A/N: It feels so nice to finish a project that's been lurking around for months! I can't believe how long it took me to get this done...I think I had the idea for it way back in February, or maybe even January. It was quite annoying, actually; my brain decided to wake me up at 3 in the morning and refuse to let me go back to sleep so it could explain why I had to do an FMA songfic to this song. I hate my brain sometimes. But then I developed issues with the story, and it ended up being shelved until a few weeks ago, when I finally figured out what to do with it, but I had to leave off again because the ending sucked terribly. But now it's finally done! Yay! And I know many people (read: basically everyone except me and Al/JAG) aren't Celtic music junkies, so just so you know, the song is "Full Circle," by Loreena McKennitt, from her album The Mask and The Mirror, and probably one of my all-time favorite songs ever, since it's absolutely gorgeous. I tried to find a video on Youtube for you, but alas, I failed, so I hope you will eventually find this song and listen to it, as it is amazing.
Disclaimer: I in no way resemble a) a moderately famous Canadian singer/songwriter or b) a quite famous Japanese manga-ka, so it is a reasonable assumption that FMA and the lyrics to "Full Circle" don't belong to me.
Did You Find Peace There?
Stars were falling deep in the darkness
as prayers rose softly, petals at dawn
And as I listened, your voice seemed so clear
so calmly you were calling your god
A mile outside of the city of Munich the road was deserted and silent, threading through empty fields and ghostly stands of trees. The sun had long since vanished behind the buildings of the city, and the stars were just beginning to rise against the indigo sky; the only person left on the road was Edward Elric.
Edward Elric, who lived in Munich and was returning but was not going home, because home was a place very far away and long ago that he didn't know how to get back to. Edward Elric, who always paused when coming over this hill to stand in the middle of the road without moving, watching the stars rise, because in the twilight Munich looked like another city, and he hated to move and banish the illusion. Edward Elric, who on nights like this and in places like this could hear the voices so loudly and clearly and perfectly it was almost like being back again, or maybe going crazy.
Edward never called out to God, because he was a man of science, so he said, and god was irrational, illogical, unscientific, but mostly because too many prayers had gone unanswered, and the things he prayed for were too important to leave in the hands of a god he couldn't trust. But on nights like this, with the city of Munich spread out before him and the fear and loneliness threatening to devour him from the inside, he called out to them, who he missed so desperately, and in the darkness he could hear them calling back.
Somewhere the sun rose, o'er dunes in the desert
such was the stillness, I ne'er felt before
Was this the question, pulling, pulling, pulling you
in your heart, in your soul, did you find peace there?
The night before, in a room in an inn in a town whose name Edward didn't know, Ed had dreamed of his brother, and in his dream Alphonse walked mile after mile in the desert, climbed and stumbled over dunes of golden sand, summoned water with a clap of his hands. It was only after he awoke that he realized that the Al in his dreams did not look like the Al of his memories, a laughing ten year old with short-cropped sandy hair and trusting eyes, or a towering suit of armor as strong as steel and as fragile as glass.
This Alphonse looked different, looked older and eerily like Ed in a red coat, dirty blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, and his eyes, which were grey to Ed's unnatural gold, had a darkness and determination that made Ed's heart ache, because he had hoped that his sacrifice would give Al a chance at a real life, a real childhood, and it was clear that he'd failed.
Now Ed stood on the road, surrounded by a thousand stars, and in the silence, he could hear the echoes of that dream and thought of all the questions he wished it could answer. The dream couldn't tell him if his brother really was alive, if the sacrifice of his life had been enough to save him. It couldn't tell him what Al really looked like now, how his voice sounded, what he was doing. It couldn't tell him how to find his way back to him again.
Where his brother was concerned, Ed had nothing but questions with no answers, questions that haunted him when he slept and obsessed him when he was awake. He called out to his brother in the darkness of the night, and sometimes he got an answer, a voice that sounded like his brother whispering his name over his shoulder, and a brief certainty that he'd brushed against another world.
It made Ed wonder if Al was somewhere on the other side, working just as desperately and hopelessly for a way to reach him too, if that was the question he saw burning in his brother's eyes in his dreams, pulling him forward endlessly through the desert.
The brief moments when he heard his brother were the most precious thing he had in this world, but they were not enough, never enough for the grief and the doubt and the fear. He could not find peace in his heart, he knew; not while his questions still went unanswered; not while a world lay between him and his brother.
Elsewhere a snowfall, the first in the winter
covered the ground as the bells filled the air
You in your robes sang, calling, calling, calling him
in your heart, in your soul, did you find peace there?
The seasons are different in this world than in the world Ed is familiar with. He follows it, in his notebook, with carefully made pencil marks counting the days he had been in this place, and so he knows that though it is still warm enough in Germany for him to walk the road to Munich after his car failed on him again, in Central it is the first day of winter, and the first snow is falling, covering the courtyards and walkways of the base in a delicate tracery of white.
Al was not the only person Ed left behind, and when he had shed all the tears he could shed for his guilt, when the last echoes of his shouts had faded and the tauntingly real sound of Al's voice was gone, Ed still had another name to call out, and something else to cry for.
It was past twilight then, and the sky was true black, darker than it looked in Munich with the city lights, or even in Central; and though the stars were very bright, the moon hadn't risen yet. In the dark, Ed stood in the middle of the road, pretending that the dry leaves the wind blew against him were falling snowflakes, and that he was holding his palms up to the clouded sky over Central in the open square where the library met the mess hall and the offices.
Ed remembered the last winter he had spent in Central, when he danced, laughing, in that courtyard as the first snow fell and turned his head and shoulders white. He remembered his first and only kiss, looking up in surprise through snow-dusted lashes at the unexpected sensation of warmth on his lips and the weight of hands on his shoulders. It might have been true love, but nothing came of that kiss, because Ed had too many things to do and too many promises to fulfill and too many people to fight and too many duties to uphold, and he couldn't give himself to another person when he already belonged to so many, and so Ed explained, with his hands clenched at his sides and his face stiff and his voice filled with regret and not a little anger.
Ed had promised that he would be back the next winter, and said that maybe by then the things that he needed to do would be done, and he could afford to let himself fall in love. This would be the second winter to pass in Central since he left. Ed wished he hadn't made that promise; it would have been cruel when he knew what was going to happen to him, but Ed wished he had just allowed himself to fall in love, to give himself at least a few memories of something real, instead of dreams of what might have been.
When he sobbed out Roy Mustang's name to the darkness, he could hear the man standing next to him, saying his name, and he wondered if Roy remembered his promise. He wondered if Roy was still in love with him. He wondered if Roy had given up on him. He wondered if Roy was trying to find him as desperately as he was trying to find out how to get back to him.
In your heart, in your soul, did you find peace there?
There, under the stars, on the road leading to a city he refused to call home filled with people he refused to love, Ed gave himself over completely to the chaos in his heart. The people he knew in this world knew him as a tense, driven young man, with a spark of something harsh and desperate in the back of his eyes, held back under a tight lid of self-control and an obsessive devotion to his research. The Ed they knew spoke little and laughed less, kept himself apart from people if at all possible, showed no interest in anything except work, showed no emotion.
It was only in brief moments like this that he let the mask fall, and what was a spark became a searing inferno that threatened to strip the flesh from his bones. Words poured from him in an incoherent shout loud enough to shake the trees around him, a confused jumble of prayers and exhortations, accusations and angry curses, and the endless attempt to make himself heard somehow. Ed sank to his knees in the middle of the road; hands beat ineffectually, painfully against the dirt; and the shout gave way to an agonized wail and finally broken-hearted sobs.
He cried for Winry and Pinako, Izumi and Sig, Hawkeye, Havoc, Fuery, Breda, Falman, Gracia and Elysia, Maria and Denny and Schiezka and a thousand other people. He cried for the people he'd left without saying goodbye, and the people who thought he was dead, and the people who were still waiting for him to come back.
He cried for a big house in the country, and a small store in a tiny town, and a messy, empty dormitory apartment in the city, and a house that was only ashes and memory, and a thousand houses and inns and hilltops throughout the country where he spent a night or two and made friends and helped people and promised he'd return. He cried for all the places he'd once thought of as home and all the places that he could have made home someday.
He cried for Al, who he'd gotten back only to lose again, and Roy, who he hadn't lost because he'd never had him to begin with. He cried for promises made years ago that were finally fulfilled in a terrible and twisted way, and for promises that he hadn't followed through on and now, maybe, never would. He cried for what he'd had in his world that he desperately wanted back, and for dreams and possibilities that might have become something real but now could only die. He cried for his brother, who loved him, and Roy, who might have if he'd had the chance.
The full moon was high in the sky, throwing the road into sharp, silvered illumination, when Ed's sobs subsided into jagged, shuddering gasps, and the abrupt silence was absolute; any echoes and whispers and called out names had long since faded. Rubbing the back of his hand across swollen eyes, Ed stood slowly, picking up his forgotten suitcase and slinging it over his shoulder.
When he reached Munich, the people he met there would find no trace in his face or voice of his brief sojourn on the road overlooking the city, the signs of grief and anger once again concealed under a semblance of peace, or at least control. He had work to do, after all, and he couldn't afford to be distracted; not if he ever wanted to get home again.
A/N: In case you were wondering, I am indeed capable of writing things other than Post-Gate angst...I don't know why so many of my stories have ended up there lately. But I do actually have several stories either part way done or waiting to be written that are fluffy and romantic and take place before or after the end of the series, with Ed where he is supposed to be - in Central with Roy. I swear!