It's a bit like a weight slamming into his chest, when Heather admits her deaths. That's what hits the most, more than anything else. He'd really thought that, horrors or not, she'd been a normal human, closer in experience to himself than the homunculii. But...well, clearly that's not the case. He remembers a conversation ages ago in a dream, something about souls and vessels...

Now he knows what that was about, at least.

He doesn't flinch away when Heather grabs his shoulders, though his expression is pretty well dumbfounded. In the silence after Heather finishes, Alphonse blinks and thinks very carefully about his next few words.

"...I...right. I mean, I'm still gonna worry, I don't think I can stop but...I believe you that you can take care of yourself."

Why is every woman that he knows utterly terrifying in some way?