Chapter 3: Moving Forward
"I always knew you weren't dead, Bro… I mean Sister... umm, Ed." Al stuttered as they sat together in the shadowed niche.
"I am still your brother, Al. A few biological alterations won't change that." Ed grunted, not willing just yet to disturb the peace between them.
"You were gone and they said you were dead. But I knew you weren't. You'd never leave, you'd never leave me." Al stressed the word quietly. It had hurt not knowing where his brother was, believing against all hope that he was alive, that he would return. There had been a couple of times when he had reached the point of almost attempting human transmutation again. Mustang had managed to stop him, recognising in time the signs of growing desperation and had later pointed out that if Ed did come back the first thing he did would be to murder his brother for being so reckless and then Mustang for letting him do it. "All this time I kept trying to find you, to find some way to bring you back, or if not, to go to where ever you were." A hint of the gnawing desperation he had felt edged his words.
"You wouldn't have liked it there, Al, trust me." Ed snorted. "Much better for me to come home."
Al shook his head and looked away. "And I couldn't even do that right" he muttered. Al didn't like making mistakes. It was a personal insult to him and his need for theoretical perfection but this one was worse because it had rebounded onto his brother.
"Don't be stupid, Al!" Ed slapped lightly at Al's arm and frowned at him. "I saw that array. It's brilliant, a work of genius. Only you could have done that, only you could have even thought of something so magnificent. The problem wasn't with the array…"
"But it was, Brother! I didn't calculate the correct equivalencies. It's my fault you're not normal. I made a mistake, I was wrong." Equivalent exchange had strict and rigid rules and Al had thought he'd abided by them. Was it the allowances he had misjudged or had it been the materials...? No, he wasn't going to think about that yet.
Ed stood up and moved to stand in front of Al. He began to feel rather angry with his brother. Ed could sense the guilt and blame taking root deep inside Al and he knew exactly how it felt to cause your brother pain. The echo of desperation he had sensed earlier was a double edged sword he knew well. Being desperate doubled your concentration and focus but it could also lead you into error and miscalculation. And that always hurt the people closest to you. Ed had done this to his brother during their first transmutation. His desperation had caused the backlash that had stripped Al of his body. And now Al was trapping himself in the same guilt of thinking that this was all my fault because I was too desperate and reckless. Ed was not about to allow his little brother to suffer that belief.
"I'm not normal?" He hissed at his brother before his voice soared into the night with his arm furiously punctuating every word. "Of course I'm not normal. I've never been normal, Al! We've never been normal! You were a fucking suit of armour, Al! I was half metal! But we were human, Al and we still are." Ed took a deep breath and looked hard at his brother. "Shit happens Al, and it will always happen to us. It is not your fault, Al. Besides as long as we're both here together, does it really matter?"
Al grimaced at his brother's determined face. No matter what Ed might say, Al knew it was his fault. He knew where the blame lay. He had failed and he would be reminded of it every time he looked at his sister.
"Oh no you don't." Ed waggled a finger at him. "Don't you look at me like that and then go and bottle it up inside somewhere. You can't get away with that when I'm here, Brother. Four years it took to get your body back and another four to get us back together. Eight years of our lives, Al. Are you trying to tell me we were wrong to try to correct our mistakes?"
"No, of course not. But Ed, this is different. This is…"
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‼️🎈hello everyone thank you so much for reading this chapter! 🙏 If you'd like to read the full novel "FullMetal Alchemist: Unequal Exchange", you can find it on my Ko-fi page: ko-fi.com in the store section. This fanfic will consist of 10 volumen , this is the 1st Volumen with 49 chapters . 🎈‼️
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