"You are never going to be free of me, Alphonse Elric. You are my brother, you will always be my brother. Life only goes one way, remember. Change is a part of the cycle just as much as birth and death." Ed paused.
"And you do still know how to write letters and use a phone don't you?"
"Am I dead, Al?" Ed asked one night a week later.
"What? What do you mean, Sister?" Al sat up and looked across at Ed in shock.
"Am I dead? Did they declare me dead or just missing?" Ed grinned at his reaction and Al saw the white teeth flash as he groaned and fell back into his pillows.
"You're dead, Ed. There's a statue of you in one of the courtyards at Central. The one in front of the mess hall." Al said with solemn honesty.
"You're joking. They'd never do that." Ed looked affronted.
"They did." Al nodded in affirmation. "I'll show it to you." And just like that he knew he would accompany Ed to Central. If nothing else he owed it to the Brigadier-General and to Ed. It would be the one thing that would give him closure on his efforts of the last four years.
Edward Elric stared out the window. The sun caught in his hair and with his eyes half closed against the afternoon light he seemed totally unaware of the argument between Al and Winry.
"You resigned?! And you never told me?" Winry's voice was rather shrill in her outrage.
"I thought you'd be happy, Winry." Al protested.
"Of course I'm happy, Al but that's not the point! You could have discussed it with me Al. It's a big decision, why didn't you talk to me about it?" Winry was upset, to put it mildly, at being left out of Al's decision making process.
"Because I didn't know what would happen, Winry." Al's voice dropped a tone and his eyes flickered from her to Ed and back.
Winry drew in a breath and looked Al straight in the eyes. "And you should have told me about that too! All this time Al, I thought you trusted me. It's the same old story. You never tell me anything!"
"Because we don't want to hurt you." Ed's voice was soft and almost disinterested as his eyes stayed focused on something outside. Winry and Al turned to look at him.
"After that… Dad left, all we had was Mamma. We did all we could to make her happy. Learning alchemy, doing chores, anything to try and fill the huge hole in her heart that he caused. We know what happens to those left behind, Winry. They suffer. They cry late at night when they think you're asleep. She cried … for him, for us, for herself." The room had fallen silent.
"And then she left us. And we wanted her back, we wanted to fill the empty spaces she left in us. So that we wouldn't cry. When we did what we did … it was selfish and stupid and we failed. Everything … lost." Al lowered his head and looked at the floor as Ed's voice softened further.
"We paid … a terrible price for our sin. You know what our punishment was. You and Granny were the ones who got me … who got us back on our feet." Ed paused for a silent breath. "That one moment of idiocy changed everything. I learnt that I can never, ever take people for granted because in one moment they could be gone."
Pinako watched as Ed spoke, the words coming fluently but hard to hear. Winry had sunk into her chair, her eyes fixed on Ed and her hands gripping together.
"We were children. We were supposed to trust and rely on others for our needs. But the one who meant the most to us was gone. And after that we could only trust ourselves. Every one else would leave us someday. It was our mistake, it was my fault and only we could fix it because we were the only ones we could rely on."
Ed raised his hand and absentmindedly ran his finger over the window in the shape of an array. His voice remained even and soft as if he was not in the process of baring his soul to the room.
"We couldn't trust the military. They would have taken Al apart had they known. I was valuable only because of my alchemy. We used them and Mustang used us. It was a way to achieve our goal. It was the only way. To be in the grip of a terrible purpose means sacrifice, not just for yourself but for the others around you as well."
Al lifted his head and gazed at his sister. Tears hung on his lashes and his grey eyes were filled with an old sorrow.