Leave A Scar

After all was silent, after Al had been taken away by ambulance, I caught Ed by the shoulder. The words were still ringing in his ears, words spoken by an emergency medical technician.

"I'm sorry. You can't ride with him. You'll have to meet us at the hospital."

Ed had gotten angry, and my touch hadn't soothed him like I thought it would.

It...

It was as if he didn't know anyone or anything.

"Edward," Hohenheim spoke his name gravely, as if something had been lost.

But Ed just rolled my touch away with a movement of his shoulder, heatedly glaring at his father.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" he asked. And then, like clockwork, turned to me. "And you—you haven't been to Resembool in years!"

"Re... sem... bool...?"

"Edward," Hohenheim was trying again. "Do you remember seeing a gate at all? Anything to do with white?"

"How do you know...?"

"Al spoke of it," the elder replied, and then Ed peered at both of us.

"Yeah..." he said slowly. "What about it?"

"What did you sacrifice?"

Ed looked at both his hands, curling one then the other. "My hands... One looks a lot weaker than the other. And my legs." He rolled the cuff of his left leg up, exposing thin flesh and bone. "One's definitely in need of some care."

"You..." Everything came together then.

"You sacrificed your memory... Everything you've—we've been through. You sacrificed all the lessons..."

"Yes, Mirah. It appears your right."

"Memory?" Ed repeated quietly, glare fading. "What memory?"

"You sacrificed your arm and leg," his father told him. "You tried to bring your mother back."

"I... I remember Mom died," Ed replied, eyes downcast, searching the rubble like an answer would be there. "But... I lost my arm and leg?"

He stretched out his right arm, a limb that looked a tad bit healthier than any of Al's.

"What else?" he said. "What else was sacrificed?"

"Al's body," I told him. "In the transmutation... Al's body was lost. You bound his soul to a suit of armor, and he just got his body back."

I was unable to keep the smile from my voice, unable to stop the swell of tears in my eyes.

"Fullmetal."

Ed's brow just reached higher in questioning confusion.

"Who the heck are you?" he asked.

Mustang stopped, mouth open, then recovered himself.

"So the news is true. Your memory is gone."

Ed blinked, golden eyes just staring at Mustang.

"I..."

"You were part of the military," Mustang told him, stopping on the outskirts of the small circle we'd created. "A State Alchemist, the equivalent of a major. You were recruited by me, and passed the Exam when you were only twelve."

"I did...?" Ed looked at his weaker arm again, and I just had a memory flash. Myself in a hospital bed, him in a chair, arm in front of him, a sadness tainting his voice as he told me I couldn't be with them anymore.

"Ed..." I looked away from him, down into the opening of my bag. One hand reaching in, retrieving the sketchbook I knew was there.

His first sketch, in all its jagged glory.

"Here." I handed it to him. "You drew this shortly after you, Al, and I re-met at a train station in Lauxotan."

"That's where you moved to..." Ed said quietly, eyes moving around the drawing. "I drew this?"

I nodded, and with only a slight jolt into his hand, I took his fingers, gradually turning the pages with my other hand.

"See?" I stopped on one sketch; the one he had done in Kuijek, me perched on a windowsill with a tree branch behind me. "There was a bird's nest on that tree," I smiled enough for my eyes to truly curve. "It made great background noise!"

"Why would I...?" He looked up to me, words cut short. And I only thought of the most painful memory, the most recent heartache.

"I keep trying to chase that light feeling, whether it's in a word or a sketch or something else..."

Did he feel it?

Did he feel that warmth?

I hope he was doing well, in that hospital.