Chapter Text
Edward wakes up in the Gate.
He isn’t sure how he knows it’s the Gate, but he remembers it at this moment.
The doorway, the clawing arms, the grinning being made of light.
In the same way, he suddenly knows someone is behind him, on the other side, where Truth usually is.
He turns, and sees himself.
At least, he thinks it’s himself.
Edward looks older, and at least a foot taller.
This older version of himself looks just as surprised as he feels.
They stare at each other, confused and unsure of what to even say.
“Are we dead?”
The question leaves Ed before he even realizes he’s thought it. The older him laughs, dry and humorless. There’s something haunted in his eyes.
“Nah, kid, this isn’t what death looks like.”
Weird.
“Okay…are we stuck?” Ed hugs his arms around his stomach, feeling stupidly small and scared.
“You haven’t tried human transmutation again, have you?” Ed shakes his head, finding his body moving closer to the older version of himself on its own accord. “Then there’s no reason for Truth to keep you here. Not for much longer, anyways.”
Older Him pats a hand on his head, smiling softly. It’s hard to believe such a comforting look could be on his own face. He’s always felt more like sharp edges and broken glass than anything soft.
Except for his brother.
Always for his brother.
“You’ll be fine, kid. You just need to wake up.”
“I don’t know how.”
“I’ll sit with you until you do.”
He says it like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like it’s a no brainer to waste his own time getting out of here just to make sure Ed isn’t alone.
“How are you so calm?”
Older Him looks somewhere between sad and resigned.
“I don’t really dream anymore. This is usually where I end up most nights. Well, this or a nightmare.” Older Him sits down easily in front of his Portal of Truth, patting the ground next to him.
“So…I’m just asleep?”
“Unconscious, but yeah.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Big difference, but you don’t need to worry about that right now.”
Ed feels a bit silly, tucking himself close to his older self. He hasn’t hunkered close to anybody like this since…well, since his mom. But there’s no one to judge him here, just himself. And this future version of him doesn’t say anything, just tosses the extra fabric of his brown coat around Ed.
“I find it easier to get back when I think of Alphonse,” Older Him says softly. “Kind of like…a tether, in a way.”
“Think of Al…” Ed mumbles. That was easy. The first thing he’d thought of when he woke up here was where Al was. Actually, that was usually his first thought when waking up. He needed to get back to his little brother, apologize for undoubtedly scaring him. He needed to get his body back. He needed to figure out what was going on in the catacombs.
What was going on with himself.
He startles when he notices his Portal looming close, having moved from the immeasurable distance where it started. A hand squeezes his shoulder.
“Don’t be scared. You’re just going back.”
“I know what’s in there.”
“Not this time. You haven’t made any kind of exchange,” Older Him placates.
“How…how is this possible? Any of this? Is it some kind of trap-” Older Him forces Ed to turn to him, looking at him with heavy eyes and drawn brows.
“The Truth isn’t malicious, Ed. It just…Is.”
That…made sense.
Somehow, it was comforting.
“Now, it’s time to wake up.”
Roy startles when Ed shoots up in bed, panting and looking around wildly.
The boy frantically pats himself down, like he’s…damn. Like he’s checking everything is still there. Roy crosses the room from the visitor chair he was in, laying a hand on Ed’s shoulder.
“Hey, pipsqueak. You’re alright, still in one piece.”
Roy bites the inside of his lip when the jab doesn’t get a rise out Ed.
“Yeah. Yeah, I just-” Ed shakes his head, sighing. “Fuckin dreams.”
Roy snorts, patting the shoulder his hand rests on. Ed’s gaze lingers there for a moment, but he doesn’t seem upset by the touch.
“I bet you had one hell of a sleep, Fullmetal. Passing out near an alchemical array doesn’t seem like a recipe for restful sleep.” The kid blinks up at him, face drawn tight.
“An array? Where?” Roy stares at him for a moment, choosing his approach carefully.
“You remember going into the catacombs?”
“Yeah, we were looking for an alchemist.”
“That’s right. And then…?”
“Uh…you and Breda were talking about a transmutation site…and then…” Ed chews his lip, shoulders hunching as the obvious gaps in his memory unsettle him. Roy sighs, shaking his head.
“I swear, you’re gonna be the death of me, kid. You’re not missing much else. You started leading us all towards the center, said you could feel the alchemy nearby - whatever that means - and when we got to the center, you collapsed.” Roy watches Ed’s reaction carefully, analyzing whether he needs to add levity or bring the kid down to earth. He doesn’t get an answer for either, the kid strangely contemplative.
“What did the array look like?” Ed asks, pulling his legs close to criss-cross them.
“Nothing I nor your brother have ever seen before. He’s at the library researching to see if he can find it.” Roy knew the kid would ask about his brother once his brain caught up to his memory. Better to get it over with now. Ed hums, metal fingers tapping pale blue hospital pants. He yawns, jaw cracking from the stretch.
“I swear, you could sleep your whole life away,” Roy sighs, easing up from the bed.
“Sorry, I’ll-”
“Don’t sweat it, Fullmetal. I doubt you got any meaningful rest. You were unconscious, not asleep. There’s-”
“A big difference. Yeah, I know.”
Roy raises an eyebrow at the kid. He shouldn’t be too surprised, the kid managed to figure out human transmutation from a couple of books at 11 years old. It stood to reason he understood the difference between a consciously chosen restorative state and trauma-induced disruption of brain activity.
“Get some sleep, kid. I need your brain working its best once you’re cleared.”
Ed hums, already sinking back into the sheets. Roy knew they would be kicked off within a matter of minutes - the kid had taken more than enough naps on his office couch.
Roy hits the lights on his way out.
Alphonse paces the shitty hotel room he’d managed to get on the edge of Central.
He felt bad for the MP’s he’d knocked out, but he couldn’t risk anyone seeing their faces.
Those were Amestrian uniforms.
There were more than enough military personnel who still considered Ed a fugitive. Still loyal to Bradley.
Obviously, destroying the portal had gone wrong, somehow. Al just had no idea what to do.
Al was considered an alchemical prodigy, but his brother had always had a much deeper, instinctual understanding of the science that Al couldn’t wrap his head around.
Al still had him beat in hand-to-hand, though.
Alphonse pauses in his pacing when he hears a groan from the bed, whipping around.
“Brother!”
He rushes over, instinctually placing a hand on Ed’s back to help him sit up when he tries - and fails - to push himself.
“Ah, right. Sorry, Ed. Your arm got…messed up.” Al winces when his brother’s head snaps to his mangled automail.
“What the hell?! Did I lose a fight with a trash compactor?!”
Al…has no idea what that is.
He sighs, sitting heavily on the bed next to Ed’s legs.
“A chimera, actually. We’re…back in Amestris, somehow. We were surrounded when I woke up - you were still out of it, though. I…I’m sorry, Brother, I should have been paying more attention-!” Ed flicks his nose before he can finish apologizing. It was an annoying habit he’d picked up.
“Shaddup, Al. You saved my ass - again. I’m not gonna be mad at you for this.” Al knows for a fact that if he were anyone else. He’d be victim to a litany of curses and complaints about expenses and surgery. He guessed being the little brother had its perks.
“...Fine, if you say so.” Al watches Ed, making sure he isn’t about to start vomiting again,
“ED?!”
Al’s thin voice echoes around the empty tunnel, bouncing off skulls and stone.
His brother is retching, unconscious body jerking from the force.
Blood splatters against the ground.
It’s like double vision, the way Teacher’s hunched form overlay’s Ed’s in this moment.
He grips Edward’s shoulders. Hugging him close as he frantically checks his pulse. It’s fast, and a bit thready, but strong and there.
Calm down, Al thinks. This isn’t the first time Ed’s thrown up blood.
His nose is bloody. Maybe busted on the fall or from the stress of the rebound. He could have just swallowed it and his body was rejecting it. Or maybe the blood was from the rebound itself. It had happened before, when Ed had accidentally interrupted an active array, no time to redirect the energy of it. He’d been fine. He would be fine.
He just wishes Ed would wake up.
“Al? Alphonse?”
A hand waves in front of his face, and his brother’s eyes bore into his own.
“Ah, sorry. I was…thinking.”
Ed levels him with an unimpressed stare, a single eyebrow raised. Alphonse thinks he looks a lot like the Colonel. He refrains from saying as much, if only to keep his idiot of a brother from straining himself with a rant.
Al sighs, kind of hating how easily Edward can read him.
“You weren’t…well. I don’t know if it was from the rebound or if you were really hurt, but you kept vomiting. Vomiting blood.” Ed’s face pales a bit at Al’s admission, bottom lip catching in teeth. All these years, and his brother still chewed his lip when he was nervous. “You’re gonna split your lip.”
It’s said quietly. The kind of thing they say to each other when simple nothings don’t feel enough. Ed huffs a small laugh, just an exhale of air through his nose, but it settles something in Al’s stomach.
The room is quiet for a while, the both of them relishing in the safety of the other and the stability of being in a world not at immediate risk of imploding. Ed keeps glancing at him, though, biting the inside of his cheek.
“Ed.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re avoiding something.”
Edward sighs, flopping back dramatically across the bed. It was bigger than a twin bed, the only other option was two separate single rooms, and Al knew neither of them would feel comfortable sleeping separately. Not after everything they’d been through. They’d shared a bed growing up in Resembool, anyway.
“Y’know how I said I don’t dream anymore? That I just see the Gate until it’s time to wake up again?” Al doesn’t interrupt his brother. It was like pulling teeth to get Ed to talk about anything that had happened to him. “I…I saw something weird, this time.”
“Weirder than a giant doorway in an endless white void?” Maybe he shouldn’t be joking at a time like this, but he can’t help himself. It makes Ed laugh, though, and some of the tension leaves his frame, so Al counts it a win.
“Somehow, yeah. I….saw myself. Ages younger, though. Think I was, like, twelve.”
“That…is weird.” Alphonse sighs, sinking back to join his brother in his stretch across the bed. He stares at the water-stained ceiling. “It’s always something with you.”
“You have no idea how badly I want a vacation from the cosmic bullshit.”
That makes Al laugh, a full-bellied laugh that’s felt impossible for the past two years since Ed ‘died.’
“I…I don’t think we're in our Amestris, Al,” Ed mumbles, turning onto his side to face him. “I just…know.”
“The same way you just…know what an array does just by looking at it?"
“Yeah.”
Alphonse looks at Ed for a while, before rolling his eyes.
“I’m getting real sick of your cosmic bullshit.” That makes Ed laugh too. It’s nowhere near his old laugh. The carefree, unapologetic cackle that filled a room. But it’s better than the quiet snorts and scoffs.
Progress, maybe.
“Me too, Little Brother, me too.”