This is a companion piece to my story Hesitation. It isnt necessary to read that first, but it is Ed's point of view of this situation. EdWinesque.

Set in COS, when Ed is about to cross back over the gate again. Al shouts something, and for a moment, Ed hesitates.

This is what Al realizes.

I think I will continue on this thread, and do Winry's POV next. Check out my other FMA stories- They are EdWin too, or have it implied. Or are Royai.

DISCLAIMER: FMA is not mine, no matter how much I wish otherwise.

A big thanks to my awesome beta, please-knock.

Enjoy!

Sacrifice

"I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken -- and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived."

- Margaret Mitchell

"WHAT ABOUT WINRY?!" Al screamed, fighting against the restraining hands of Roy Mustang. "SHE MISSES YOU TOO!"

Ed hesitated, and Al came to a realization.

Ed was ready to go through with his plan, and didn't need Al to remind him of what he would lose. Ed had to go forward, had to put himself out of the way and save everyone, put others above himself because that was who he was. He had to wipe away the sins and bad things that he believed he had created, wipe them away and store the broken pieces in his heart.

But though one would have thought that he had learned it long ago, there was one thing that Ed didn't realize. Sometimes, sacrifice hurts more than the person that is giving it up. Sometimes, sacrifice tears a hole and rips apart not just one person- but in this case, two.

Because Al knows that the Colonel will let him go. Al knows that he will be with his brother. And Al knows that the way they should have been- He and Ed and Winry all together- will never come to pass.

Al wonders if it would have ended differently, if Winry had somehow been up there with him, pleading to Ed.

But no, Winry wouldn't have pleaded. She wouldn't have cried. She would have lept after him, no questions asked. And if she fell she would have accepted it, would have known that in the end whatever sacrifice was made would rip her.

Break her.

And now Ed says that this strange world is their home.

That they have to deal with it, and accept it.

And Al knows that he can feel the broken pieces of his brother's sacrifice. Their pain was always connected, and Al even imagines that for a moment he can finger the pieces and line them up. Line them up, press them together.

But even back at his home- for the word does not fit this new world –even if he clapped his hands together, the pieces would stay the way they are. They would not twitch, they would not rumble.

Al wishes desperately that he could alchemize the pieces together, but knows that he never could.

Ed's sacrifice, Winry's sacrifice. And his own, too. He can feel all the edges of their broken pieces, brushing each other, clinging for a moment before flaking and splintering at the edges. They don't fit perfectly, like the pieces of a puzzle. They're like shards of glass, small, sand-like pieces scattered and too tiny to find, to make it complete again.

So Al lumps them all together, knowing that in a sense, their pieces are keeping them together. That the broken fragments that remain let them brush one another in the quiet, in the softness where no one speaks, in the period between sleeping and waking.

And Al knows that his brother will never forget, never get better. Never move on. Because that's not how he is. Ed stays broken and full of guilt without conscious thought, because he cannot stand to truly lose what he has left.

Al knows that Ed's heart has been broken, beyond repair. And back with their family, Winry's heart has been broken as well. They reach out, to the sky, so that if one were above the other they would be palm-to-palm, skin-to-skin, touching and embracing and loving- and Al thinks that for a moment, their fingertips will cross the gate and brush one another.

But in the end, all this sacrifice had gotten them was a broken reunion, dead smiles, an alien place, and bleeding hearts.

Al looks at his brother, and knows that this place will never be home.