Author’s Note: I feel this fic is a bit rushed, and isn’t exactly as I planned it would be… Oh well. I still like it.
Anyways, this is a short 'remake' of the scene between Ed and Al in episode nineteen. It's a very sad moment; Ed looks so depressed. D: But, just in case, there are spoilers for that episode, so read at your own risk if you're new to the series.

Déjà vu

I rolled a small piece of paper into a ball and flicked it across the room from my position on the floor, leaning back against the couch that took up a nice portion of the floor space in our small dorm room. My older brother was resting on the other side, pretending to be asleep. But I knew better.

I probably would have sighed at that moment, but I knew that Ed would immediately start to worry again, seeing as I couldn’t actually breath. But the heavy cloud of depression and defeat hung over both of us, pressing down hard enough to crush my brother, and to weigh my mind with thoughts of failure. We had failed; Edward was, without a doubt, berating himself with the same fact.

My large, leather and armor-clad hand clenched shut with such a force that probably would have forced my fingernails into my skin had I been human. We had been close! So close! So close, I had felt the Stone’s smooth, beautiful, bloody surface between my fingers. I had seen its red aurora, the power flowing from it, into our--my brother’s--grasp. I had felt the tug of my lost body beyond the Gate, longing to steal back its place as my soul’s host. And my brother! I know he had felt it, the metal molding into flesh, scars disappearing, feeling returned…

But it just wasn’t meant to be. We’d been searching since our ordeal, and we were going to stop now. Maybe there was a loophole… No. There couldn’t be. The Stone was created with the use of human lives; there were no loopholes.

I glanced up at the clock, noticing for the first time that, though the room was dark, it was only seven. Through the curtains, I could see the golden light the sunset was giving off, and, for a moment, I longed to go watch it. No, to join it! To just sink down behind the mountains and hills, down into the oceans and lakes. Just disappear until everything was better again until I just rusted away into nothing but a pile of coppery dust without a name to distinguish it from the rest of the world’s dirt and grime.

I could hear Ed shift behind me, his lithe, skinny body moving against the couch’s back and springs, making them squeak with age. I heard a soft grunt, and the whine of un-oiled metal as he lifted his right arm. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see him reach for the ceiling, hand closing over the fan.

“God must really hate people that go against him; I was eleven years old then, and he still has me marked,” he muttered. I listened silently.

“Every time I thought it was in reach, he’d pull it away so I’d fall on my face. And then, when I finally got my fist around it, he raises his big obnoxious foot and kicks me in the teeth.

“Just face it, Al. It’s going to be this way our whole lives.”

There was a heavy, uncomfortable silence. My brother had given up? I knew we had failed, that there was no way around it, but to actually hear my brother say he was throwing in the towel, abandoning our search, dashing any hope of getting our old bodies back… I could no longer feel physical pain, but I still had my emotions; I felt the fear run up my nonexistent spine, rattling my armor. If my brother had given up, where did that leave me? Would he abandon me to take better care of himself? Quit the military and become a random traveler with no family aside from a rusty suit of armor?

No… Ed wasn’t that type of brother… I knew he would do much worse.

He would still take care of me, put me first instead of himself. He would stay leashed to the military, taking in the insults military dogs got daily without flinching, because it was what he deserved. He’d still search for solutions to our problem, knowing that the only way would be more self-sacrifice. And he’d probably give into those thoughts within the first year.

The thought was too horrible to bear. I was compelled to turn around and scream at him, to tell him there was another way. Really, there had to be. Marcoh’s notes were just that: Marcoh’s. Perhaps, even by fluke or chance, there were other ways! Marcoh wasn’t the god of alchemy, he didn’t know it all! They’d come this far, why stop? Why give up, and bow to not only the military’s commands, but to the Gate’s? To alchemy’s? There had to be other ways! After all, people said that Ed had sold his soul to the military, that he was their lap dog, but that wasn’t true, and it didn’t stop us! This wouldn’t either!

I leaned forward quickly, intending to stand and face my brother and the demon weighing him down. But I didn’t get the chance.

“’Ave you ever heard of ‘déjà vu‘, Al?”

I was caught off guard by the question. I got up more slowly than I had planned to, turning to look down upon his dull-eyed, emotionless mask.

“… Yes.”

“… Yeah, well, I feel like I’ve already lived this moment,” Ed drawled. I could tell he was trying not break his mask. “Perhaps… Perhaps, in the back of my mind, I knew this was going to happen. Maybe I could have stopped this…”

I stared at him. What was he saying, that he knew this all along? Mother had told me once, when I was very young, that déjà vu was a feeling of rightness, that you were supposed to be there, and you had done something right to lead you that time and place and act.

Was it meant for us to be here, broken?

Had all this horror been fate? Were we powerless to stop it? Had we really known it would happen?

… No. I couldn’t accept that. Ed couldn’t, either. He had always said that they made their own destinies, that there was no such thing as fate, and we couldn’t stand around waiting for it show up and hand us our slice of life.

“No, brother, you couldn’t have known. This is just a minor set back, one we can jump back from, just like the ones the military and their missions throw at us. We only read Marcoh’s notes, and you and I both know there’s more than that. Maybe there’s another way… This can’t be our destinies, to sit and rot. We have to try, brother!” I urged him. I knew he was surprised by my conclusion, and would more than likely counter it with some dark truth that would ultimately be the death of us, or so he would conclude. But I couldn’t think that way, not with this body, and not with a world-wary brother that needed much more caring for than he cared to admit. Not with a family and friends to prove right--and wrong--as they always were over the years.

I walked around the couch to the other side of a small coffee table not but a foot or so away. I kneeled down and picked up a stack of papers--Marcoh’s notes.

“C’mon, brother, we can’t give up.”

Ed only responded with a low grunt and turned over, back to me. But it didn’t phase me, because I knew I could persuade him. Ed knew there had to be a way, and he was just worried. He’d bounce back, just like before.

I began to read over the notes once more with that thought in mind.

Review, please?