"I can do it myself!"

I tried to wriggle out of Hohenheim's grip, but he just pulled my head back to him on my chin and continued to clean my burst lip with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol.

"Ooouch! Ouch! That hurts! Damn, be gentler!" I cursed angrily.

"It's your own fault. Why are you even fighting? I don't know you like this." That seemed to be his look I believed. But in reality not one word had left his lips. Instead, he treated my wounds in silence, without questions or teachings.

After the last patch on a scratch on my forehead, I was finally released and fled from the living room into my own. I quickly put on a fresh shirt to hide my bandage-wrapped torso. Like a small child who tried to hide the wet bedsheets from his parents.

I had been quieter since I was back in the apartment. The walls, which previously seemed far too big to me, were now smaller. They didn't crush me anymore. But they locked me up. Locked me up in this mortal, earthly world, separated from mine by a cursed gate.

I quickly started to hate my room. The bright walls, the white ceiling. The dark dusty shelves, the old books which I had read through. The rusty bed with the too thin blanket. The window that only showed me this world.

I cursed the room in my mind until I heard my father's steps in the hallway. The laminate floor made creaking noises as they were burdened with Hohenheim's weight. The noises stopped outside my door and I stared at the brown wood with big eyes, waiting for the brass jack to be lowered, but it didn't happen. Hohenheim stayed in the hallway instead of entering the room.

"Edward, I'm leaving now," his voice rang out.

I nodded before I remembered that he couldn't see it. "Yeah, okay." I quickly answered.

"Good. I won't be not back until the day after tomorrow. Please watch out for you while I'm gone." I almost felt as if he was worried, but for this the love was missing in his voice. I didn't know exactly whether I imagined his coldness or just wanted to push him away from me and my heart. But it hurt enough to have lost everyone else. If he went again and wouldn't come back, I didn't want to be hurt again.

"Just go. I'm alright, I'm not a little kid anymore." I turned my head away from the door. Silently, I listened to the steps that went to the apartment door, listened as it opened and closed, and silence filled the entire apartment. To calm down, I took a deep breath, before I got on my feet.

It felt like sleepwalking as I wandered through the rooms. My sense of time disappeared again and left me alone in this strange world. It could have been evening or morning, I didn't know, Hohenheim had pulled the curtains in front of the windows. Dull light shone through them, but not enough to show me whether it was the lovely sun or the cold moon or even the emotionless lantern lamps.

Sooner or later, after hours of walking or just small steps of a few seconds, I had found my way to my father's liquor cabinet. Expensive wines, even a champagne, a half-empty bottle of vodka and several beers were lined up in the shelves.

Winry would have screamed at me, Alphonse probably cried if they had seen what I was doing now. How would Mustang have reacted? I was unsure about him. Would he have screamed like Winry out of anger that I shouldn't drink at my age? Hah, I have been here for so long, in this world I'm even considered to be of legal age. Mustang probably wouldn't have cried. Most likely a punitive look, cold as the moon on a dark night, but quiet, because silence hit often more than words could do.

I laughed dully and uncorked the wine bottle. Without worrying about a glass, I lifted the bottle and drank straight out of the opening. The wine was red and reminded me of blood, but the iron taste was missing, instead I tasted berries, which I could not recognize exactly, sharpness and herbs, as well as a taste that could be simply described as alcohol. Ethanol, C2H6O, formerly called ethyl alcohol. I knew it from alchemy, but drinking it felt different.

A hiccup passed through my body, which made me giggled slightly. Within a few moments I had drunk the liquid in me, while my laughter had become increasingly desperate in between. When the dark-tinted wine bottle was finally empty, I let it fall carelessly on the ground. Once again, shards covered the ground, this time wetted by the red wine residues. Would you see a difference between the wine and my blood? The thought was in the back of my mind, but I suppressed the allure of trying it out by taking a new bottle and emptying it.

Time is relative, fleeting and like a river. Sometimes it flows slowly, sluggishly, in particularly painful moments. You even think that it would stop so that you can and must fully enjoy the pain in this moment. In other moments, time seems to be racing, pushing and taking you on an unforgettable ride, leaving you little time to breathe and think.

While the drinking had felt timeless to me, now everything stood still. An empty bottle rolled next to me across the floor while I held the last one firmly in my hand. I felt the cold floor under me on which I lay, looking at the white ceiling.

"Hey..." I whispered quietly to Al and Winry. They didn't look happy about my condition. But just the fact that I could see them, standing in front of me and looking down on me, put an incredibly big smile on my lips. "There you are..."

"You're an idiot, brother. A real idiot!" scolded Alphonse, appearing to be on the verge of crying. "Alcohol is bad, why do you drink so much! You even imagine our presence!"

"What are you saying..." I smiled broadly and didn't notice my own mumbling from the alcohol. "You're here, I don't imagine that..."

I reached up and expected to feel the fabric of Winry's rough work pants. Instead, my metal hand went through her and grasped into the void. I stopped briefly before a slight laugh made my body tremble and small tears ran down the sides of my cheeks.

"Edward, get yourself together! Now is not the time to go crazy!" Angry, Winry watched me from above as she held her beloved wrench to my neck like a gun. "Get sober and-"

"But then I don't see you anymore." I let my hand sink. "Then I would be alone again. But when I'm like this I see you! Come on, let's do something together!"

Full of enthusiasm I wanted to jump on my feet, but when I sat up straight my head already started to ache and the surroundings blurred before my eyes. Even Alphonse and Winry, standing in front of me, faded, which caused me to panic. "Al, Win!"

When I reached for them this time, they disappeared completely. The empty room was all I had left. Sobbing, I lowered my head and buried my face in my hands to hide my desperate tears. "That's not fair! Not fair! Let me spend a day with them! Just to talk to them again! I miss them so much, I want to go back to them!!!"

"Oh my, Fullmetal. Since when are you such a crybaby?"

The dark laughter in front of me made me lift my head immediately. I stared at Mustang, who was crouching in front of me, looking amused. But his eyes also reflected the sadness that was found in mine.

"Colonel... Colonel! Mustang!" It was only in this moment that I realized how much I had missed him. Yes, I hated my nagging superior, who always had something to comment on each of my reports, who flirted with every woman and showed of far too much with his flame alchemy. But at that moment I was so incredibly happy to see his familiar face, which had already given me hope once before.

His black hair fell over his dark eyes, which looked at me intensely. His lips showed a friendly smile, which seemed strange towards me, as well as the hand he held out to me glovelessly.

Instead of taking his hand, I threw myself into his arms and clung to him sobbing. His uniform had soon become wet on his shoulder from my many tears, while I certainly clawed painfully tight at his back. But instead of making a sarcastic remark or a complaint, even though he usually didn't like me or being wet, he did something incredibly beautiful.

I felt one of his big hands on my head, gently brushing through my hair, which was bound to a ponytail, while the other hand lay down on my back and stroked it in a way that could almost be described as lovingly.

"We miss you all, Edward. I miss you. Are you coming back soon?" I heard his voice beside my ear, calm and strong as always, but clouded by a certain sadness.

I nodded violently. "I'll get back! I'll get back soon! I will come back to you! Please wait a little more! I will find a way, I'll find one! Just wait please! And... And don't forget me!" Violently crying, I turned my face to Mustang, who smiled calmly and wiped one of the many tears from my face.

"Of course. We are waiting for you. I'm waiting for you." He smiled and bent over more, pulling me closer to him. It was like it suddenly got warmer in the room. I felt great heat in me, which became stronger with every millimeter that Mustang's face approached mine.

When his lips finally touched mine, it was as if I was burning. I pinched my eyes and clawed tightly at him as new tears ran down my cheeks. How good it felt! How much I missed that feeling!

I opened my eyes quickly and gasped for air before leaning from my seated position to the side, throwing up some of the burning hot alcohol next to me on the floor. The trembling didn't want to stop shaking my body anymore, just like the tears didn't want to stop flowing down my cheeks.

In my mind I cursed the alcohol for its deceptive illusions, while at the same time thanking it for the mind play, as much as it had thrown me into despair. Nevertheless, I was able to find determination in it that made my eyes shine in unrecognized light. I would go back. After all, everyone was waiting for me, so I wasn't allowed to give up now.

"I can do it myself!"