Agape

Summer 1904

The green hills of Resembool are exceptionally quiet on this morning until a clap breaks through the silence.

It's a resounding clap, echoing over each and every wavy crest of hill until the wind carries it away. It's like a baby's first laugh, a kitten's first stumbled steps; a mother's first smile since the pain of childbirth, when she holds her newborn in her arms for the first time and it opens its eyes revealing the entirety of the blue sky captured in two tiny disks. This clap is a significant first, one that is bound to change the course of every breath exhaled after it is clapped.

Edward Elric leans forward, grabbing the prize at the center of the circle. He spent all morning drawing and redrawing that white, chalk circle. His little, pudgy hands of five weren't quite skilled enough to draw perfect circles with pristine, geometric lines zigzagging through. And every time he did manage to draw it perfectly, he always smudged it with his other hand at the very last minute.

Ed called Alphonse out to come and watch him perform the trick right before he did it. He hadn't wanted Al to see him struggle with drawing the circle, but he wanted his little brother to be there to witness his first attempt at alchemy.

He and Al had spent the better part of the past week trading the copy of The Beginner's Guide to Alchemy/i they had found in their father's study between the two of them, taking turns reading the chapters. Ed had been the first to finish reading it though, and so Ed would be the first to transmute.

The creation Ed now holds in his hand is small, no larger than his hand itself.

Ed marvels at it in wonder only the way a child can, turning it around gently and inspecting it from all angles as delicately as he can, almost afraid that if he's too rough with it then it will shatter like glass despite its composition of tin.

"Look, Al, I made a horse!" Ed exclaims to his little brother a moment later, almost forgetting he's there as he became so enraptured in the little metal creature.

Al makes a face at that. He's as equally impressed with the creation as Ed is, though he hadn't realized it was supposed to be a horse.

Its metal legs are as thin as matchsticks as it stands weakly in Ed's hand. Its two ears stick up from its head at wildly different lengths and its nose looks more like a button than a proper horse snout. He wouldn't have known it was a horse at all if Ed hadn't told him that it was.

"Come on," Ed says, standing up not taking his eyes off his precious figurine. "Let's go show Mom."

They march into the house, their little legs covered in the dirt they sat in, and find Mom standing in the kitchen over the sink.

She has her back turned towards them as she stands there peering endlessly out the window, watching the trail that leads back from their house on the hill to the main road. Her lilac colored dress stirs around her calves from the breeze that pours into the house from the open back door, making it twirl like she's caught in an endless dance.

"Mom?" Ed whispers behind her, not wanting to scare her.

She turns to face them, her brown hair falling around her face. For a moment she looks so sad, almost as if she's about to cry like she's fallen by the river and scraped her knee on one of the rocks like Al did last week. Still, the melancholy expression only flashes on her face for a moment before it morphs into something cheerier.

Ed's always had such a hard time understanding complex emotions. He doesn't like it when the other kids at school cry, when Winry makes a fuss when he accidentally breaks the arm off one of her favorite dolls. But even then, longing and desperation are hard emotions for any five-year-old to comprehend. So while Ed may not understand the expression his mother wares or the reason for the way her smile seems slightly forced, he does recognize that she's sad, and all he knows is that he doesn't want her to be that way. Ed wants his mother to be happy.

At that moment he makes a split-second decision.

"I have something for you," he says, holding the little metal horse behind his back.

Al makes a small noise beside him, clearly confused that Ed would give the horse to Mom, but he doesn't say anything.

Ed pulls the figurine out and presents it to her with a grand flourish, smiling with all his might as he does.

He watches as Mom takes the creation from his hands, spinning it around in her fingers and inspecting it.

"It's lovely, little man," she says finally, returning it back to its home in his hands and patting him on the head, ruffling his bangs as she does. "Did you make this with alchemy?"

"Yeah! Al and I read about how to do it from a book we found in the study."

She nods, clearly impressed. "You two are so smart! And skilled at alchemy too, just like your father." She smiles as she says it, a real smile. It's so much brighter than the one she puts on so they won't notice her looking so down.

Ed decides not to gripe at the comment despite his deep distaste for his father. He knows it would only make Mom more upset and he only wants to see her happy.

"I want you to have it," he says, pushing it forward again.

"I couldn't take this from you, Ed. It's your first creation with alchemy, I couldn't possibly steal it away from you."

"No, Mom. I made it for you," and he reaches up and places the toy pony in her outstretched hands.

If the smile she gave them when she realized it was made with alchemy was genuine, then he wants her to keep the horse. It always made Winry happy when he would bring her new toys to play with, so maybe the little horse will make Mom happy too.

Kneeling down on the ground, Trisha Elric pulls Ed into a hug, reaching out and pulling Al into it too, who had been standing there beside his brother throughout the entire exchange.

There isn't a place in the world that Ed feel safer than when he is tucked in his mother's arms. His face is pressed up against her shoulder, her thin arm wrapped around his back.

There's a deep-seated feeling of love for her in his chest, one that's always been abundant within him, but overflows whenever she pulls him into her arms. It's not just the heat of her body pressed against him that keeps him feeling so warm and safe, but it's the flow of unadulterated, pure love that abides within him that feels as natural to him as breathing that makes him feel so invincible.

That night Trisha places the little horse on her bedside table, right beside a gold framed picture of a (mostly) smiling family of four. The little figurine, with all its flaws and faults and imperfections, stays there for many years, Trisha always insisting the little horse always had a home there despite her children moving onto transmuting bigger and better things.

.oOo.

The late summer storms start to come through. July brings a torrent of rain and mist and fury. Days and days of gray, the sunlight hiding out for so long they almost forget its warmth. It isn't always bad though, if they do manage to forget the way the heat of the sun kisses their skin, then they have their mother there to remind them of it.

It's two weeks into July when the worst of it comes. Thrashing rain pelting the window like bullets and explosions of thunder curse the sky. Lightning breaks the moon into splintering pieces and bathes the murderous clouds in shadows. It's exactly what Ed imagines a warzone would look and sound like if he was ever unfortunate enough to visit one.

It isn't the claps of lightning like a transmutation in the sky that wakes Ed that summer night, but rather a little hand on his arm and a weak voice in his ear.

"Brother," the voice sniffles, calling Ed out of his slumber.

Ed rolls over, facing the wall and turning his back to the voice.

"Brother," the voice pleads again, shaking his arm in its desperation. "Wake up, Brother."

Finally, with slow movements like his joints are clogged up with sleep, Ed sits up and faces his brother who sits kneeled at the edge of his bed.

"Al," Ed says, rubbing furiously at his fatigue-glued eyes, "what's wrong?"

Al sniffles again. "Brother, I'm scared and I can't fall back asleep."

"What's there to be afraid of—" Ed starts to ask, but the thunder roars, drowning out his voice and causing the foundation of their home to tremble with its vibrations.

Oh.

"Here," he says, laying down again and pulling back the covers, "come lay down with me."

They stay like that for a couple of minutes, but Ed knows Al lays there beside him with his eyes wide open. The room is dark, not even the light of the full moon shines in, but the air is heavy with the sound of their twin breaths and the rain pattering against the roof.

Lightning flashes again and Ed doesn't even have the time to count out a single second before the thunder booms and Al cries out in fear.

They're right in it, they're so close to the center of the storm.

Al pulls his arm closer as the next two bouts of thunder come, digging his nails into Ed's flesh until Ed can't take it anymore.

"Let's go see if Mom will let us sleep in her bed," Ed finally decides.

"Are you scared too?" Al asks, and though Ed knows Al's intent is not to mock him, he still scoffs at the question and tells Al he isn't a little kid, that he doesn't get scared of stupid things like storms.

He is five after all.

They walk side by side down the hall, tiptoeing to their mother's room as quietly as possible despite there being no one they need to be quiet for.

They wake Mom up and she pulls the covers back and allows her children to lay curled against each of her sides without hesitation. When they're all nestled in close, she brushes the hair out of their faces with her hands and begins to sing.

The notes pour out of her slowly at first, like a tipped jar of honey with the fluid oozing at a snail's pace, but when she finds the words she is looking for, they come quicker and more confidently, like she was made to sing this song.

She has the miraculous power to drown out the clatters of the storm with her song and fill the room with an internal glow.

This, Edward decides, is where he feels safest. The storm could bring down their roof, it could let the water pound onto his face and run off his skin like tears, but tucked here by Mom he wouldn't feel afraid at all.

Love casts its own shield of protection.

Because this is love without commitment, love without flaw. It's unbridled and undying. It's eternal and good and warm. It isn't a love he's had to earn, but rather it was given to him by their mother without hesitation or restraint.

Agape is a song sung to children despite the storm, warm words and even warmer hearts. It's like the light of the sun is being cast directly in its honor.

So that night Ed calls sleep warm and happy and feeling fuzzy inside. There isn't a place in the world he would rather be than here.

.oOo.

Ed starts transmuting his mother other things when she starts to look down. He knows he can't buy her love, that he won it the day he was born, but whenever that melancholy look washes over her, he transmutes her wreaths of flowers woven intricately into little-braided strands.

All of his and Al's little alchemic feats always make her so happy. She smiles brightest when they present her with a new skill they have mastered. She always pulls her boys into her arms and peppers their cheeks with little kisses until they wriggle out of her grasps all blushes and complaints.

He brings her brass rings, shiny tiaras made of scraps from tin cans. Anything he thinks she'll enjoy.

His efforts are always worth it, it's always like parting the gray skies to let the sun in when she smiles and thanks him for his little trinkets. He never once gets angered when she tells him he and Al take so strongly after their father despite the feeling of wrong it leaves buried in his stomach. The remark always makes her so happy so he'll ignore it for now and kick his good-for-nothing-father's ass some other time for being the one to hurt Mom in the first place.

For a long time the world is perfect. The three of them and the summer skies and the wind making the wildflowers dance when it blows down the hills.

.oOo.

Finally, when Ed starts to think he must have it all figured out, life starts to fall apart.

Their mother starts to die. She withers away before them and suddenly the summer doesn't seem to feel as warm as it used to. She's like a flower, willowing and wilting and turning to dust right before his eyes.

He won't cry, he can't cry. He can't let his mother worry about him when she doesn't have much time left to worry about herself. Ed won't let her spend that time unhappy.

He can't cry for Al's sake either. When Mom passes they will only have each other, and as the eldest Ed will have to do everything in his power to take care of his brother. He can't let Al see him so weak when he needs someone there to be strong for him.

So both brothers take the news in different ways. There are several nights a week when Al wakes up crying in his sleep. Ed knows he tries to be quiet when he does, but it always wakes him up anyway. It's like his older brother instincts have gone haywire. They've certainly heightened since the news broke.

Every time it happens, Ed climbs out of his own bed and crawls into Al's, stroking his short, gold hair the same way Mom always does and singing the parts of the lyrics of her song to him that he's certain he knows the words to. Ed knows it doesn't have the same effect when it comes from him, that it doesn't catch Al spellbound and turn his worries to dream dust, but it calms him somewhat and that's the best Ed can hope for.

Neither of them ever speak of the unspoken, they never touch upon the shadow that stalks behind them like a hunter, soon to catch up on them and take them for its pleasing. It's almost like if they say it out loud, if one of them so much as thinks Mom is dying, then their future will be cemented in platinum and their imminent destiny will be set.

So everything is done in hushed tones and sideways glances and touches that only ghost their fingertips.

They have to hang onto hope, though hope died long ago.

Still, hope may be dead, but letting it go completely would be so much worse.

.oOo.

The final storm of the summer is coming, Ed can feel it in his bones.

It's like an old ache that just won't go away. It's an injury he sustained long ago that flares up every time the clouds begin to roll in.

The storm builds for three days before the rain begins. By the time the precipitation starts to fall the clouds already resemble smoke from a massive fire. They're heavy and dark and they make the entire town miserably humid.

The rain starts in the evening; the drops are heavy and they fall clattering like a giant child sprinkling pebbles onto the ground. By the time the sun sets, the wind has really picked up and the rain comes mercilessly, soaking every surface for miles.

There's the thunder and lightning too.

And not for the first time, both Ed and Al lay in their beds, both aware the other is awake but saying nothing.

Silences used to be so nice between them, but they're both now filled with an insufferable tension. Ed feels like he's drowning in it. It isn't like they're at odds with each other right now, everything between them is just fine, but every molecule in the room has been soaked up by the unspoken and left tainted. They can't say what's on the tip of their tongues so they lay silently instead.

When the lightning breaks through the clouds, it paints Al's face in silver and gold. It highlights the tears that run silently from his eyes and down his cheeks. It glistens on them like glass, cutting and jarring.

There was a time when Ed would have made fun of Al for such a thing. He would have mocked Al for crying so much more than he ever did, called him a little baby. That time, however, has passed. Al always felt everything so much more deeply than he did, not just the bad things, but the good things too. Ed wishes he could have that kind of unharrowed heart.

It's moments like these when Ed sorts through every single memory he has of the five years he's had to his life and inspects them each like a skeptic looking through a magician's set of trick cards. He's searching for an answer, a clue on how to get through all of this.

It's times like these when he's desperate enough to start praying to a god he's never believed in.

Not every mystery has a scientific cure. Science can do a billion and one miraculous things, but it can't do anything when it actually matters. Science is worthless, no cure researched that would heal his mother of her illness. They're going to need some divine intervention now.

He wants to feel safe again, but there's no haven he can flee to.

Unless—

"Brother," a voice calls. Ed knows it's only a whisper, but it shatters the glass wall they've built between them the same way a shout would.

"Brother, I'm scared."

And the situation so perfectly mirrors a similar one, not even a month previously. The same exact rendering, a summer storm, a confession of fear, but there wasn't this same pit in Ed's stomach the first time when they played this little game.

"I'm scared too," Ed finally admits when he can't find anything else to say. It's a humiliating confession, but it falls from his lips without thought.

"Brother, what are we supposed to— what happens when Mom—"

Thunder booms, a sparrow calls, the branches of the giant oak rap against the window pane and Al doesn't finish his sentence. He doesn't need to, Ed already knows what Al's going to say and he thinks if he hears the words out loud then he'll sink straight through the bedroom floor and down into his grave.

Without thinking, Ed stands and walks over to his brother's bed and grabs Al's hand. Confusion mars his face but Al stays silent until Ed pulls him to his feet beside him.

"What are you doing?" he questions, but Ed doesn't answer.

Instead Ed just looks away, peering out the window and watching as the lightning strikes a patch of grass not too far from here.

God, he's so selfish. So fucking selfish, but he can't do this anymore. He can't live with all this unbreathable air and these walls that feel like they're closing in around him.

They can't sleep through this summer storm. They can't pretend it doesn't rain outside their window. This is the pinnacle of everything that's been building up for the past few weeks, this is the cliff's slippery edge.

He has to be with Mom, he has to feel her hold him like he's an infant just once more. He doesn't know if he'll be able to go on not feeling the warmth of her arms around his shoulders at least once more.

So while he's doing this for Al in part, Ed is mainly doing this for himself. He's going to wake Mom and ask her to hold them together when they can't begin to do it themselves. It's selfish because she needs her rest more than anything, it keeps her stronger, healthier. It keeps her alive, but Ed knows that's only a fool's dream.

Ed had given up hope of her coming out of this alive long ago.

In the end, rest won't stall the swing of the scythe.

Ed keeps his finger laced in Al's as he guides them down the hall. He gropes the wall with his unoccupied hand, trying not to stumble in the darkness, but he's had this path memorized since the day he learned to walk.

Mom's door groans on its hinges, letting out a high-pitched wail that makes both boys flinch.

Her body on the bed looks like a corpse. Even in the limited lighting he can see the gray pallor of her skin, the way her arms lay limp on the blanket like she's laying there dead in an open casket and not simply sleeping in her bed.

If he wasn't already breathless, Ed knows he would have lost it now.

He simultaneously wants to turn away to run away from here and go over to her and lay down beside her at the same time. His little legs want to take him out the backdoor and flee down the side of the hill, to never stop running until he passes out from exhaustion.

He feels Al's little fingers clenched around his wrist tremble and it snaps Ed back into the present. He's here because Al's scared of the storm, even if that's only what he's telling himself.

"Mama?" Al whispers, gently shaking her arm.

They never call her 'Mama', only ever 'Mom'. Al must be really scared to call her that now.

Mom doesn't stir.

"Mama?" Al says again, his voice taking a higher pitch of desperation. Something isn't right.

No— she can't be—

"Mama!" Al cries a third time, starting to sob all over again. He won't stop trembling and his hands go on, furiously rocking her trying to get her to move, to do anything.

Al turns back to Ed, his eyes as wide as moons, full with absolute terror.

And for a long moment neither of them move, completely shell shocked, staring at each other as their minds go white.

No! This can't be!

Ed feels like the room is spinning. His vision is going back, every image distorted in front of his. Sirens blare emergency in his mind.

"Van?" a barely audible voice croaks, and Mom outstretches one of her skeletal hand to Al and barely brushes his elbow.

The younger boy sobs in relief, turning back to Mom.

"Al," she tries again, slowly coming out of the fog of sleep. "What's wrong?"

"The storm," he sobs so shaken, and Ed realizes he's almost completely forgotten about the storm himself. He bets Al has too. "Can we sleep here tonight?"

She nods and barely has enough strength in her papery arms to pull back the thick comforter piled on the bed, so Al pushes it out of the way for her and climbs in.

It's like lying in the grave beside her corpse and waiting for the gravedigger to bury him alive.

Ed goes around to the other side of the bed to sleep on her right, not missing the mesmerizing way the flashes of lightning illuminate the little horse that still sits perched on the nightstand. When he gets up close to her, she spreads out her right arm and wraps it around his back, cradling him close to her like a newborn.

Without them asking, she begins to sing.

It's a poor imitation of her song, like someone has taken a beautiful music box and smashed it so where every note it plays is off in its pitch and some don't even play at all. Her voice is scratchy and busted. Every word she sings is feebler than the last until eventually they fade out into a record scratch of nothingness.

Still, Ed doesn't find the song ugly, instead there's something utterly beautiful about it. It's like a siren call. It has clogged up all the gears in his mind and made him deaf to everything but its sound.

The rain and the thunder play along as her percussionists.

Her every word speaks of ephemerality, they say this life is fading, that nothing can last forever. Not a song, not a mother, not a love.

Her voice fades out with the final lines of the song, and for a moment everything is quiet, even the sound of the rain has faded like her magic song has cleared it all away just for them. Only the sound of Al's even breathing permeates the silence.

"Edward?" she whispers not to wake Al.

"Yes, Mom?"

She runs the pad of her thumb just under his eye. He didn't even realize he was crying until she brushes the tears away.

"When I'm gone—"

"Mom don't say that!"

"Listen to me, Ed," she starts again, and he listens. "Both you boys have been so strong. The two of you are more incredible than I realized anyone could be. I don't have much time left here, and when I go I need you to take care of your brother. The two of you will only have each other left until your father comes back, so you two have to be even stronger for each other. Do you understand?"

Ed wants to grumble that their good for nothing father will never return, but he knows now's not the time, so he simply nods. There's so much more he wants to say, but he can't, and so a nod will just have to do.

"Good," and she pulls him even closer, his head resting on her chest and he hears her rapidly beating heart jailed in her chest trying to jump free.

Pulled so close he can smell her scent of soft lavender soaps and he clings to her like a baby.

Because fuck. How is he supposed to do this when she's gone? How is he supposed to be okay?

He's spent so long bricking up his heart. Every waking moment, every sleeping hour he's dedicated to making it impenetrable. He can't let anything in, he can't let the world break him. If he starts to feel too much then the crash will just hurt that much more.

Perhaps it started with Hohenheim leaving. It must have, there was no incident prior to it that was ever any cause for alarm. Ed will never admit it, he'll go to his grave kicking and screaming before he ever admits that his father's departure felt like a kick to a stomach. He will never tell another living soul, not Al and not Mom, that that wounded him, that it made him feel like he wasn't good enough and that's why Hohenheim left. He won't even admit it to himself.

He used to wear his little heart on his sleeve, the same way Al does now. He felt every beat of his little, fragile heart, he felt every emotion pulse through him. But if he does that now then he'll feel every letdown alongside every joy. Life comes at such an awful price.

So he's been building up his defenses, been lining his heart in harsh steel so that nothing can ever get in. He's readied the cannons, sharpened his swords, he's fully prepared for an all-out attack.

But so long spent building up the walls to his heart and down they fall in an instant, the bricks of his fortress heart crashing down and sending the dust they land in up like smoke. It takes so little to penetrate his impenetrable heart.

A mother's broken song in his ears, her brittle arms like hollow bird wings wrapped around his back as he cries in her arms.

He can spend any number of infinities building up the defenses of his heart. He can spend lifetimes making sure he can never be broken, but it's all so useless when those walls take less than a single second to destroy.

Love, pure unhesitated love, always finds the holes in a heart's defenses and worms its way in. The same love he's about to lose.

And so how the hell is he supposed to do this without her? Her love is everything to him, it's his every joy and every breath. It's what fills this home with warmth in the winter and lights the fire of the hearth in the nights. It's what makes this place so much more than a resting place, but a monument to everything the three of them, him, Mom, and Al, share. If home really is where the heart is, then he's found his home in her. He's planted his seeds in her heart and she's let them bloom there. He isn't strong enough to lose the most important love he's ever known.

And so he lets out a sob, it's as choked and mangled as the song his mother just sang, but he can't find it in himself to care. Not when he's so fucking close to the edge of losing everything. He's spent so long telling himself he wouldn't be a baby, he wouldn't cry. He has to be strong for Al, for Mom.

He feels worthless losing control right in front of her, but he can't stop now. The cries keep coming, each more choked and painful than the last. It's so guttural, so primal and raw, but once he's started he can't seem to shut the tears off.

His throat burns and he swears he can taste the lining of his heart on his tongue.

It's so overwhelming now, to lose it all in an instant. He lays here wrapped in her arms, mourning a mother that he hasn't yet lost. He's so goddamn selfish.

They lay there like that for a long time, Mom rubbing circles into his back and whispering calm words into his ears. Ed is grateful she doesn't ask what's wrong, he isn't sure he could stand that kind of humiliation, but he also is certain she must already know.

Eventually she pulls him back, his head resting on her chest as they lay back onto her pillows. She's so sick and so weak but her skin is still warm as ever. Alphonse sleeps wrapped in her other arm, softly breathing and Ed thanks his lucky star that Al isn't also awake to see him fall apart.

He can't let that happen.

When Mom is gone he'll have to be strong, strong for Al who won't have anything but a pathetic excuse of a brother who's sobbing out his heart like a baby right now.

He falls asleep crying. He doesn't remember closing his eyes, doesn't remember the letting sleep take him.

When the morning comes, the sun washes over them, pale and cold.

And in the morning it is hands that wake him, hands that are firmer than his mother's. Ed opens his eyes to the faces of Sara and Urey Rockbell looking down upon him as they pull him out of his mother's cold grasp kicking and screaming.

They tell him she's dead, passed in her sleep clinging not onto life, but onto her two children.

A/N: This piece is a total of three chapters. I will upload the next two on March 8th and March 22nd. Thank you so much for reading!