The Beginning of Dreaming

"Hush, hush!
Don't tell the bluebird to flutter away
and he will come to you.

A rush, a rush!
And the winds will flow west
to carry him high.

Crush, crush!
The white of a snowy day
Falls beneath your feet.

So lush, so lush!
Trees quiver in the spring
their leaves will fly to you.

Shush, shush!
Here goes the heavenly dreams
that sigh with joy to you.

Without a fight!
Touch your eyes closed
And remember again.

Hush, hush!
The bluebird is in the sky
And sings this lullaby."

"Alright boys," Trisha whispered quietly as she watched them fall into a deep slumber, "Have pleasant dreams."

The lights of the orange fire in the nearby lamps flickered off and she gave the slumbering children a wide berth as she crossed over to the door across the room. There was a flash of white and blinding illumination and the young mother was suddenly gone. She was an undertone of the past, a good one at that, and Alphonse awoke to realize that he had fallen asleep on his research notes again. He looked up and smiled; sure to see his mother standing there alongside with his brother, but his silvery-gold eyes only met a glistening frame with glass that covered an old photo.

It was that dream again, the one that recounted his past and sometimes added in the recent present. But then again, it was never really a dream at all, was it?

"Alphonse?" It was Mei calling his name and soon he stood from his study and sauntered over to the dining room where breakfast kindly awaited his appetite. The setting was peaceful, as directly opposed to the previous years of harsh reckonings and utter abhorrence. "And by the way, I think there's something wrong with the cow. She's not giving up her milk today."

He remembered his strange dream. What was that the figure had said again? Oh. "Denny is too stressed for milk. She might be tired of giving it up." At that statement, the Xingese woman gave him a questioning façade and shook her head, merely continuing with her quest to squeeze Resembool lemons for a cold pitcher of ice with lemonade. She wrung her hands when juice droplets touched her skin, a tingling and sour flavor that made her feel an insignificant burn.

"Well," she said in reply, "Ed will be pleased."

"Pleased about what?" And a dreary-eyed Edward who was rubbing his face came down the stairs to the sounds of sizzling bacon on the stove and the crusty aroma of scrambled eggs with goat cheese and toast. Sliced green apples were set on the table and tinkering plates of balmy porcelain. The day had only just begun and yet, things were so perfect already.

Alphonse was lucky, and it was at that explicit moment point in time that he knew it for sure. His previous life was always so filled to the brim with sadness and despair, a kind of unrelenting shadow that followed him everywhere. But back then was the nighttime, and now it was finally the morning.

His past had once been a nightmare with bittersweet instances and misgivings, but his dream had reminded him just exactly why he was so thankful. Sure, there would always be times when things wouldn't go the way he wanted or that other conditions would seem so trivial or plain, but that would not stop him from ever remembering, nor would it stop him from getting up on his own two legs in order to oversee what he had accomplished.

A life for a life would never be Equivalent Exchange, but that principal was still there. If you worked hard for anything you dreamed of and strived to be your best, the equivalency would only come out to be the same in how diligent you were. And that was a fact.

"Ed!" Mei scolded her only son, "Just because there isn't any milk at sunup doesn't mean that you are allowed to pick a fight with the cow!"

Al chuckled to himself when he watched his family chase each other around the front yard, a spatula sending sparks flying from head to toe in the clutches of a frustrated mother, an amused young blonde, and a confused animal running about. And in the midst of it all and with the situation's bare hilarity, there would be nothing better.

"Thank you brother…"

Laughing burst the dew on the grass by the seams, spreading water globules everywhere until mother and son landed in a spread-eagled heap upon the wet ground. The sun kissed hills of his childhood residence, and of course, the place where he knew that there would always be a home to return to, was even more beautiful than ever. And as Winry Rockbell came sprinting down the porch steps to give the two a piece of her mind for disrupting her late grandmother's farm animal, he could only think about how the dream began.

"…for saving my life."

ooo

"A lesson without pain is meaningless. For you cannot gain something without sacrificing something else in return. But once you have overcome it and made it your own, you will gain an irreplaceable full-metal heart."
-108: Journey's End

AN: Thank you for reading this story and short epilogue. I hope you can follow my next project, "Dog of the Military". I disclaim all unoriginal characters and context, for Fullmetal Alchemist rightfully belongs to the author, Hiromu Arakawa, and Studio Bones, Square Enix, and Funimation for the animation.