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they said he was going to be okay. that henry is slowly recovering. as soon as they even arrived winry quickly got to work on automail for his lost arm. the arm that was taken from him .
he's going to be okay... but ed knew from experience he will never be fully healed from what happened. the painful surgery... the phantom limb pain... the way his stumps will ache when the air pressure changes... life won't be the same for his son anymore.
but worst of all, he saw it... he saw the truth. his own son stood at the gates where he once found himself. he witnessed all the information he could ever see... he won't be okay. not for a really long time.
ed sat in his office now, not leaving too much now these past few days. not even cara could get him to leave. he hasn't been able to sleep in days either. the guilt that was weighing down on his shoulders felt almost impossible to bare. he spent his entire life dealing with his mistakes only to watch it unfold again on his very own son, one of the two people he swore never to let them threaten. his past should have stayed where he left it, shoved away in order to give his boys the chance at the life he and Alphonse were never able to have.
he had taught both of his son's alchemy so that they could protect themselves. little did they know it would destroy henry's chance for a normal one instead...
he clenched his fists as he thought about it, his back resting against his chair as he tried to stay calm. but he kept thinking about it, the main cause behind all of this. all the pain and suffering his family has had to endure.
alchemy.
for the longest time that's all he had. it was his only hope to get his brother back, to get his own body back. and now it felt like such a curse. the day he was given his own back seemed like such a miracle.
he held up his hand, examining the fact it was no longer automail. it's been over two decades, and he could still feel the absence of touch, the sense and feeling in his arm when it remained to be metal. and his leg... the leg he still kept from the past. a reminder of his own mistakes.
he didn't need his leg as a reminder. not when the memories were so vivid in his mind. the day he lost his leg... and the body of his brother. and then transmuting the soul of his brother into armor... that seemed so long ago. but with what happened last week, it felt like yesterday. he couldn't stop thinking about it. the constant reminder of everything alchemy has done. the life he based for himself surrounding alchemy. something he swore by. his life.
he looked around his office, his face growing warm with anger. he swore by it with his *life* and all it has done for him was take everything away. he dealt with it first hand... and now henry? he was furious. he felt so betrayed...
he picks up a familiar book sitting on his desk, faded gold letters once read "alchemy: the science of equivalent exchange" but from so much use, one could barely make it out. how could he let something he dedicated his life too betray him so much.
he feels his heart pounding in his ears as he grips the book in his hand, swiping it across the top of the wooden desk, knocking all of it's contents onto the floor.
flasks shatter into the ground, drawings of transmutation circles get crumbled between his fists, pages torn from books he read as a teenager. everything was swirling around him in such a mess that he didn't even understand his rage, the pain in his heart and chest so violent that he didn't even know how to process it.
ed stands up so fast his chair that he quickly falls to the floor. the contents of the shelves around him are soon crashing down to the floor as he yells in a fit of rage, his cries alerting the home, but no one came to office. not now.
pages upon pages, every shelf in his office, the shattering of glass.
how could he let this happen? how could he let his life get ruined again?
tears started to well in his eyes as he looked around at his demolished study. the remnants of his work torn from the walls and laying against the floor.
this was his entire life, scattered on the floor around him in a mess of emotions.
he goes to take a step forward before he feels a cracking of a frame under his shoe, causing him to glance down with furrowed brows, exhausted eyes still glaring with rage and pure anger, but within seconds, they soften.
he sees the eyes of his sons hidden halfway under a shredded poster, kneeling down slowly as he brushes the glass from the broken frame. the photograph they took as a family when Henry and Theodore were both still children, the age Al and Ed committed the ultimate alchemical sin.
these boys looked so innocent. so young and hopeful, golden eyes just like his and Al's. the elric bloodline so prominent in his little boys' lives. so happy as they were held in the arms of their mother and father. Cara and Ed with their family, it seemed so perfect.
but the crack in the glass between Ed and Henry was so prominent now. the line between them making his heart yearn even more. he did this to him. he couldn't protect henry like he promised the day he was born.
he falls to his knees and looks into their golden-yellow eyes that are so much like his own. his sons...
he felt shoulders heave as he sobs, tears falling down onto the shattered glass frame that he gripped so tightly in his hand.
"i'm sorry" he whispers in between violent sobs "i'm so sorry...."
