Leave A Scar (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Revealed, Part III

With a hotel rooftop as our edge, he pulled away, breaking the kiss, and with the moon as our lamplight, rested his forehead against mine.

He moved away, after a few minutes, and a wind gently blew through me.

Ed looked out to the moon again. Still holding my hand, but over time it loosened, fingers relaxing, becoming the smallest of bits further away from the back of my palm. And then our palms separated from one another, like he was finally ungluing himself from me.

I

I didn't know what to think of it.

I lifted my head up from his shoulder, asking if there was something wrong. Or at least I wanted to; I almost did, before I saw his face. How low he hung his head, and it threw me back into a moment when we'd first started traveling. Stepping out into a hotel living room, seeing him at the kitchen sink with one hand on the edge and his eyes hidden from me.

His eyes were hidden now, like they had been then. Like they were when he spoke with Winry.

I didn't know what to think of it.

I finally asked him, or at least I tried to. I got some word out, some small moment of a line never finished. Because he just turned away from me, hiding his face further.

"I... Need you to go," he told me.

What?

This question must have slipped out; some part of me must have said something, echoed something from a brain rattling with recycled thoughts. I must have made another noise, because his hand slipped from mine. I wanted to reach out, follow his movements, but I just watched that stature rise. He stood, and he spoke again. Repeating it.

"I need you to go," and he didn't say my name this time, like the word itself was acidic, staining and eating away at each letter, every syllable.

I started speaking again, tried to make some selfish statement. But only the first syllable got out, and it was a word I knew all too well.

"I..."

I tried again, helplessly watching him turn his back to me, hunch a little. Displaying that flamel insignia against the moonlight, like a beacon for my inevitable suffering.

I had always been in pain, this was just a new level.

A new adventure for both of us.

He straightened, head turning up to the sky. And he spoke again, voice stretched slightly, like he wanted to get the rough sadness out of his words.

"You can't keep coming with us," he said. As if it made all the sense in the world.

With his face towards the moon, with tears brimming his eyes, he spoke, telling me what I feared most. What I had been thinking all along; a reflection of my own civil war, my own inner crossfires.

"J...Just let me in," I pleaded, tears brimming my eyes. "I can take the weight—I can take on—"

Ed just shook his head, and with his eyes closed to the moonlight, he spoke once more.

"I was scared about that, in the beginning. Let you in enough, more than anyone. Deep enough for you to really leave a scar when you left."

I... I had to be dreaming. This has to be another nightmare. It had to.

I stayed still, stayed standing, waiting to wake up, and then, finally, with his heart as the lead, he spoke again. Powering my own self-destruction.

"I know now that's just a bunch of wishful thinking. That every person I come in contact will just end up getting hurt, in more pain then they had been when I arrived. So that's why it's best we leave things as they are now. Fold our cards before we end up busting and losing everything."