Europe.

An entire continent away, closer than you'd think.

But he might as well be an entire universe apart.

Europe. Germany, to be exact. A recent email said he was near Berlin. I'm stuck here in America. Alone, so alone… why did he leave?

My brother went to Europe a few years ago, to study abroad. You know, the whole foreign exchange student scenario. People from other countries don't just come to America, Americans go to other places as foreign exchange students.

He left almost right after I got out of the hospital. When I was younger, I'd been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Only six years ago did I start being hospitalized for it. Apparently, I had nearly died. Through some miracle, I was saved. Two years ago, I was released. That was when my brother left. Because of my illness, I had to repeat several years of school. He's a senior in high school now. I would've been a junior, but am just finishing up the fifth grade. I'm home schooled by my grandma. My cousin goes to regular high school, she's a senior too. I can't help but feel inferior. I wanted to drop out, but my grandma wouldn't let me.

My mom died when I was young. I'm seventeen now, though I look only thirteen or so. That's probably because of the treatment I received at the hospital. I'm still not sure what went on there, or even what form of cancer I had. I was told that I'm at risk to get the cancer again. I told my brother this in one of our strained emails. He just said he was glad that I was better, and that he was sorry he couldn't be there.

I don't like the situation. After our mother died, my brother and I grew especially close. Our father had run off with another woman. We moved in with our grandma and cousin. Shortly after our mom died, I found out about the cancer. I'd had it since birth, but the symptoms weren't really obvious. I don't really remember much about my time in the hospital. I barely remember going there for the first time. I was barely conscious and barely breathing as the ambulance rushed me to the hospital. I had been running and tripped. I fell down a hill and landed head first into the river. My head struck a rock with incredible force and I blacked out. The next thing I remembered was my brother's face, twisted in worry and slightly hazy. After that, it seems like a dream. There was nothing, just a white abyss with something like a door hovering in front of me. Occasionally there was some featureless person. I can only assume that was one of the doctors who were treating me. Once in a while, I could see my brother's face. I knew he was there, every single day for four years. I didn't need to see him to know that. Occasionally I could hear him talking.

I walked slowly to my room. It had been over a week since I last heard from my brother. Over two years since I last saw him in the flesh. I closed the door to my room behind me and leaned against it for support. The sunlight cut through the curtains in bright golden bars, the same color as his hair. My hair is brown and very long. It had grown out during the time I was hospitalized and I hadn't gotten around to cutting it. My brother's hair was long too, but for a different reason. I can't remember the reason, but I know he told me once or twice. I kept my hair long because it reminded me of him.

I walked to my closet and pulled out the beaten up shoebox I kept in the furthest, darkest corner of the room. I had gotten and outgrown the shoes years ago, but kept the box. Shoeboxes make excellent storage containers.

"When I was a young boy
My father took me into the city
To see a marching band
He said, "Son, when you grow up
Would you be the savior of the broken
The beaten and the damned?"

The radio screamed at me. I never turned it off and always kept it on that one station, because it was the only one in the area that played the kind of music I like. I opened the shoebox and felt my expression soften a bit. Perhaps it was the song that made me feel so listless. I'm not sure.

Inside the box is a bundle of red fabric. My brother's favorite color is red. I pulled the fabric out and stared at it. It was a beaten up old sweater. There was a tear on one sleeve and thumbholes cut into it. The drawstring in the hood had been removed long ago. Dozens of small items clattered to the hardwood floor as I held the sweater up and put it on. The fabric was worn thin, but I took a certain comfort in wearing it. I felt closer to my brother. Even if it was only a little bit.

He said, "Will you defeat them
Your demons and all the non-believers
The plans that they have made?
Because one day, I'll leave you
A phantom to lead you in the summer
To join the Black Parade"

I sighed deeply and began organizing the odd items that were lying haphazardly around me. There was an old CD. The case was cracked and didn't close properly. The disk itself was shoved in the large album with all the others. The jacket was torn and frayed from taking it out and flipping through it often in an attempt to memorize the lyrics. My brother is smart, but I was still amazed that he could memorize the lyrics to all the screamo songs. Personally, I only like a select few Marilyn Manson songs, but he loved this CD to death. That's why I kept it safely in the shoebox.

There were several other random items that had fallen to the floor. A house key, one of those patterned ones. It was black and white zebra stripes. Mine was just plain silver. There were those rings from around the tops of bottles, the things underneath the caps, on the key ring as well. One was from a Gatorade bottle, another from a Coke. I didn't remember what the green one was from. There was a small plastic alien as well, the metallic blue color scratched and dirty. Random crap collected over the years, 'just for the hell of it' as he would probably say.

I couldn't remember as well. The years I spent in the hospital, his voice… it was all fading. It cost too much to call long distance, and he wasn't at a computer as often as I'd like him to be. He did have his laptop, but he travels a lot with our dad. At least, that's what I've gathered from the scarce emails.

They're only a few lines long. He asks how I'm doing, if I remember anything, how the others are, am I keeping up with my studies, what's the weather like, he's fine if not tired from walking all over Europe, he dropped his cell phone into some river in France and hasn't gotten a new one yet, lost the cord for his laptop again and it's probably in the Austrian countryside somewhere. The next one will say that the cord was actually in the bottom of his suitcase, it had slid in between the outside and the lining but there wasn't any power due to a bad storm and that was why it took him a month to reply to my last email.

I've saved all of them. Every single one since I came home and found one dated a few days before in my inbox.

"We'll carry on, we'll carry on
And though you're dead and gone, believe me
Your memory will carry on, you'll carry on
And though you're broken and defeated
You're weary widow marches on"

I'd printed it out so I wouldn't have to turn on my laptop every single time I wanted to read it and waste the battery. It was in the box as well, folded neatly. I carefully unfolded it. The corners were worn and a little bit brown from where I'd run my fingers over it countless times to make sure the creases were smooth. It had been opened and folded so many times that there were holes in some places where the paper folded. One part was held together with tape.

But I refused to print out another copy. I kept using the excuse that I hadn't gotten around to buying more ink for the printer. The others believe me, because I've been busy trying to finish school. I'll wake up around six or seven and study until lunchtime. After that, I'll just sit around and do nothing in particular, like I'm doing now.

I feel empty inside, like my brother took part of me… all of me… with him when he left. Like he sucked everything out of me while I was in the hospital and took it with him to Europe. I can't help feeling empty and lonely… so lonely.

My cell phone goes off, the rock song clashing with the song on the radio. I pull it out of my pocket and check it. I don't recognize the number so I dismiss it and toss the small black brick onto my bed, where it will inevitably get lost among the covers and cause me to waste an entire hour tearing my bed apart when it will have snuck inside the pillowcase somehow.

I begin putting the items back in the box. The last thing I touch it a crumpled bunch of notebook paper, torn and with a shoeprint on the back. It is probably the most important thing in the box.

The phone goes off again. A different song, meaning it's an actual phone call, not a text message like I usually receive from people. This, I decide to answer even though the number is the same as from the unanswered text.

"…Al?" the voice on the end is shy and timid. "Are… you there?"

"Y-yeah…" I reply softly. I sink to my knees, warm tears flowing freely from my eyes. The salty water drips onto the papers in my hand, threatening to smear the ink though it well over ten years old.

"Dad… uh, well… you see… it's like this…" he flounders with the words. I can't help smiling. "We're arranging things to move here permanently."

"Oh…" I say somewhat stiffly. I glance at the papers, the large sweater falling off my thin shoulders. I still haven't returned to my normal body weight, after being out of the hospital for as long as I've been.

"Did you tell him yet?" a distant voice calls. The memory is faint, but I know it is my father's voice.

"I'm getting to it, geez!" he snaps.

"Is everything alright?" I ask politely.

"Come with us," he blurts suddenly.

I blink in reply. Me, go to Europe? In my condition? I wonder if this would be wise.

"Please, Al. I…" he pauses and I hear the faint opening and closing of doors. "I need you here with me, Al. I love you, so please come."

Tears cloud my vision as the statement echoes in my head.

"My little brother is the most important person to me. I do my best to look out for him and protect him. He is the person I love the most. He's only four, but he's my best friend. Everywhere I go, he comes with me. He's like my shadow, always there for me when I need him. Even if we fight, we make up quickly and I can see him smile at me again."

"Al?" he asked, worried. "Are you there?"

"When do I leave? I'll need some time to pack…" I smile.

He laughs. Not at me, but with me.

"Do or die, you'll never make me
Because the world will never take my heart
Though you try, you'll never break me
We want it all, we wanna play this part
(We'll carry on)"

My brother is the most important person to me. He is the one I love the most.

Area 51 1/2 5-18-11: fluffy goodness. I really like this story. One of the few first-person stories I've completed successfully.

Uh... I got really bored this morning because of the stupid minimum day schedule for our Senior Project presentations (I presented yesterday and it went... well, I kicked ass and made the judges laugh, so I think I did all right) so I churned out most if this in my yearbook class and the rest in my sixth period. It's an AU one-shot. Obviously. I was listening to some MCR songs early this morning and was whining to myself about how I got ketchup on my favorite red sweater and couldn't wear it and somehow came up with the idea for CO. It's funny... the one story without an OC is the one I abbreviate CO.

This was one time when it was really easy to write about Al. This is set after the end of the series and kinda during the Shamballa movie but obviously I've altered things to fit the real world.

I gave Al a kind of cancer because he's already been comatose and given amnesia, so I was sitting there thinking of what to do to him that I haven't already seen and I thought about HF and how he was hospitalized and somehow decided to give him cancer. I think it works well.

Review and all that jazz. Please. I'm still working on the next Godsend chapters, really I am! It's just kinda hard because of the... content level of some of the chapters that makes it hard to work on at school.

Songfic, clearly. 'Welcome to the Black Parade' by My Chemical Romance. Awesome song. Awesome band. Go listen. Now.