, strong and bossy even though he himself was clearly weak … No, thought Mustang, it can’t be…

The blonde’s eyes opened, and Mustang was looking into twin pools of molten gold.

“Edward?” he whispered. Then, louder, he said, “Fullmetal!?”

“Colonel,” the blonde slurred, focusing on Roy’s face. “Wha’ happened to your eye?”

“Never mind that,” Mustang replied, almost angry. “How’d you survive? Where did you come from? Those suits of armor…”

“The gate…” Edward took a breath. “Is diff’rent … for ev’rybody.”

Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped in Alex’s arms in a dead faint.


Onward to Chapter Four

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