-1Disclaimer: Characters and universe are not mine and no profit is being made off of this.

The Only One Who Could Understand

There was a strong wind blowing outside. It came down from the mountains, flattening any tree it could find and shaking the shutters of the small room like an intruder wanting inside. Edward Elric lay on his back, hands folded behind his head on the narrow cot beneath the window. He knew he should try and sleep but his troubled mind wouldn't seem to let him. In the dim light his eyes kept moving to the dark shape against the wall.

How much had they been through? How many years and how many hardships? And every time it looked like the end was in sight…

Ed sighed and turned onto his side, stretching out his automail arm and looking at it in the fading moonlight. It was nothing compared to what Al looked down and saw. Ed would give it up again in a heartbeat, as many times as needed, to save Al. But it was never enough. Over and over again he replayed the scene in his mind, unable to stop it. Al's body slipping away, his outstretched hand…

Restless, Ed flung himself onto his other side. What if he had lost Al then? What if he hadn't been quick enough, or clever enough or…

What does it matter? It's all your fault anyway, he told himself there in the dark. If you hadn't been so stupid…

But he had been and it was done with and they couldn't do anything else about it. And he was tired of the people who said they understood, the people who acted as though everything was alright. He thought of Winry and he felt a pain in his chest, a surge or irrational anger at the girl who stood beside them at every chance she had.

What does she know? She ought to just mind her own business half of the time. But she was always there, worrying and berating and turning hard and soft with no warning. He remembered being small, and wanting to marry her. Al had wanted to marry her, too. Because she was Winry and she was pretty and smart and they loved her because children love everyone in their life.

Ed had no desire to marry Winry now. Or anyone. Who was there in the world who he could possibly share his life with? What woman could ever understand him and his life? None. His life belonged to Al, and only Al. That was the way it had always been, and he couldn't imagine it any other way. He didn't want to imagine it any other way.

He supposed that was probably wrong. But Al was his and he was Al's, and they'd bound themselves together that way on that horrible, fateful night so many years ago. And they were closer than any man and wife. Closer than any lovers. How could he ever give his body to anyone when his heart and soul was already spoken for?

Ed tossed his body again, unable to find a comfortable spot. He hated thoughts like this, they never led to anywhere good. Another one of life's cruel little jokes, that the one person he wanted to be with for all of his life was his brother! Nothing could ever work out right, could it?

"Brother?"

Al had heard him stirring, Ed figured. He pushed himself up until he was sitting, the muscles at the edge of his automail smarting.

"What is it, Al?"

"You were tossing in your sleep…" There was a nervous tone to Al's voice, and Ed smiled in the soft darkness.

"I must've been dreaming. Thanks for waking me up." He couldn't begin to burden Al with his thoughts. Not now, or ever. It was too strange, too vague, too wrong. But still he paused as though in thought, looking not at his brother but at the moon outside the window. "Al… you know I love you, right?"

"Of course I do," Al responded with complete certainty, his voice sounding too loud to Ed in the small, dark room. "You're my brother."

"Yeah. I am." And Ed lay back down and didn't say anything more.