Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The next thing I was aware of was that the void had somehow gotten cold. And ridiculously fluffy. No, wait. No. Bed. That's called a bed, dumbass. I groaned and shifted, reaching an arm out to try and find more blankets, pull something warmer around myself so it wouldn't be so damn cold... And found my arm instead colliding with a warm body. 

That would do. 

I slid my arm around them, pulling myself in closer until my arm was wrapped around a waist, and my face was pressed against a warm neck. They pressed closer against me, reaching out and grabbing my hand, lacing our fingers together with a sigh. As I relaxed and leaned into the touch, my mind slowly started spinning back into consciousness, and I was able to place the scent and familiar touch. 

"Win," Ed sighed, tightening his grip around her with a small smile. 

He couldn't place why exactly he'd missed her so much, but damn had he missed her. Somehow, just a night of sleeping had somehow felt like an eternity, like he'd gone off and lived an entire other life without her in his dreams. He cracked his eyes open, taking in the familiar shape of her shoulders like a balm, grinning at the messy way her hair tumbled over the pillow, mixing with his own blond hair until he couldn't fully tell where she started and he began. 

Home. 

He leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her neck. Winry made an adorable cooing noise at the contact, curling her fingers tighter against his. Something about it all was just so... instinctive. Natural. Like it didn't have to be so damn complicated. He loved her and she loved him, and why was he always so terrified, anyw—

Ed froze as his brain woke up further, his right arm stinging in pain as another lifetime of memories flooded his brain, memories of portals and dragons and Germany and soldiers wearing red instead of blue and Noah—dear god, Noah—and he went flailing backward from Winry with a choked sound, his eyes wide and terrified. 

His sudden movement startled Winry awake, her eyes fluttering open to see Ed panting and wide-eyed. She frowned and sat up, reaching out to him. "Ed? Ed, what's wrong?" 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Ed croaked, pressing both his hands to his forehead as if he were trying to push the memories out. "I didn't... I shouldn't... Fuck. You're not mine, you're... I'm...  I shouldn't be holding a married woman like that!" 

Her eyes flashed with recognition of what he was getting at, and her face fell as she reached up and touched a hand to the spot on her neck where he'd kissed her. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times as if she were trying to figure out what to say, but all she could do was stare at him helplessly, as if she were going through the pain of losing her husband all over again, like maybe he'd made it worse by reacting, by remembering who he was supposed to be. 

I mean, maybe I could actually be more of the Ed that Al needs if I didn't remember...

Kai's words from earlier drifted back to him, and Ed felt like his heart had been squeezed with the thought, suddenly understanding better what his double had been getting at. If they couldn't switch back, maybe it would just be easier if they could play the part, slip into the roles they were supposed to be. Even if they couldn't go home, maybe there could at least be a way so everyone around them didn't have to grieve. Why did it always have to be that there was this radius of pain that always extended out from them? 

"I'm so sorry, Winry," he whispered, pulling his hands away from his head so he could look at her more clearly. "I woke up, and it just felt like... I couldn't remember... It's this freaking Alkahest. It's like... It's blurring the line between me and him and I just..."

Winry didn't say anything, but her blue eyes were as comforting as always as she reached out and gently patted his thigh. Ed swallowed a lump in his throat, trying to fight against the feelings that felt like a battering ram on his heart, but the tears still ended up spilling out from him with a choked sound anyway. 

"I'm just so scared of losing myself," he finished, his voice cracking on the words. 

"Oh, Ed." Winry's face crumpled as she looked at him, and she scooted forward, pulling him into a tight hug. "You're not going to lose yourself."

"But I already have," Ed said, burying his face against her shoulder. After seeing how easy it was for his brain to slip into just touching her as if she was his wife and not Kai's, he was sorely tempted to push her away, but the selfish part of him couldn't resist the comfort that came from her touch. "When I woke up, I didn't even know who I was, I... I didn't remember Noah. I can't just... You're married. And not to me."

"Ed, look," Winry said, letting out a slow breath as she pulled away from him, holding his arms as she looked him in the eyes. "It's okay. All you did was kiss me on the neck. That's not... That's not even a big deal. It's practically platonic." 

Ed frowned at her, his face twisting with the emotion. "It didn't feel platonic."

"Really," Winry said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Then what did it feel like?"

"Like..." Ed's heart pounded in his chest as he searched Winry's eyes. With the sort of conversations he was used to having with his Winry, he would have thought that a question like that came with a right answer and a wrong one, and the wrong one would easily end up with him getting smacked upside the head. But she didn't have that same expression in her eyes that he was used to, the threat hanging unspoken in the air. Instead she looked like she genuinely wanted to understand what was going through his head.

And it struck him as he looked at her that she wasn't acting like the Winry he'd once known not because she was a different Winry, but because they weren't children anymore. He'd never had a chance to adjust his mental perception of what a relationship with Winry would even look like, because he had never gotten a chance to see what it was like when the two of them were able to actually have a mature relationship rather than one filled with hormones and childish logic. It suddenly was clear to him that somewhere along the way when he hadn't been paying attention, they had both gone and grown up, trading in their shouting and impulsivity for questions and honesty. The least he could do was show her how much of a grown-up he had become too and actually talk, even if it terrified him. 

"Home," Ed whispered, dropping his gaze. "It felt like... home." 

Winry's expression softened, and she reached out to cup his cheek, guiding his gaze back to meet hers. Her touch was gentle yet firm, and it sent a shiver down his spine. "Ed," she said softly, her blue eyes filled with reassurance. "It's okay to feel that way."

"No, it..." Ed frowned and shook his head at her. "No, you're... What about K— I mean, your Ed? You're freaking married to him Winry, you can't just—"

"Love isn't a finite resource, Ed," Winry said softly, freezing him in the middle of his panicked rant. He stared at her with wide eyes, searching her face to try and understand what exactly she was getting at. After a long minute, she let out a slow sigh, letting go of him and smoothing her mussed hair back from her face. 

"You're making a much bigger deal out of this than I am," she finally said with a sigh. "I was the one who invited you into my bed the same night you told me you'd switched. I absolutely understand if you're uncomfortable when you're closer to Noah than me, but... Could you please at least be honest about your own feelings and stop trying to say you're doing something for my benefit because of my feelings?"

Ed could only gape at her, his mouth hanging slightly open as he struggled for words. "But... But you're married."

"And when I look at you, I see my husband," Winry said with a soft smile. Ed opened his mouth to protest, but when she caught his expression, she shook her head and cut him off. "I'm not saying I don't believe you've switched. There's this... air about you that I can't fully place, like you went through some sort of horrible trauma in the middle of the night that put this... glass wall between us. But I'm not in love with either of you for the little things that make you different. I already told you that. I'm in love with... you. The whole you. Your soul." 

"The greater Ed," he finished with a sigh, having thought over the words enough times that of course he knew exactly what she was talking about. He didn't want to admit that having Winry—any Winry, whether she was the one he'd grown up with or not—say the words "I'm in love with you," made something deep within him lurch and twist in a way he couldn't fully explain. "I know, Winry. But it's not... it's not that simple." 

She stared back at him, her blue eyes unwavering. "So you don't look at me and see her?" 

"I..." Ed opened and closed his mouth a couple times, looking away from her.  

"If I'm not technically your wife, then Al's not technically your brother," she continued. "But I don't see you having a moral crisis over whether or not you should still love him. I've seen the way you look like a kicked puppy every time he calls you 'Ed' instead of 'Brother.'"

"That's different," Ed said, grimacing. "I mean, fuck, Winry, of course I don't love him the same way I love you—"

"So you do love me." 

"Goddammit," Ed groaned, burying his face in his hands. "You already made me admit to that once already, you don't need to do it again!" 

"Then why are you so scared?" 

Ed pulled his head out of his hands and gave her a long, hard look. For a minute, he thought he could understand what Winry was getting at when she said that she could see Kai when she looked at him, even though she still knew the two of them had switched. She wasn't exactly his Winry, wasn't the same exact girl he'd grown up with... And yet, she was still there somehow, looking back at him through the depths of those blue eyes, even if they were a different shade. He swallowed the lump in his throat, his mind flicking back to all the countless times he'd dreamed of that face, the number of times he'd been sick to his stomach as the thought of those blue eyes had haunted he back of his mind. 

"How can I claim to love Noah if I can't let you go?" he finally whispered. 

Winry's face softened, and she squeezed his knee. "Why do you think you have to choose? You don't love Noah less just because you love me too. It's like I said. Love isn't a finite resource. Using one candle to light another doesn't mean you have two smaller flames. All it does is create more light." 

Ed could only stare at her, his heart pounding until he heard the static of blood rushing in his ears. 

"N-Noah, she..." he stammered, struggling for words. He sighed and let out a long breath, trying to collect his thoughts before he continued, "She has this... ability where she can... She can see people's memories. And I know she doesn't mean to do it, and I know she always tries to not make a big deal out of it, but... I dunno. It's like every time I remember Win—I mean, my Winry—she just looks so... hurt. And scared." 

Winry's eyes grew sad, and she slowly nodded. "Yeah. You... You can be a terrifying person to love sometimes." 

Ed flinched, blinking at Winry in surprise. It wasn't so much that the information was surprising, more the fact that it was coming from her and not from him. "I... What?" 

"Ed," Winry said with a small snort, her eyes somehow pitying and amused all at once. "She's terrified you're going to leave her. Of course she is. She can see exactly how deeply you loved another woman, and you did leave that woman behind. It's no surprise she's scared. Being in love with you is like..." 

She exhaled, pulling her hand away from his knee to push her hair back from her face again, her eyes darting away from him as she seemed to search for the perfect words. When she turned back to look at him, there was a deep sadness in her eyes like twilight. 

"It's like loving a shooting star," she said softly, her voice nearly a whisper. "You... burn with this bright light that pulls everyone in, and it's impossible to look away, but... You're this force of nature, Ed, constantly moving forward, chasing after your dreams and your beliefs, and sometimes... Sometimes you get it in your head that you're going to burn everyone around you, and you go running off into darkness, convinced that you're doing it for our own good, to protect us somehow. And you don't ever seem to realize that our eyes are always going to burn with your afterimage, that it would be better if we still had the light there to guide us rather than leaving us in the dark, hoping desperately that our eyes will adjust to seeing without you." 

Ed could only stare are her, his eyes shining with unshed tears. It felt like a vice had clamped around his heart and was squeezing until it would burst. He couldn't entirely tell whether it was from love or heartbreak. For a minute, it didn't matter which world they were each technically from, he was just the boy who always ran, and she was the girl who was always left behind.

"I'm sorry," he finally whispered, his voice tight. "I mean. Fuck, Win, I'm so sorry. I just... I..." He trailed off with a sigh, running a hand through his bangs as he tried to find the words for what he was feeling. "It's just that... Even if I don't run, I'm still just going to end up hurting everyone around me. Like this Alkahest. You could wind up having your husband both trapped in another world and dead at the same time, and you're telling me... What, it's somehow better if I just let you hurt?"

"Ed," Winry said softly, reaching out and taking his hands in hers. "Would you have preferred it if your mom had sent you away when she got sick?" 

He could only stare at her, his eyes wide and shining. 

"No," he whispered hoarsely, his voice barely audible. "No, I wouldn't have wanted that."

"I never asked you to protect me from all pain," Winry murmured, giving his hands a gentle squeeze. "All I ever wanted was for you to share your life with me. And I'm sure Noah would agree. Love isn't one of your alchemy problems where you get out what you put in, give someone else happiness and they give you happiness back. It's about both of you giving each other your whole life, trusting someone else completely with your most fragile pieces, and then both of you building something completely new together." 

The words seemed a little too familiar after the conversation he'd just had in the void only moments before. "Equivalent Exchange doesn't exist," Ed murmured, sighing as he closed his eyes. Winry snorted. 

"Yeah, you- I mean, Ed. He basically said as much for his wedding vows." 

Ed snapped his eyes open again, frowning at Winry. "He did? He said he hated me when I tried to tell him the same damn thing." 

"Oh, yeah," Winry said with a laugh and a wave of her hand. "He got snippy with me about it once too. Something about how that's only true when talking about love. I think he said something like that equivalent exchange doesn't make sense in the context of love because you can't treat a marriage like an equation. Which I guess I theoretically taught him because of that terrible proposal of his, but woe be on my head if I ever try and suggest that equivalent exchange might not apply for other things." 

"Well, you're both right," Ed said with a shrug. "It's a scientific principle, not a moral one. What it applies to is how matter can only ever have a one-to-one conversion in a transmutation. But he's sort of right too, I guess. That means that it only applies to love. He's just missing that love is... everything." 

Ed froze as he said the words. It was like he'd just had a rare moment of enlightenment slip out between his lips before he even saw it coming, and he was stuck reeling with the realization from his own offhand comment. 

"Wait, love is everything," he said, his eyes going wide as he reached up and pressed both his hands against the sides of his head, tangling his fingers in his bangs. "That's why equivalent exchange isn't real. Because you can't balance love like an equation."

"I agree with you, and yet also have no idea what you're talking about," Winry said with a laugh. "What do you mean, 'love is everything'? I mean. The bed is a bed. The blanket's a blanket. They're just things, not love."

"They're not though," Ed said, reaching out and running a hand over the blanket. "They're the place we go to when we're at our weakest and most vulnerable every single night, and they're always there to comfort us and protect us. Hell, even before we use a bed, there was someone who made it and maybe has a passion for their craft. Or maybe it had a special meaning to the innkeeper when they decided to put it in this room. Love isn't just an emotion or a feeling. It's the fabric that binds us all together. No one can get it to make sense, and yet everyone ends up chasing after it anyway. It always boils down to love. It's the one thing everyone wants and needs." 

Ed froze, another epiphany hitting him in the face with the same force of jumping onto the business end of a rake. 

All I knew is that it would grant his deepest desire... and lead him to his deepest need.

"It's what Truth said," Ed said with a frown, pushing himself off the bed so he could pace as he worked through his thoughts. "Wants and needs."

Winry could only stare at Ed as if he had grown a second head. "What?"

"You pay a toll when you're stuck at a stage of transmutation. Because something you want is distracting you from something you need," Ed continued, waving his hands around as he talked, too full of thoughts to keep himself still even with the pacing. "That's how the Gate works. When I lost my leg, it was because I wanted mom. I wanted... I wanted to only ever have to lean on her and not have to let new people in. Because sometimes they left. But what I needed was to learn to lean on other people anyway, even if it hurts sometimes. So I lost my leg and I had to start letting other people help. Like you." 

Winry's eyes softened as she listened, but she still had a confused frown as she shook her head. "So are you saying you lost your leg for your own good?" 

"No. I mean. Kinda," Ed said with a groan. "It's complicated. I'm saying. I was so stuck on the stage I was in that I needed some desperate help to break past it. Losing a limb isn't a good thing, of fucking course not. But it's a hell of a lot better than dying. And that's the path I was on."

Winry's frown deepened, and she reached out for Ed as he paced. "Does that mean that's the path that Ed—my Ed was on? Is that why you two switched? Were you on that path too?" 

Ed actually stopped pacing to frown at her, his right hand drifting to his chest and gripping the fabric of his shirt right where his heart was. He swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded. "Yeah, probably." 

She didn't say anything, but Ed could see in her eyes how much her heart was twisting at the idea of the two of them being in that kind of pain. He sighed and sat back down beside her on the bed, reaching out and laying a hand on her leg. 

"I'm not asking you to protect me from pain," he murmured, echoing her words from earlier. "I'm just asking you to share your life with me." 

Winry's eyes were wet with unshed tears, and she smiled at him as if he'd just offered her the most romantic thing in the world. She reached out and brushed his bangs out of his face, leaning in to get a better look at his eyes. 

"You two really are the same," she said with a wet chuckle before letting go of him. She then nodded as if she had been set in front of a puzzle. "So is that why you were murmuring about wants and needs? Because if you figure out what you two needed instead of what you wanted, you'll be able to switch back?" 

Ed stared at her, blinking. He hadn't even considered the idea that figuring out what the two of them needed could circumvent the idea of a toll completely. 

"I mean, maybe," he said slowly. "It definitely wouldn't hurt. I was murmuring about it because of the 'love is everything' thing, though. Because I said that all anyone ever wants or needs is love." 

"Huh," Winry said, leaning back on her hands as she considered the idea. "That makes sense. Like with your leg, you wanted the love of your mom, but you needed to learn to let love in."

The words hit like a brick, which is how Ed knew she was right. Only emotional insight could hurt like that. "Yeah," he said, genuinely impressed. "Damn, Winry, when did you start getting good at talking through alchemy stuff?" 

"Oh, around the same time my husband started being able to repair automail himself," she said, looking over at him with a small smirk. "If you spend enough time listening to someone you love, eventually some of it starts to sink in."

Ed couldn't help but smile at Winry's response, feeling a warmth spread through him at her words. They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, both lost in their thoughts. 

"So what did you want when you switched, anyway?" Winry finally said. 

"Me?" He straightened his posture, blinking at Winry. He had been so busy thinking about Kai, he hadn't even thought about how the same concepts applied to himself. He frowned as he considered the question, thinking back to when he'd shown up at the Gate after the heart attack. "I guess I... I was scared. I thought that... Maybe I was dead, and I just. I didn't want to hurt Al and Noah like that." 

Thinking about it intentionally brought the moment back with more clarity, and he remembered something that he hadn't given much thought to before then. "There was this... voice that said something. I guess that was Truth...?" 

"What did they say?

 "I was panicking," Ed said, frowning as he tapped at his lower lip, trying to remember it clearly. "I begged for another chance. And it said, 'Are you happy with how it all turned out, Alchemist?'"

"What did you say?"

"No," Ed whispered, turning to look at her. "I mean, of course, no. How am I supposed to be happy with dying and leaving the people I love behind when they need me?" 

"You're not going to die abandoned and alone in the middle of the woods, Ed," Winry said softly, looking her eyes with his. "You're always going to be surrounded by people who love and need you. If that's your rule, then you'll never be able to have a peaceful death."

"So... Are you saying that what I need is... To make peace with my own mortality?" Ed said, raising an eyebrow. "Do you think that if we'd been okay with dying, we wouldn't have switched places?"

"No," Winry sighed. "I'm saying... I don't know. I think what you need is to know you're loved without you having to do anything. We just. Love you. And we're always going to love you. You don't have to earn it by doing things like protecting us, and you're not betraying us if we hurt because of something connected to you." 

"I know, Win," Ed said with a soft chuckle, leaning over to nudge her with his shoulder. "Trust me, I've been working hard to make sure I get that lesson through this thick skull of mine." 

"Well, understand it harder," Winry said with a laugh of her own as she nudged him back. "My big stupid boy needs to learn he. is. loved." She poked a finger into his arm as she spoke, and Ed wrinkled his nose at her, laughing. 

"Big stupid boy, huh?" 

"Oh, you're right, I misspoke," Winry said with an impish smirk. "I meant my little stupid boy." 

Ed almost considered yelling for a moment, just because it was all so familiar, and there was something comforting about falling back into the same teasing routine he and Winry had always had. But he was also an adult now. He had much classier ways of teasing without just yelling and throwing a tantrum. 

"Oh, no, the short jokes, my one weakness!" he said, dramatically throwing his hand to his head like a Victorian woman. "Why, it's so terrible, I very well might just faint!"

And with that, he collapsed against Winry's shoulder in a fit of exaggerated despair. Yep, so much more adult than screaming and yelling about insults like a child. He was definitely a classier little shit than he had been back then. Winry let out a surprised squawk as she tried to support his weight, but ended up toppling backwards onto the bed, Ed half on top of her.

"Ed!" she said, laughing as she swatted at his shoulder. "Oh my god, how are you this heavy? Get up!" 

"But I'm so small and weak, you said so yourself!" Ed said, his laughter bubbling up as he spoke. 

"You're so weird!" 

"Yes, and damn good at it too, thank you for noticing!" 

They both lay there, giggling like children at their antics,  when the door burst open, Al suddenly coming in and freezing as he stared at the two of them with wide eyes. 

"What are you two... doing?"

It was as Al stared at them that it hit Ed that he'd done it again. He'd gone and fallen into the trap of familiarity with Winry, and somehow the line in his head between him and Kai had gotten blurred again, and now he was lying on top of a married woman. No wonder Al was looking at the two of them with that bewildered expression. Ed had only just barely convinced Al that he'd switched bodies in the first place, and then all it took was a little Alkahest to get him repeatedly acting like he hadn't switched at all. Ed scrambled off Winry, trying to think of a way to explain that it had been innocent, platonic, the same sort of affection he'd always had towards Winry. Without that somehow making him sound even guiltier. 

"She called me short," Ed found himself blurting out. And then, realizing how that sounded, he winced and added, "And I'm an adult." 

There was a brief moment of silence as the words seemed to hang in the air, and then Winry and Al both dissolved into giggles, clutching at their sides. 

"You're lucky you don't have to pass a test to become an adult, Brother," Al said through his laughter. "I think you're tired and need to go to bed." 

"Back to bed?" Ed said, indignant. "But I just got up!" 

"You just got up?" Al repeated, his laughter dying as he stared at Ed with wide eyes. "Oh. Oh no. Is it morning already?" 

Winry let out a pitying laugh, her hand flying to her mouth. "Oh, Al, sweetie. Did you never go to bed?" 

"Ah..." Al said with a nervous laugh of his own, his cheeks going pink with embarrassment. "Apparently not. Whoops. I guess I got caught up in talking with Fletcher." 

"Alphonse," Ed groaned, pinching at the bridge of his nose. "You have a body now, you can't just—" 

"I know, I know, it's just—" 

"—have to take care of yourself, you're not—" 

"—my schedule's still adjusting from Xing, it's not my fault!" 

Winry couldn't help but chuckle as she watched the two of them bicker back and forth. Some things really didn't ever change. 

"He can sleep on the train," she interjected, making the two of them snap their heads around to look at her. "In the meantime, we've got a pretty busy day ahead of us. Maybe we should focus on packing and getting to the train station instead of arguing about sleep schedules?"

Ed sighed, finally relenting with a nod. "Yeah, you're right," he said, running a hand through his unruly blond hair. "We've wasted enough time as it is. But there's one thing I want to do first."

Thankfully, he at least didn't have to go very far to find a tree that hadn't had alkahest applied to it like the huge red pines near Russell's lab. There were a couple of lemon trees not too far from the inn, and it left Ed wondering if Belsio had something to do with it, or if it was just meant to be a reference to the gold town Xenotime once had been. Whatever the reason, a tree was a tree, and that was all Ed needed. He clapped his hands together and pressed them against the trunk just as he had done with the red trees near the lab, closing his eyes in an attempt to try and concentrate.

The tree had a much younger aura about it than the giant red evergreens, and yet it still seemed to look at Ed as a "little one." He tried to push down the twinge of annoyance at the thought. After all, he was sort of a baby by the standard measurements of a tree's life, even if he didn't really like their infantilizing attitude. Instead, he tried to focus on his memories of the red trees, trying to ask the lemon tree if it knew anything about them.

He was immediately met with a jolting feeling that could only be described as fear. Not the sort of fear that a tree would have towards an ax or lightning, but something even deeper, the same sort of feeling that came from looking up at the stars in the countryside and realizing just how small you were in comparison to the rest of the universe. As Ed focused on the feeling, trying to place where he'd felt such a feeling, it suddenly hit him.

It was the same fear he felt deep within his bones whenever he was at the Gate.

Specifically the feeling he felt when he looked at Truth. 

Well, it at least answered the question of whether or not other trees were aware of the red trees. They were definitely aware. 

Ed tried his best to communicate to the lemon tree about how the red trees were distressed because they had been cut off from the Root. But the lemon tree seemed to view them as they were... some sort of gods, and Ed couldn't figure out why a godlike being would be cut off from the Root. 

The tree responded with a mental image of red tree with roots that seemed to perfectly reflect the branches above. It seemed like the tree was struggling for a proper translation of what it was getting at until something in Ed's brain clicked into place, like his brain had remembered the connection to alchemy. 

As above, so below.

Ed stumbled backward as he broke his connection with the tree, staring down at his own hands as if he had been burned. He felt like he had somehow learned so much and nothing all at once. But he'd at least figured out the main question he'd come to figure out. 

Other trees were aware of the red trees. They just saw the red trees as gods, apparently. Terrifying, ennui-causing gods. So that answered that. 

And left him with a million new questions he didn't even know how to begin asking. What were they getting at with the symmetrical red tree? What did that and "as above, so below" have to do with the red trees being cut off from the Root? What had the Alkahest even done to the trees, for regular trees to look at them and see Truth?

And what the fucking hell did that mean for Ed? He'd thought the worst-case scenario of the Alkahest would be death, but could he possibly end up becoming some sort of not-there-but-there void being? Or would he even stay on the same plane at all? Would he just end up trapped in the void, nothing and everything all at once? 

Surely the Alkahest wouldn't turn him into some sort of living god, right? 

I gripped the fabric of his shirt and licked my lips, trying to ground himself in the feeling of physicality. I tried to take in deep breaths even as the world swam around him, reaching out for the lemon tree and holding on to it like a lifeline through the wave of panic that had suddenly overtaken him. 

You're going to be fine, Ed. It's okay. Just breathe. You're going to be fine. 

The next thing I was aware of was that the void had somehow gotten cold. And ridiculously uncomfortable. No, wait. No. Car. That's because you fell asleep in a car, dumbass. I groaned and shifted, reaching up to rub at the sore muscles in my neck, simultaneously wanting to curl into a ball to conserve heat and also stretch out what felt like an infinite number of sore muscles. 

I felt awake before I fully wanted to acknowledge the reality of the situation. I didn't want to come back to consciousness, to having a body and a world where things didn't just change based around my thoughts. I didn't want to be waking up in a cold, uncomfortable car, I wanted to be waking up in a warm, fluffy bed with Winry. And for a moment, it was almost as if that reality were so close I could feel it for the briefest of moments, like I could reach out for the warmth of her skin beside me. 

And then the spell snapped, and Ed was groaning as he cracked his eyes open, taking note of the heavy weight on his shoulder. Apparently, Al had fallen asleep on him, and Ed couldn't help but chuckle a little at the sight. It was something they hadn't done in a long time, and yet it seemed so familiar, having Al fall asleep against him as if they were still just two kids staying up late to read their dad's alchemy books again. Even if they had usually traveled by train instead of car, even if most of their travels had consisted of Al not being able to fall asleep on Ed's shoulder, something about the whole routine still felt so familiar, like their life just consisted of endless times where they had each leaned on one another when they were too tired to hold themselves upright.

"Big baby," Ed muttered with a chuckle as he reached up and smoothed Al's hair out so it looked less like a wild bramble bush. 

„Guten Morgen," a soft voice said, and when Ed looked up, he found himself staring at Ros- No, wait, that was wrong too. She was someone different, she was— Noah. How could he forget that? 

No, he'd only met her days ago, of course he still kept confusing her with Rosé.

Ed groaned and held a hand up to his head as what felt like a cacophony of memories swirling inside his head. Like he'd been given so much information about Sylvan this and Sylvan that ever since he'd first woken up in Germany that his brain no longer knew how to tell what had been his own life and what had been Sylvan's. He slowly picked up the pieces of his consciousness, making two piles in his head that sorted the broken shards into two piles labeled "Kai" and "Sylvan." And slowly, the reality of the day ahead of him set in. He and Noah had told Al that he'd switched back the other night just to get Al okay with leaving. Which meant he was going to have to spend the whole day convincing Al that he was actually Sylvan. No wonder Al was clinging to Ed in his sleep. He thought he'd actually gotten his brother back. 

„Guten Morgen," Ed repeated dully, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. The way Noah watched him had Ed believing that she absolutely knew exactly what he was thinking, even if she wasn't touching him. 

Ed could remember that there was a time right after he and Winry had first gotten engaged when he'd gotten an intense flashback right in the middle of Winry doing maintenance to his leg. He'd so badly wanted to keep her from worrying about him, didn't want her to know how bad things felt for him sometimes because it always felt like he was overreacting. So he'd ended up gritting his teeth through it and trying his best to pretend nothing was wrong. When Winry started getting irritated that he wasn't responding to her asking him questions about what he wanted for the wedding, he had ended up snapping at her. 

Of course, because it was him and Winry, and because they were young and stupid, that impulsive slip had made the entire argument go nuclear. He and Winry had ended up spending the entire day apart, and Ed could remember a distinct moment where he was terrified he'd never be able to even handle being married, let alone being a functioning civilian who could care about problems like the flower you want for a wedding centerpiece not being in season at the right time. 

When he finally had gone back to Winry to apologize and explain why he'd been more irritable than usual, she had ended up giving him a lecture about how being married was supposed to be a partnership, and that having a working partnership depended on trust between two equals. How it wouldn't work out if he decided that something was a threat he needed to protect her from if he didn't even let her know he was making that choice in the first place. 

"You don't go giving half your life to someone if you're scared they won't be able to look your past in the eyes," she had whispered, reaching out and holding him by his cheeks, her right thumb swiping away the tear he hadn't managed to fight back. "If we're going to make this marriage work, we need to always be honest with one another about where we're at and how we're feeling. Otherwise, we won't be able to work together as a team."

That lecture had ended up haunting him every day as he tried to figure out how to be a better husband, a better father, a better Ed. And now, he couldn't help but think about it again as he looked back at Noah, knowing that she somehow could read exactly what he was thinking, even without her powers, even without him saying a word, even without him actually being Sylvan. And he couldn't help but think that maybe her ability to see into people's memories just by touching them was a gift, because he couldn't be sure that Sylvan would have been able to trust someone enough to be completely honest about his past. 

"You okay?" Noah said, with a concerned look that made him almost question if she'd seen inside his head without even touching him. 

"Yeah," Ed muttered, rubbing a hand over his face a couple of times as if that would somehow transform him into the person he needed to become before Al woke up. "Yeah, I'm fine, just... Just tired." 

Noah gave him a sympathetic smile. "We're almost there. You'll be able to get up and stretch your legs soon."

Ed nodded, grateful for the distraction of their impending arrival. He glanced down at Al, still peacefully asleep against his shoulder, and couldn't help but feel a surge of protectiveness. He glanced out the window as the car turned down a gravel driveway of some sort, and noticed the distant colorful peaks of circus tents in the distance.

"It's the... carnival?" Ed muttered, frowning as he straightened in his seat to get a better look out the window. Al stirred with the movement, jerking at the mention of "carnival."

"Oh, are we there already?" Winnie said, rubbing at her eyes and stretching out her shoulders. "They're going to Bremen too. They're arriving just a bit before we need to be there to catch our ship. So we're just going to ride along with them." 

"Wait, and you were okay with us just procrastinating on leaving?" Ed said, blinking and turning to look at Winnie instead of the swiftly approaching striped tents. 

"Well, they're not going to be leaving for a bit. It was either kill time waiting there or kill time waiting here," she said with a shrug and easy smile. 

"Izz too cold for the circus," Al muttered, pulling his coat tighter around himself.

"It warms up if you actually get up and move," Ed said with a snort, shoving at his younger brother's shoulder as the car pulled to a stop. Al stuck out his tongue with a pout but kept his eyes defiantly shut as he burrowed his head into the neck of his coat as if he were a turtle. 

"Fine, be like that," Ed said with a laugh as he moved to climb out of the car. "You can stay here, and the rest of us will go enjoy ourselves at the carnival witho—" 

"No!" Al said, snapping his eyes open and jumping into a sitting position. He narrowed his eyes at Ed, then rearranged his coat with a huff. "Cold's fine. I love the cold. Yippee, cold." 

"Am I detecting sarcasm from my dear sweet baby brother?" Ed said with a wide grin as he held the door open while Al struggled to crawl out from his spot in the middle. 

"Yeah," Al said in a deadpan voice as he stepped out of the car. "That's good that you actually caught it that time, Brother. Usually your sarcasm detector is broken." 

"I-I... It's not broken!" Ed spluttered, slamming the car door shut as Al smirked. "I, like, I'm-I'm the most sarcastic person, I basically invented—" He then paused, frowning as he thought back over what Al had said just a moment ago. "Waaait, was that sarcasm too?" 

"See? Usually broken," Al said with a triumphant grin. 

The stream of curse words that came out of Ed's mouth flipped between Amestrian and German, but Winnie and Noah still understood exactly what he was saying, all the same. 

As they had been arguing, Winnie had been talking to their driver, presumably thanking him or tying up any loose ends from the whole arrangement. Ed wasn't sure exactly what had convinced someone to make an entire trip just to drop people off at a carnival several towns away, let alone being fine with having the date of that trip change so unexpectedly several times. But even so, Ed was grateful that somehow this Fritz Lang guy had the kind of connections that made that possible. 

"Okay," Winnie said, turning back to Ed, Al, and Noah with a grin. "I need to go talk to the owner and get directions on where we're going to be sleeping and such for the next few days." 

"Man," Ed said, raising his eyebrows. "You always know what needs to happen next. It's like you're... following a script or something." 

"It's called having a plan, Edward," Winnie said with a laugh. "You should try it sometime. Now, shall we?"

She gestured her hands towards the front entrance, but Ed just barely caught the slight flinch from Noah at the words. She had her arms crossed over her chest, looking towards the carnival with a frown. 

"I... I'll catch up with you guys in a bit," Noah said, her voice barely above a whisper, her hair hanging in front of her face as she stared down at the ground, gripping her own biceps in a tight hug as if to reassure herself. Ed frowned and took a few steps closer to her, debating between reaching out to comfort her or staying in his own bubble, unsure if the thoughts in his head would even be comforting. Was she upset in the first place because of him? Was this because she regretted lying to Al earlier?

"Do you want me to stay with you?" Ed murmured, and she looked up at him with wide eyes. 

"Y-You don't have to. It-It's fine. I just... Just need a minute," Noah stammered, her expression flickering between so many emotions that it was hard for Ed to keep up. Still, he could at least parse out that even if she was saying it was fine, something about having him around reassured her. Even if he acknowledged that maybe his presence was reassuring to her because it reminded her of the person she actually wanted. 

"I'll stay with Noah," he said, looking back to Al and Winnie. "Do you think we could just... meet back here at the front gates when you two are done?" 

Al made a conflicted face, looking between Ed and Winnie like a puppy getting called by two masters at once. "But, Brother..." 

Ed's mind flicked back to the car and how he had woken up with Al clinging to him. Or how Al had scrambled to his feet at the thought of Ed going to the carnival without him. It reminded Ed a little too much of how he had acted himself when Al had first gotten his body back. Ed hadn't been willing to go much further than four feet away from Al back then, even if it meant trotting up and down hospital hallways while Al was wheeled around in a bed. He was too scared that maybe it was a dream, that maybe if he looked away for five minutes, that would of course be the minute that something went wrong. 

"It's okay, Al," Ed murmured, making direct eye contact with Al's strange grey eyes and holding it. "I'm okay. Promise." 

He was able to say it without even feeling like a guilty liar, even if he knew that deep down, he was. Because on the surface, he was telling the truth. He was okay. It was just a question of who "he" was in the first place. Al considered for a long quiet moment, his expression stormy. 

"Okay," Al finally said. He turned his body towards Winnie, but kept his head pointed in Ed's direction, like an owl. "But don't go wandering off. You gotta be here when we get back." 

"Sure thing, bud," Ed said with a nod as he watched Al follow Winnie toward the carnival entrance before turning his attention back to Noah. She was standing a few steps away from him, her shoulders tense as she fiddled with the hem of her jacket. She had thrown her hood up over her head, whether from the cold or because she wanted to hide, he couldn't be sure. He hesitated a moment before reaching out towards her, and as he did, she reached up to pull the hood tighter around her face. There was something about the movement that was oddly familiar to Ed, something about that movement with the circus tents in the background felt familiar to him, like one of those dreams that were so vivid when you were asleep, but then slipped through your fingers like water when you woke up. 

"We... met at the carnival..." Ed said slowly as he touched her shoulder, frowning as if he were waking up from a year-long sleep. Noah's eyes went wide and she flinched at his touch, but didn't fully pull away from him. Something about the look in her eyes was familiar in that same way, and Ed was smacked with another wave of memories, remembering how she had reached for him when those men had grabbed her. 

"Right..." he murmured, his face creasing into a frown. "No wonder the idea of going back to a carnival freaks you out." 

Noah was silent for a long moment, her eyes wide as she swallowed a lump in her throat, her chest heaving with panicked breaths. After a long, quiet minute of the two of them staring at one another, she finally yanked away from his touch. Something about the spell snapped, and Ed shook his head, suddenly gasping for air as if he had just been rescued from drowning. 

"Who are you?" Noah whispered, her voice tight.

Ed took a step back, his eyes widening in surprise at the question. There was something intense to Noah's gaze that caught him off guard. He couldn't figure out exactly what she was feeling, but all he was able to pick up was that she was angry for some reason. He hadn't seen her get angry like that, let alone angry with him, and there was something a little bit terrifying about it. 

"I-I'm Ed," he stammered. 

"Which Ed?" 

"The... Same Ed," he said, fumbling for a way to even answer the question in the first place. "I mean, the one... not from here? I mean. Neither of us are really from Germany, I guess, but... You know. Kai. Not Sylvan." 

"Then why," Noah started, her voice cracking, "do you have his memories?" 

"His..." Ed started, frowning, and then the pieces started clicking into place. The memory of Noah frantically reaching for him, the way he'd instinctively said that Noah and him had met at the carnival. Those weren't strange scraps of memories from a dream, those were Sylvan's memories, actual memories of when he'd first met Noah. God. He could only imagine how that felt for Noah, to suddenly see memories that she thought she'd never see again, to have him talking as if he had switched back one minute and then saying he was Kai the next. Why had he randomly started just saying whatever thoughts entered his head, anyway? Why did he feel the need to say anything about the weird half-memories floating through his head? 

Not like it would have mattered with Noah, though. 

"You did this before too," Noah said slowly, and Ed snapped his head back to look at her. "When we were running. I tried not to think about it, but. You knew the way. You knew the way. Why do you have his memories?"

"I don't," Ed said, frowning and tapping at his head. "I mean, not usually. Sometimes it's just like... getting hit with that feeling that something's familiar but you don't know why because you've never been there before, but somehow it feels like you've been there a thousand times before." 

She just stared at him for a long, silent minute, clutching her coat around herself as she stared, seeming to consider him carefully. Ed could tell she was fighting to keep her face as neutral as possible, but even so, a tear escaped and slipped down her cheek. 

"Is it bec..." Noah started, then slightly choked on the word. She paused, swallowing the sobs and taking in a breath as she wiped the tear away. "Is it because he's dying? Are you... absorbing him or something?"

Ed felt a lump form in his throat at Noah's question, her words hanging heavy in the air between them. He had never considered that possibility before, the idea that Sylvan's fading memories were somehow seeping into his own consciousness. The thought sent a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the cool morning air.

"No, no, of course not," he said softly.

"How do you know?" 

Ed swallowed, but found himself at a loss for words. The honest answer was that he didn't know. He didn't know anything about the entire situation. He didn't exactly have some sort of guidebook, like, "What to Expect When You’ve Traded Bodies With Another Version of Yourself, but Uh Oh, He Looks Like He’s Going to Die—in Your Body! Now What?" There weren't really other case studies for him to compare—

He paused, struck with the memory from when he'd first shown up and Al had mentioned that Sylvan had done this whole body-switching thing once before. 

"Maybe," he started slowly. "Maybe it's a sign that he's coming back. I mean, when he switched with the Ed from this world, he snapped back to his own body when he died, right? So maybe, when my body dies, he and I will just... automatically switch back." 

Noah looked anything but relieved at that potentiality, instead giving Ed a horrified look. "But then you would—" 

"Well, yeah," Ed said, wincing. "That's... unfortunate. But hey, you'd have your guy back!"

Noah stared at Ed, her expression a mixture of shock and disbelief. "That's not fair," she whispered with a shake of her head. "That's not fair. What about your wife and kids? Are you even thinking about them?" 

"Of course I am," Ed said, frowning and looking down at his hands. Why he looked there for answers first, he couldn't entirely say. Maybe because part of him was hoping that if he looked down and saw two flesh hands, he could be sure that he was the person he was supposed to be. But of course, he just found himself staring at the wrong hands again, wondering yet again why something so familiar could feel so wrong. 

"It's just... complicated," he finally said with a sigh as he looked back up at Noah. "If I think about... home too much, it... it hurts all the time. It's unbearable. But then there's you and Al, and hey, you're important to this other me, and I would want him taking care of my family too, so I focus on taking care of you guys, but then it's like... I'm focused on this world. On fixing things." 

He paused, frowning and flexing his automail hand, thinking back to how determined he had been to repair it as quickly as possible, as if he were fighting a deadline to prove that he could actually be useful. 

"I think..." he started slowly, "I think that somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that if I could... make things better for you all somehow, it would prove that this wasn't a complete waste. Or... Or maybe it would prove that I was... better. Like if I could fix the things he couldn't, then it would prove that I had my shit more together than him. The superior Ed." 

Noah made a face and crossed her arms over her chest. "You're the same person as him. Why would you need to prove you're better than him?" 

Ed was quiet for a long moment, pinching together his automail fingers in concentration. 

"I don't know," he finally sighed in defeat, though it sounded more like an excuse than an admission even to his own ears. Perhaps that was what pushed him to keep going, to keep saying things even if he'd just admitted to not knowing. "Maybe because he was just this... sad, cynical man in brown who left home. And maybe I looked at him and saw my dad. Maybe I looked at him and was scared. And maybe I thought that if I could prove I made better choices than him, then I wouldn't have to worry that deep down, I was just like him." 

"Oh, Ed." Noah's expression softened, and she reached out to grab his arm. He almost wanted to apologize to her for whatever memories followed her touching him, because he was pretty sure that just about any of his thoughts right then were painful enough to warrant a hundred apologies. But before he could open his mouth to apologize, he suddenly found himself swimming in an unfamiliar memory, small and tugging at a brown dress embroidered with flowers. 

"Momma," he found himself saying as he tugged at the dress of a young woman. "Momma, what was Papa like? Was he like me?"

"Of course," Noah's mother said with a laugh. The baby Noah in the memory seemed to take that as reassurance that of course everything was fine, because Momma would never smile if things weren't fine. But grown-up Ed looking through her eyes could see the way that the smile didn't reach all the way up to her mother's tired eyes. 

"What about me is like Papa?" Noah persisted, pressing closer against her mother's leg, straining to see the dough her mother was kneading high up on the counter. 

"Noah..." her mother sighed, nudging at the child clinging to her leg. "I'm busy right now, can we talk later?" 

"Your hair is curly, but mine is straight," Noah continued, pulling at her own hair as if to examine it. "And Lenora and Hester's hair is curly, but Katarina's is straight like mine. And you said. You said that's because Lenora and Hester have your hair and because Katarina has Papa's hair, so does that mean that I have Papa's hair too?" 

"How do you have this many words this early in the morning?" her mother said with a deep sigh. 

"Which of your body parts did I get anyway?" Noah said, spinning around and looking at herself as if she were trying to catalog everything about her own appearance. She picked up a chunk of her hair, holding it up to her face util it was only a quarter of an inch away from her eyeball. "Because I don't think I got your eyes, either. We all have brown eyes, but when you look really closely, everyone else has browny-bluey eyes. But I have browny-yellowy eyes which I think is better anyway, but does that mean that I have Papa's eyes?" 

"I suppose so," Noah's mother sighed, not looking up from her work. 

"I like your hair better. It has more fun. Because yours is like, woowoowoo spinny, but mine is just... bwamp," Noah concluded, dropping her hair and reaching towards her mother again. "But Momma. Momma. Momm—" 

Except when she touched her mother, her words were abruptly cut off as Ed felt Noah get yanked into one of her mother's memories, dragging him along with her. He was beginning to wonder if maybe he could get lost in layer after layer of memory, pressed like a petal underneath the weight of it all. 

Her mother's memory was filled with fear, with a terrifying man looming over her, his eyes the same warm shade of brown as Noah's. There was something uncannily familiar about him in a way Ed couldn't quite place, but he couldn't focus fully on it, because there was an additional layer of fear emanating from Noah and making him feel it deep within himself as he watched through her eyes. Scared because she didn't understand what was happening, wasn't familiar with seeing people's memories, wasn't sure why Momma was so scared of the man, wasn't sure why this strange man had the same eyes as her. 

But Ed wasn't a child. Ed understood what happened when women were caught alone and vulnerable and surprised. Ed understood what it meant when a man looked at a woman with that terrifying, predatory sneer. Ed understood why the man felt so familiar, because his face was the same shape as Noah's. Ed understood that what had happened to Rosé was way more common than most people cared to admit. 

Wait, what exactly had happened to Rosé, again?

"Momma," baby Noah said, jerking out of the memory, tears streaming down her face. "Why are you thinking about that scary man? Momma, why was he—"

"I told you not to talk about those visions!" her mom yelped, spinning to look at Noah with wide, terrified eyes that only made Noah cry harder. "Do not talk about those visions, do you hear me? What have I told you?" 

"That it's the devil whispering in my ear," Noah said through her sobs, flinching backward and covering her face. "I'm sorry, Momma, I'm sorry, I promise I won't—"

The memory cut off and Ed broke out of it with a gasp. He could feel tears streaming down his face, and when he looked down, he realized that Noah had let go of his arm. It occurred to him that he must have been so stuck in the memory, so emotional, that Noah had noticed and forced it to stop by pulling away even when he wasn't aware he had still been touching her. And she was dealing with seeing potential memories like that any time she walked down a crowded street and bumped into someone, but she had somehow learned how to not react, how to keep walking with a straight face no matter what she happened to see. 

"Sorry," she whispered, slowly pulling her hand away from him, curling her arms around herself like she wanted to compact herself as small as possible. "I'm... still getting used to other people seeing inside my head." 

"Noah," Ed whispered, his voice cracking as he reached out for her, grabbing both her arms as if he could stabilize her. The memory didn't pick up where it had left off, but Ed could still feel the pinpricks of dozens of similar other memories rushing past him, pushing through his brain with instant comprehension almost as if he'd lived through it himself, just as alchemical knowledge had once done to him in the Gate. 

"You have nothing to apologize for," he said, squeezing her for emphasis. He tried to think of any sort of words that would mean something in the situation, but he was stuck speechless. "I mean... Fuck, Noah."

"Yeah," she whispered, looking down at the ground instead of at him. She paused, seeming to debate internally about what she was going to say before she looked up at him again. There was something about her expression that burned. From immense pain that no child should have to shoulder, yes, but also a defiant stubbornness. Like the last flickers of a raging fire that refused to be stamped out for anyone else's comfort. 

"I was born right after Papa passed away," she started slowly. "Close enough that Momma didn't find out until after he was gone, so she called me her miracle baby. I think... maybe she wanted to believe I was Papa's daughter. Maybe she thought that if she buried things deeply enough, they wouldn't be able to hurt her anymore."

She paused, a bitter smile cracking her face. "And then she was born with a daughter that could read her mind. And I think she always resented me a little for not letting her run."

"Noah..."

"Of course, there were some people in the caravan that thought my birth didn't line up as nicely as Momma liked to pretend it did, so there were always... whispers," Noah continued, caught up in the telling of her childhood now that she had started. "There were already people who thought I was... ungodly. But then when they realized I could see in their heads, well.

"Plenty of people thought it was useful at first. They said that maybe I really was a miracle child, a blessing sent by Papa as a final act of love. I was able to catch thieves, I could tell who was untrustworthy, and there were a few times I was the last resort when no one could tell who was telling the truth. I once saw a memory of a man murdering his wife, Ed. I was eight."

Ed could only stare at her in stunned silence. He wasn't unfamiliar with what it meant to walk through hell and back again before you'd even reached a birthday with double digits, but goddamn. That didn't make it any less horrific. 

"The more lies I uncovered, the more people seemed to hate me," she continued with a sigh. "And then there were the whispers. People whispered about how my birthday didn't line up perfectly with Papa's death, that I couldn't be his, that I didn't even look like him. And some people started saying that maybe I'd been sent as a curse instead of a blessing." 

"And then my sisters..." Noah started, but her words cut off with a sob that she tried to contain. But she didn't even need words, because Ed was still holding her, and the memory swirled around him without her even needing to say a word. 

"I have good news, Noah," Hester said as she slowly closed the door behind her. Noah couldn't help but notice the envelope clutched in her sister's hands. "There's a man who's written asking for your hand in marriage." 

Noah looked up from her embroidery, her jaw hanging slightly slack. "There... is?"

"There is!" Hester said with a wide grin. "Apparently there's actually a man who doesn't immediately go running for the hills when he hears about a woman who can see all his thoughts with a touch! Isn't that great news? Now you won't have to be alone forever!" 

Noah made a face, putting her embroidery down on the table. She didn't miss the fact the Hester was all the way on the other side of the table, as far from Noah as possible. Not that Noah would have broken the bubble that had slowly grown around her for years, not unless absolutely necessary. 

"I wouldn't have been alone. I have you. And Lenora. And Katarina. And Momma." 

"Not when we get married." 

"Well, I'll still have Momma." 

"Noah!" Hester said with a groan, throwing her hands in the air. "Don't you want to get married? Have kids? Start a family of your own?"

"I don't even know who he is," Noah said quietly. "Let alone how I feel about spending the rest of my life with him."

"Noah," Hester said seriously, placing both hands on the table as she leaned forward. "That's normal for marriage. And honestly, I would think you'd be happy you got an offer at all. We've all been thinking you would die an old maid. There's a man out there who wants you exactly the way you are. This is amazing." 

Noah was quiet for a minute, letting the words sink in. The thought of leaving behind her family and everything she'd ever known sounded absolutely terrifying, but Hester had a point. This man had been told about her abilities, and he'd still offered a proposal. He wasn't scared of her. There was a man who actually wanted her. Her mind spun with possibilities of what kind of a man wouldn't be scared of a woman who exposed all his secrets. Maybe he was one of those little watery types of men who didn't really have much to hide (because there wasn't much going on in his head in the first place). Or maybe he was the sort of man who didn't have anything to hide because he didn't mind if people thought badly of him. 

Or maybe... (And she let her mind spin with old fairytales, even if it wasn't particularly practical to do so.) Maybe he was some sort of dark, lonely prince. A man who had heard about her and understood what it was like to be brushed aside by society and misunderstood. Maybe he had been in some sort of terrible accident as a child and now had a terrible disfiguration covering half of his face, making it so no one wanted to talk to him. But then he heard about Noah, and knew that she would be able to look past his outward appearance and see the gentle soul he was underneath. Maybe they could just live in his castle away from the world, not needing anyone other than one another, because they understood each other so completely. 

And even if it was impractical, Noah found herself smiling at the daydream. Even if she didn't know him, she would finally have someone who wanted her. She would be able to get a hug whenever she wanted, brush his shoulder as she walked past, or even just sit beside one another with their shoulders touching. 

And suddenly Noah felt a deep hunger inside herself to know what it was like to be able to touch someone so casually. 

"Where is he?" she murmured. 

"Munich," Hester said, grinning as she straightened up. "He'll be waiting to meet you at the carnival, so you're coming with us." 

"That's so soon," Noah said, swallowing a lump in her throat.

"Well, how long do you want to wait for your life to start?" her older sister said with a shrug as she turned to head out of the room. When her hand was on the doorknob, she turned back to look at Noah. "Oh, and don't forget to wear a headscarf. You're an engaged woman now, after all." 

"My sisters didn't usually take me to carnivals," Noah said softly, snapping Ed out of the memory and back to the present. "People usually want fortune tellers to tell them their future, not their past. Most people aren't particularly keen on paying someone to remind them of all the things they've tried to forget. I was... excited."

"And then they took me to Hanussen's tent, and I thought, surely he's not the man I'm supposed to marry. He's at least a decade older than me, and the last time I'd spoken to him, he hadn't taken very well to me calling him a charlatan. But then Lenora and Katarina were saying I was supposed stay with him, and I realized..." 

Another memory pushed at Ed's mind, coming and leaving quickly even though the words hung in the air without anyone having spoken them aloud. 

"You only brought me here so you could sell me." 

The memory shifted again, scraps of frantic thoughts assaulting Noah as she ran through the crowd, desperately looking for somewhere to disappear. And then Ed found the air kicked out of his chest when the memory suddenly shifted to an image of him, frowning and tilting his head to the side in consideration. 

"And that's when you met m— I mean, him," Ed said, feeling like the air had been kicked out of his chest. 

"Yeah," Noah said with a small smile. She looked off into the distance for a minute, lost in her own thoughts before she finally turned back to look at Ed. "So? Do you think I'm a monster?"

"W-W-What?" Ed spluttered, looking at her with a horrified expression. "God, Noah, no, of course not! Why would you even ask that? You're the furthest fucking thing from a monster! You're resilient, and brave, and kind, a-a-and. I mean, your abilities aren't a curse, they're—" 

"I'm not talking about my abilities," Noah said with a shake of her head. "I'm talking about my father." 

Ed frowned. "But he died before you were born, what's that got to do with—" 

"Not Papa. My father." 

"Oh." Ed stiffened, his expression hardening. "...What about him?" 

"He's a monster," Noah said simply, and then gestured at herself. "And he's in my blood. Every time I look in the mirror, I can pick out the parts of me that aren't my mother, and I think 'that's him.' Every time I've had something different about me, something I did that my sisters didn't, I always ended up wondering if maybe that was him. And sometimes, I've found myself capable of doing terrible things, betraying friends, and I wonder. Am I like this because I'm related to him? Can I really never escape him just because he's in my blood, in my mirror? So. What do you think? Is it possible for me to escape? Or am I doomed to be a monster?" 

Ed stared at her for a long minute, his chest heaving as the implications sank in. He looked away from her, swallowing the lump in his throat and pulling his left hand away from her so he could run it through his hair, frowning as he tried to figure out how to put his feelings into words. 

"That's not fair," he croaked. "It's not the same. Your dad didn't murder an entire country. I mean, even if I forgive him for what he's done to me, even if I can understand that it was all circumstances outside of his control, even if I believe he's changed... That doesn't undo the damage he's done. I don't... I can't ever let myself fall into... I don't want to keep hurting the people around me." 

"Ed," Noah said softly, and he turned his head back to look at her. Her expression was soft and gentle as she reached out and took his hand. "Are you scared because you looked at yourself and saw your father, or are you scared because you looked at your father and saw yourself?" 

Ed frowned and tilted his head. "That's... the same thing." 

"It's not though," Noah said with a deep sigh. "What I mean is... It's easy when you're just dealing with a bad guy outside of yourself. It's easy to blame someone else for everything going wrong. You're the reason I'm like this, you're the reason everything is terrible. I think... I don't know. Maybe you've been wrapped up in being mad at your dad and working through your feelings about everything he did to you. But if you believe him, understand him, and forgive him... Well, maybe you're just mad at him out of habit. Because it's easy. Or, at least, easier than facing who you're really upset with." 

He could only stare at her for a long moment, speechless. 

"Who am I upset with?" he croaked, as if he didn't know the answer. As if he didn't have to stare down the answer's golden eyes every time he went to sleep and woke up in the void again.