Author's Note: Many thanks to anyone who reviewed my first chapter. I like the second one better, but we'll see what you think ;) For a beautiful fanart of this chapter, see: levi-khane (dot) deviantart (dot) com / art / FMA-quot-SOS-quot-188329109

"I come to you in pieces so you can make me whole."

- "Pieces" by Red

Alphonse desperately gasped for breath, fighting to keep his head above the water. It had happened. He knew it would happen, eventually, and now it had. He had cried so much, never stopping, that his tears had filled the immensely tall room, flooding it. And the room was airtight, so not even the smallest trickle could make its way out. He wanted the tears to get out somehow, to release all this pent-up emotion he was drowning in. But there was no way.

The water level had slowly risen over the past several hundred thousand repetitions of the cycle, and Alphonse could barely remember a time when he hadn't been bobbing in this endless expanse of his own salty tears. He tried to stop crying, but he never could. Every time he looked at the ocean of his tears, he only felt like crying all the more, and that was all it took to break the nonexistent barrier between his eyes and his tears. But Alphonse knew with increasing desperation that he had to stop soon. He had to. The ceiling of the impossibly tall room was very close now; he could easily bump his head against it as he fought to keep above the water level. If he didn't stop, he really would drown himself.

But as always, this knowledge did nothing but make him cry all the more. He was scared, frightened, terrified. He didn't want to die, not in this horrible place. He wanted to escape his prison, if only to see his brother's face one last time. Alphonse continued to beg the walls to burst, but they would not listen to him. The shadows had been drowned long ago, so Alphonse couldn't even beg them to help him. He was alone. Completely, utterly, horribly alone. All he had to keep him company were his own tears, and they would be the death of him before long.

Alphonse's body was tired from struggling to keep above the water level, but he knew he mustn't stop struggling. If he did, he really would drown. Closing his eyes on the tears he continued to shed, Alphonse whispered, "Brother...please. Please come... Save me..."

Several minutes or a thousand years later, Alphonse's face was pressed almost right up against the smooth, cold ceiling. He had wedged himself in a curved part of the wall that he thought of as a corner, holding himself in position so he could still breathe. He knew he had little time left, and this knowledge only made his tears come faster. He wasn't ready to die, not after such a short time. (He laughed at himself, for he knew he had been stuck inside this steel prison for millenia.)

"Alphonse?"

How my thoughts torment me, Alphonse thought. The shadows are long gone, but they're still here inside me. I suppose that's where they came from in the first place: my soul.

"Alphonse, can you hear me?"

Alphonse slowly opened his eyes, looking at the ceiling mere centimeters from his nose. It looked the same as always; was it only his imagination playing tricks on him? He couldn't be sure anymore, so warped and unreal was reality.

"Please, Alphonse, tell me you're in there. Tell me you're still all right!"

"Brother...?" Alphonse murmured, hardly daring to hope.

But then he heard a dull thump on the other side of the ceiling, and the muffled voice cried out, "Alphonse! Thank... Alphonse, you mustn't cry anymore. You'll drown yourself!"

"I know," Alphonse moaned as a few more tears leaked out.

"Don't cry anymore," Edward urged, his voice a little closer, as though he was pressing his lips right against other side of the metal ceiling. "Please. I'm going to get you out of here, but you must not cry!"

There was a desperation in Edward's voice that frightened Alphonse even more, but the hope that had risen in his chest upon hearing his brother's voice momentarily stalled his tears. "O-Okay..."

There came two thumps on the ceiling above that Alphonse somehow knew were his brother's hands, pressed against the metal. "Promise, Alphonse," Edward urged, a thousand emotions threatening to break through his voice. "Promise me you won't cry."

Alphonse lifted his hands to the ceiling and pressed them against the places where he knew his brother's hands were. "I promise," he whispered, closing his eyes again.

How simple it was now to keep from crying! His brother fell silent, and Alphonse could hear nothing more from the other side, but somehow his troubled heart was at peace. His brother had come to him when he had nearly given up hope of ever hearing Edward's voice again, and now his trust was so bolstered that he could have waited a thousand more years for his brother to rescue him. He could have died, and never have given up hope in his brother.

Alphonse never knew how long it was that he floated there, hands pressed against the ceiling, face barely above the water level, as still as if he was asleep, or dead. All he knew was that at some point, he heard another sound above him. It was a strange, slicing sound of metal on metal. Curious, Alphonse opened his eyes to find a great ribbon of light jabbing across the metal ceiling. It grew and grew, longer and longer, down the entire length of the room, and then...

The halves of the room stayed together for one brief moment, then crashed down with an almighty clatter. All the water in the room rushed out at last, gushing out like a tidal wave at the head of a hurricane. Alphonse felt himself carried along by the wave, buffeted and tossed about like a cork. For a moment, he was afraid the waters would never calm, or that he would be pushed under and drown anyway. But then he hit something solid, something that broke the water and split it in two, pushing it off to either side.

Alphonse fell to the ground when the water ceased pouring out, and he lay there, curled into a ball, dripping and naked, like a newborn baby. His eyes were closed now, for he was too frightened and excited to look at his surroundings. He could tell, from the light behind his eyelids, that he was out of the prison, and this was such a wonderful thought that he barely knew what to do with himself. So he remained in that same position, shivering in the slight wind that breezed across his wet skin.

And then Alphonse was sure he was in heaven – something soft and warm was draped over his body, the edges tucked in, and he was bundled up like a babe in swaddling clothes. It was so warm, so soft, so comforting and so gentle. So unlike everything he had grown used to in his prison. There, everything had been cold and harsh and unpleasant.

If Alphonse had thought he knew warmth, he soon discovered a new depth as someone's arms wrapped around him, lifting him up and letting him rest against their chest. Alphonse could hear someone's heart beating, could feel the chest rising and falling as the someone breathed. That someone was so warm! Alphonse snuggled up against them, curled into a ball of pure happiness. He thought in that moment that he could stay there for ten thousand million years – no, for all eternity. Then the someone whispered his name, and Alphonse realized with a smile that the Someone was his brother.

"Woah, Al, you're crying buckets."

"I kn-know..."

"You're okay, though? You're not hurt, are you?"

"No. B-Brother...thank you. Thank you so much..."

"Hey, I promised you I'd get your body back, didn't I? I'm just sorry I couldn't get you out of that armor any sooner."

"That's okay, Brother. I'm...safe now. I'll always be safe with you."