Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ body.mind.soul ❯ Wrench in the Work ( Chapter 2 )

You see him sitting there, head resting on his knees. He looks like he is brooding again and you long to beat it out of him. The last thing he needs is to lose hope right now.
But as you approach you notice that his face is somewhat different; different than when he’s brooding about his brother (which is often).
So you sit and ask, “What’s wrong?”
He looks up, bronze eyes slightly hazy and face drawn.
“I…,” he hesitates and his brows furrow, “I was thinking, that even if Brother was back, everything wouldn’t be perfect, like how I was thinking it would be.”
The second part is said quickly and his head ducks down.
You settle a hand gently on his shoulder.
“What do you mean?” You have a general idea, but Alphonse is harder to read now days than when he was in an expressionless suit of armor.
“It’s just,” he pauses again “the world seems to have moved on without me. Everything is different! You’re different! People I don’t know somehow know me! Everyone seems to have another Alphonse in mind whenever they look at me. It’s like I’m in the shadow of some other, better Alphonse, and I can’t measure up!”
He has stood at some point during his rant, and you stare wide-eyed up at him.
He seems to run out of fuel and collapses on the ground.
“I wonder; if Brother were here, would he dislike me? Would he feel like that I was trying to replace the old Al or something?”
His fists are clenched up and he looks both angry and sad. You stare at him in surprise.
“Were you trying to tell me that I was fake?!”
And hit him. Hard.
“Oww! Winry, wha?” He looks at your wrench in surprise. You’ve tried to avoid hitting him with it this whole time, but you aren’t going though another Al-identity-crisis thing again.
You are simply doing what you should’ve done long ago on that rooftop.
“You might not remember it, but you once asked something very similar to that.” You say, twirling the wrench in your hand while Al looks on warily.
“I did?”
You nod.
“You asked if you were fake.”
His eyes widen.
“I asked...”
“Yes. It probably seems inconceivable now, doesn’t it? I’m sure the ‘old’ Al would say the same about what you’re asking.” You aren’t exactly sure, but that’s not what Al needs to hear right now and lying, perhaps, is.
He hesitantly smiles. It’s not so much the words, you think, as the reassurance behind them. You realize suddenly, that this Alphonse isn’t much different than the other Al, just a bit younger.
You tell him so and the small smile gets a bit wider.