Chapter Text
The sky is ash. Amestris is not any better for it, but it certainly isn’t worse, and the idea that at the end of all things, this was the greatest outcome to be had—it is only a comfort for the people who have lost the most in the process.
There will be no more losing today.
But that cost… The cost of every poor or delusional decision made at the hands of the playmakers… its weight finally makes its way to the shoulders of those forced to carry it.
No one can ever prepare you for loss.
It turns naivety into horrors, and sadness into malice, and it twists you up from the inside out, until there is only oblivion. No one can prepare you for it, because by the time it’s struck you, there are no more decisions left for you to make. It’s always at the end.
Ling Yao traveled far from home, across a desert, and into a foreign country ruled by militaristic tyrants, all to achieve his goals, and as he looks down at the liquid red swirl in the bottle in his hands, he knows he has achieved them all.
He thought he was prepared for the cost. He thought his perseverance and sheer wanting was enough to get him here.
And then Lan Fan lost her arm for him. And Fu his life. There is no toll too much to pay.
If that wasn’t enough, however, acquiring this philosopher’s stone was supposed to help him find himself, and put him on the path of least resistance.
Instead, he’s left cold, alone, and vacant. Is this what being a solitary soul is like? Is this how he always felt before Greed?
It’s always at the end.
May Chang isn’t so bad now that she knows he isn’t planning to leave her clan to ruin. She’d called him greedy for wanting peace in Xing, and wanting to protect everyone in their country. So be it then. That much has been proven: that greed looks good on him.
She follows him and Lan Fan after that. He feels so proud to know her—and maybe one day, if she’s willing, and when she’s older, she could take her place as another of his royal guard. Lan Fan will need someone to assist her. Someone she can trust.
It’s just another thing for him to think about that leaves him empty as they find an alchemist to assist them with Fu’s body. They have an ice box made to preserve him for the trek across the desert, so they can bury him at home when they bring the news to their clan.
Ling knows it’s tactless to ask, but he can’t help himself as the three of them stand by and watch men in blue pull the metal top over the ice box and secure it to a flat of wheels.
“Do you think he’s satisfied with himself?”
Lan Fan is startled. He realizes he hasn’t said anything to her until now, and her eyes go wide with surprise.
“I’m sorry,” Ling tries to amend.
She’s quiet for a while, and May looks at them, but she says nothing, trying to stay out of their affairs despite her concern.
Eventually, Lan Fan reaches out for him and touches his wrist. She thinks better of it a little too late, and she lets go again.
“You’re hurting just as much as I am,” she says.
The flat with Fu’s box is pushed up a ramp and into the back of a truck for transportation. From here, it’ll be taken to the supplies they were promised to cross the desert with: horses, rations, water, and salt licks.
Ling sighs heavily. “I’m just tired.” Walking forward, he wipes his hand on his pant leg and extends it to the officer who brought the truck. “Thank you,” he tells them. “Would you mind dropping us off at the hospital before delivering to the consignment point?”
“Sure thing,” they say with an understanding smile.
Ling, Lan Fan, and May climb into the back with the box.
“You can be tired and hurting,” May says when most of the drive has passed in silence.
Ling looks at her once before focusing on his hands in his lap, staring at the back of his left hand until he can feel his eyes boring a hole into it. “I know.”
There are so many dead and injured that the hospital staff is hard to put a leash on. The Xing trio wander a little aimlessly, but because they don’t look injured enough, no one stops to ask them if they need something, or what they’re looking for.
“Excuse me—” Ling tries, putting a finger up at a nurse flipping through a few sheets on a clipboard. She power walks past him without a word, calling out to her coworker.
“Excuse me, sir, could you—”
The second attempt ends up the same as the first and Ling looks back to Lan Fan and May with a sheepish smile. Lan Fan shrugs. They’re on the second floor by now, and Ling is not particularly great at reading Amestrian, even if he can speak it, so these specialized department names are not easy to decipher for himself.
“Hey— Watch it!” comes Ed’s voice clear as day from down the hall. Ling and Lan Fan share a glance.
“It’s them,” she confirms.
The door Ed can be heard from is open, but Ling stops in the hallway right before he can be seen. He hangs his head a little as he listens. “Can you at least be more gentle? I get that you’re understaffed, but he’s not in the condition to handle something like this.”
Lan Fan puts a hand on May’s shoulder. “We’ll wait here,” she says. “He’s going to say goodbye.”
The eyes that look up at her are filled with a flurry of emotions, but her response is soft spoken. “I want to say goodbye, too.” May balls her hands into fists, looking around Lan Fan at Ling as he finally enters the room. Lan Fan holds her in place.
The hospital room smells sterile, but also like ash, just like the rest of the city. Ed is hooked up to an IV with fluids, but he’s out of bed and there’s a nurse leaning over Al, wrapping his lower legs with gauze to help compress the limbs for a time.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse says. “I'm struggling to get this on—I'm worried about wrapping too tightly.” He pulls at the fabric, and when Alphonse tenses, the look on Edward's face is filled with concern. “There. Does it hurt?" Al shakes his head. "All done.”
“Hey, Ling,” Al says when the nurse tapes off the edge of the bandage.
Ed whips his head away to the doorway as Ling smiles and waves.
“Ling…? You got here fast. We were just admitted.”
“You’re easy to track,” he jokes.
Ed narrows his eyes and looks away, mumbling. “You’ve got to be kidding me…”
“Sir,” the nurse says, throwing away the packaging for the gauze and his gloves. “There can only be one visitor in here at a time, and the boys' father is staying with them.”
“Tch.” Ed rolls his eyes and leans back against his own hospital bed, folding his metal leg up under him. “Hohenheim can shove off for now.”
“No, no that’s okay,” Ling says. “I’m leaving soon. I only wanted to say goodbye." Their nurse seems to accept that, but only as much as he has the capacity to care, or to push the issue. He leaves the room without anymore of a warning.
Ed sits up straighter. Something twinges in his injured arm, but he doesn't pay it any mind.
"What? So soon after..." Ed responds, seemingly baffled. "Are you and Lan Fan going alone?"
"We're going to... bring Fu's body back over the desert, and bury him in Xing.” Ling nods. “We had an ice box made to preserve his body to the best of our ability, and then I will see to the empire's council when we're finished, to bring the Philosopher’s stone to their attention.” He glances out the door fleetingly, then comes a little closer. “We won’t be alone though. May will be joining us.”
“Not to belittle your abilities or anything, but isn't it a little reckless to go alone on a trek like that right away?"
Al laughs weakly. “Like you’re one to talk about acting recklessly, brother.”
He looks to Al, and knows he can’t argue with that. Especially given that if he were in Ling and Lan Fan's position, he wouldn't think twice about making the journey.
"Alright, alright," he says, then rests his eyes again on Ling, pulling back the bedsheets to tuck his legs under them. "I get it, I just wish there was something more I could do." He couldn't leave Al alone right now even if he wanted to help.
With a smile, it’s clear Ling is touched. "Like what?” he asks. “Travel an entire desert just to attend a funeral? That seems a bit excessive, even for you!
"Besides... if you joined us, I wouldn't be coming back, so you'd have to return to Amestris alone."
Al tilts his head, rubbing absently at his left knee. "What do you mean, you're ‘not coming back?'"
"Well, I told you: I'm going to become emperor, remember? That's why I came here in the first place! And it all worked out in the end.”
"Like I said, Al. When he's crowned emperor he's gonna forget aaall about us little guys to the west, isn't that right, Ling?" Ed jests, unable to stop himself from grinning just a bit.
"You got it! That's how the power vacuum works. Thanks for explaining that, Edward." It brings a laugh out of Al that has him clutching his chest.
Ling smiles, then finally sits on the edge of the bed, and his hand just so happens to fall on Ed's ankle over the covers. He keeps it there.
"I won't forget about you. I spoke with Mustang-- We're going to exchange letters to keep each other updated as far as political matters go. Would you...
"Do you want to write me?”
"Well, it's not like I won't have the time to do it.” Now that the end of the world isn’t looming over them, the weight of how much of that time he has feels like too heavy of a burden to bear. If there’s anything Ed hates most, it’s feeling like he doesn’t have a purpose. “Hey—maybe after the dust settles, I'll make it that way for a visit. I'll make sure to drop in unexpectedly. Maybe through a window?” He wasn't going to let that go. “A skylight? Squeeze my way through an embrasure? I guess it depends how fancy of a palace you have there.
“You’re not leaving tonight, are you?”
The words make Ling’s stomach drop.
"Yeah. We were planning to. We have a long journey ahead of us."
"Please be careful, okay?" Al says. His voice is ripe with concern.
Ling smiles, but it’s for Al more than anything. "I think I can handle it. What kind of future leader would I be, if I couldn't handle a little sand?” He pats Ed's ankle, then pushes off the bed to stand up again, fixing to leave. “And… Ed…”
There is a pregnant pause as he searches for the right words. There are too many of them, and they’re drowned out by the silent vortex in his head. The silence left by Greed, and the silence left by the well of souls that shared his mindscape for the past few months; a swathing emptiness that suffocates him entirely.
He finds he can’t hear himself think.
“Alphonse!”
May has clearly talked her way out of Lan Fan’s autocracy. She rushes into the hospital room and stops just short of Al’s bed, hand curled up at her chest as she takes in his weak form again. A frown tugs at her mouth and she shuts her eyes tight before she climbs up onto the foot of the bed.
“May, I didn’t know you were here. Thank you for coming to see me.”
“I have to go back to Xing, but I promise we’ll see each other again!” she says.
“I believe you,” Al replies, expression soft. Ed softens as well, watching his brother. And when he looks back to Ling, curious and looking for resolution, he only sees the back of his torn clothes and his disheveled hair leaving the hospital room.