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He Who Searches for Himself

Summary:

Standing up and moving forwards feels a lot more like picking yourself up and trudging onwards.

August 1921, nearly 5 years after crossing the Gate, Edward seeks out Hermann Oberth hoping to find a way home.  In his search he learns the mind of Envy is lurking in a host body in Munich and tries to find out whose.  Ed meets a girl named Brigitte along the way, but her fascination with alchemy has dire consequences and a life Ed was trying to escape is thrown into chaos in the depths of the Thule Hall.

May 1916, 9 months after being revived, Alphonse sets out with Izumi to find his brother again, but his teacher vanishes during a terrorist attack in Central City.  Without his memories, Al has no connection to the military personnel helping him, and a new family comes to his aid.  Winry arrives searching for Al and accidentally interferes in a plot none of them realized was already in motion.

A continuation of FMA03, alt ending to CoS.

Ch 1-43 were posted on FFN and LiveJournal 2004-2011.
Ch 44-End are products of 2021 quarantine. Hope you enjoy!!

Notes:

Welcome! I hope you enjoy yourself throughout the fic. Because this story is very large and plotty, here are a few basic things to note as you dive in:

○ This story picks up right after Episode 51. I began writing this fanfic before the CoS movie, and any details pertaining to the movie, had been released. Because of that, this story's interpretation of post-series lore is entirely independent of canon later established in Conqueror of Shamballa.

○ AmunRa (FFN) was kind enough to volunteer her beta services at chapter 8 :) I thank her so much for making me a better writer!

Starting point for Al: May 1916. The fic pics up on the train Izumi and Al depart on at the end of ep 51.

Starting point for Ed: August 1921. This fic assumes Ed emerged on the other side of the Gate at the location his European counterpart died (in September 1916) and lived in Europe until the 1921 moment happens at the end of ep 51. He's been away for nearly 5 years.

Why the time discrepancy between the two sides? - Hohenheim told Ed near the end of the series that the Gate doesn't really have a sense of time - I interpreted that to mean time on 'our side' side of the Gate moves faster than the Amestris side. Time proceeds at a 3:1 ratio Europe:Amestris.

○ I hope you have a wonderful time in my extra large plotfic!

Chapter 1: Trains in Opposite Directions

Notes:

These opening chapters of this fic had a very youthful, helter-skelter 2004-05 flavour that I've always mulled over revising. Because I had far too much time on my hands in 2023 I've I ended up doing just that. Currently chapters 1-7 are revised. Though the heart of the story hasn't changed, there have been some notable adjustments at times, so if you're disappointed to see something go or want to remember how I wrote things originally, FFN will retain the classic version of the story. Cheers everyone!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 


 

"Al!"  Izumi's frown threatened to bow the wooden bench beneath her, "get back from there!" 

"Don't worry!  I just want to take a closer look."  Brazenly defying his teacher, Al placed a hand on the cold metal side of the train and lowered his voice, "I've seen them go by so many times, but the ones here seem different." 

Maybe this was what he gets for spending so much time with Winry, a heightened interest in trains.  Mechanics was not his forte, but he could still admire the magnificence of a train engine.  Al pushed the palms of his hands harder against the cold steel, his lips curling in amusement.  Yup, Winry was going to be so jealous when he told her how close and personal he got with the latest engines going through the big cities.

Izumi ran out of patience with Al's willful deafness, slapped her hands over her knees, and stood up to holler,  "We're heading home if you don't park yourself behind the white line now!"  

The inarguable command sent Al scampering backwards.  The train was interesting, but this journey was far, far more important.

He straightened his green button-down shirt with a sharp tug and headed back to Izumi.  The dull thumps of his feet ascending a mountain of wooden stairs were swallowed by the buzz of the station.  Finding his teacher on the overflow platform, Al shuffled his feet and sheepishly grinned in an attempt to diffuse whatever he could of her tension.  "The trains go by all the time at home, but we always stay away from the tracks."

This 'we' wasn't Al and Winry, or Al and Rose, or Al and anyone of his redefined life.  This 'we' was still Edward and Alphonse Elric.

"It's different here - they're all together and all parked.  I just wanted to have a closer look."

Izumi released the air in her lungs through her nostrils and sat back down.  "It's the same kind of train that stops in Resembool every twelve hours."

"I suppose, but not exactly.  Plus, there's only one track going through Resembool Station.  There's…" Al spun on his toes and scampered to the railing of the wooden deck, "... two in here and more outside!  There's a roof overhead and the floor down there is concrete.  It's nothing like Resembool at all.  This is huge!"

The teacher swallowed a tired sigh and tucked her sentiments away under her breath, "This isn't the first time I've taken you to Dublith.  I know you have your memories from tha—"

Izumi stopped.

The sense of concern radiating off her brought Al back, "Something wrong?"

Visually engaged in the bustle at her left, Izumi searched the crowd for the anomaly that caught her attention.  Al joined her and was surprised at how easily he found the fair face and blue eyes that quickly vanished behind a veil of dark hair on a bench.

Izumi's mouth cranked open, "We're being watched."

Just like that Al heard his teacher thrust her concerns to the forefront of their trip.  

There was no amount of reassurance he could offer that would loosen how tightly wound Izumi was, and every blip on the radar made it worse.  He didn't share the worry – this person was just a girl uncomfortably weaving her fingers through the ends of her skirt.  Not an adult.  Certainly not military.  No one was going to abduct him and turn him into a science project.  How in the world would anyone know he was Alphonse Elric in the first place?  She was overreacting again.

"Don't worry about her," Al tried to abolish the worries dredged up by the one person who had taken interest in them.

Slow to dismiss the peering young lady, Izumi didn't respond.

Objectivity crept back in and Al reminded himself to respect how badly his teacher wanted them to sail under the radar.  They were meant to be nothing more than two faces in a crowd en route to Dublith.  A mother and son like so many others.  Of no interest to anyone. 

Until they arrived in Dublith, Alphonse Elric was just plain ol' Al Curtis.

The crass ring of the station's broadcast system clawed at every ear to announce the Central City boarding call.  Well before the cringe of the shrill noise had relented, the veil of black hair and the young lady leading it swiftly passed Izumi and Al, every footfall masked by the uncomfortable station buzz as she hastily rushed ahead.

Al again assured Izumi there was nothing to worry about, only to have her grip on his arm tighten as they got to their feet.

Izumi's hold on an eleven-year-old fuelled with far too much vim and vigour only lasted until they descended the stairs.  Al bounded down to the main platform.  Racing ahead, his travel bag bouncing over his shoulder, he wove into the crowd of people filling the departure platform.  Impressively, Izumi's warning call carried above the roar of people.  Al paused in the flow, dancing in place as he dodged the waves of people that shoved past him.  Was she seriously going to put a leash on him if he didn't stay glued to her side!?

"She's being so overprotective," Al sighed to himself, "I get it, but even my mom was never so—"

"She's not your mother?"

Alphonse wheeled around.

The fair face and blue eyes met him nose to nose.  

Clearly a few years his senior, the girl's gaze was wide, her expression awestruck, and her entire look was framed by dark, waist-length hair.  What did she want?  She was kind of pretty.  Why was she talking to him?  Dangit, he was starting to sound like everyone in his family.   But, why was she interested in who his mother was?  For a split second, Al did entertain Izumi's concerns.  

The longer they stood in silence staring at each other, and the longer they were bumped around by human traffic on the platform, the more Al started to think she wasn't going to say anything again unless he replied.  

"She is my mom," Al lied, upholding the integrity of a scripted answer, "you just misheard."

Alright, he'd spoken up, now it was her turn to say something!  Al returned the girl's opening gesture by staring at her and patiently waiting.  Her hair flew around her arms while people brushed past, lit by the sunlight filtering in from a crack in the canopy over head.

"Sorry, nevermind," the girl's words rushed out in a single breath.

What!?  That wasn't fair, Al wanted to know more.  "No, it's fine, what did you wa—" 

Exasperated with the two idle children acting as pylons, the humanity moving around them shoved Al aside.  The young Elric staggered around in a mess of bodies, bouncing off annoyed people as he attempted to reorient himself.  By the time he was steady again, the mystery girl with long black hair had been swallowed by the sea. 

Alphonse was lurched around one more time when Izumi snagged him by his shirt collar.  Secured at her side, unable to escape her hold, Al obediently glued himself to her hip and was left to wonder what on earth had just happened.

 


 

Ed cursed up a storm helplessly watching a spread of papers fall to the floor.  The jostling on this train had moved beyond annoying to infuriating.  He didn't have the dexterity in both hands to overcome it; everything fell through his right finger tips, literally.

"The war's been over for years, they could at least put a little effort into repairing the tracks properly," he chastised no one who could hear him.  Needing more stability than the bouncy ride had to offer, Ed eased himself down to his knees to collect his research from the private cabin floor.

A knock on the door narrowed his eyes.  Now what?

"Excuse me, Mr. Elric?"

Aw, come on, he'd just gotten down here.  It'd be a cold day in this hell before he bitched or complained about his physical challenges though.  Ed adjusted his right shoulder, gave his left hip a good smack, and hauled his body back up onto both feet to open the door.  "Yes?"

A well painted, middle-aged, female attendant smiled.  "Good afternoon, Mister Elric.  Since we were not stopping in Reichenhall, you requested to know when we'd entered Austria."

"Already!?"  Damn that was fast.  Had he been dozing off?  He was never going to get used to how quickly train travel got someone across continental Europe. 

Thanking the woman and shutting the door, Ed was back down on the floor of his cabin to examine the state of his research.  Pages nearest the door were scuffed with his shoe prints.  Force of will wasn't getting his right arm to move like it should, the damn thing was malfunctioning.  Not like it worked optimally in the first place but, when it was working right, it was a hell of a lot better than the partially paralyzed sensation it was giving him now.  He entertained the idea of taking it off, but the thought of putting it back on again made Ed's skin crawl.  AutoMail activation hurt like a son of a bitch – but this thing was a torture devise all of his own doing.

And his father's.

Edward gave two seconds of thought to asking his old man help him re-mount the arm and he was okay with the unsightly decoration hanging off his body.  

The train rumbled around a wide bend, offering a scenic view of the hills they navigated.  Ed sat on the floor and saw none of it.  The white curtains pulled wide welcomed a growing swath of low-hanging sun.  The beam widened as the train turned until it poured off the seat and flooded the floor with sunlight.  

The sun was something Ed had learned he could disregard – it wasn't warm, it was just there.  It illuminated the world in the daytime, fed the plants, heated the air, cooked the people, made him sweat, did its job, but it was lacking something.  Initially, at the beginning of all this, Ed concluded that nothing felt warmed by the sun.  Cooked, baked, or burned sure, but not warmed.  Somewhere along the way Edward had lost his grasp of that intangible absence, and now the sun was just there.  He ignored it.

Ed climbed back into his seat, dusty papers at his side.  Beyond the window a smoky-blue sky held no clouds.  What he hoped he hadn't lost grip of was his recognition of what the sky and the earth should look like.  If he thought about it hard enough, yeah, he could see how the view was still muted.  Drained of vibrancy.  Not to the point of being monotone, but a grey wash dulled everything the eye saw.  Ed dreaded the day when he'd have been gone long enough that the grey lifelessness of this world would pollute his memory too.  He didn't want this to ever feel normal.

Relaxing as best he could in a hard, wooden seat, Ed let his shoulder's fall and he did something dangerous – he let his mind drift.  

Before the empty void of sleep took away his dreams every night, there was a point where his consciousness was free to do whatever the hell it wanted.  Sometimes it re-lived things he'd rather forget.  Sometimes he would be cursed with a waking nightmare.  But, sometimes he'd get Al.  And sometimes he'd go home.

Another mangled section of track spoiled everything and Ed bounced.  Not realizing how far he'd slouched, he slid off the seat, landed on the floor, and smacked the back of his head against the bench lip.  Clawing at his new bruise, half his papers had joined him down there.  

Screw it, the research was going back into envelopes and into his briefcase for this leg of the trip.  Nothing was ever going to get done at this rate.  

In the paper shuffle conducted on a dusty floor, a much smaller sheet than all the rest slipped out of the pile and sailed towards the door.  Ed's eyes rounded and he floundered forwards on what he had for hands and knees to capture his Vienna transfer ticket before it escaped under the door.

"Christ, I can't lose that," dusting himself off, Ed tucked it into his breast pocket, "the last thing I need now is to get stuck in Austria."

 


 

Al twitched and sat up in his seat.  He crossed his legs to settle himself.  He re-crossed them the other way.  He put a hand on his kneecap and scratched it.  He plopped his chin into his open hand on the arm rest. 

"What?" Izumi asked flatly.

"Nothing," he lied.

"What?" Izumi repeated herself.

There was no position where Al didn't radiate discomfort.  He slouched in his seat, fully aware of the problem he was walking into on such a crowded train.  He knew the reason the couple who'd been seated with them had been gone for so long.  

"I need to use the toilet," he confessed.

"I told you, you should have gone–"

"I know you said that!" 

Al cut her off and immediately wished he hadn't.  A sleepless Izumi rose from her seat like a cataclysm in the noisy train car and caused Al to wither away in his spot, chirping out apologies while she loomed.

"Excuse me?"

A curious voice directed focus to Izumi's shoulder and dug Al's eyes out from his cowering ball.

The fair face with long black hair from the train platform stood firmly at the opening of the booth.  Adjusting her knee-length dress, the girl shoved her hair behind her shoulders and presented herself proudly, though the nerves rattling her fists were determined to betray her.  "I'm sorry, but your voice bothers me."

The blue in her eyes dulled when everyone with ears, including her own, recognized how rude her opening statement sounded.  The visitor recoiled as the awkward silence around her became louder than the rattling train car.  Half of the sweltering passengers pulled their heads out of the window breezes to give the brazen young traveller a cautious eye for her declaration.

Izumi slowly turned to her, the exhausted dark circles under her eyes weighing down her expression, "I'm sorry young lady, but pardon me?"

The girl stepped back abruptly, "That came out wrong."

"Where are your parents?" Izumi demanded.

"I'm so sorry, Ma'am, I wasn't talking about you," the girl shifted her eyes off of the woman bearing down on her and looked at her companion, "I was talking about him."

Al popped out of his compact shape.  "You're the girl from the train station." 

"He hasn't said anything to bother you."  Izumi brought her temperature down to a simmer and let the passengers of their train car find something else to gawk at.  Her voice lowered, "I saw you keeping an eye on us this morning, didn't I?  How long has this 'bother' been going on?"

She humbly looked down at her feet, "I didn't mean to stare, but something's been nagging at me since I passed you at the station.  And I don't think my memory is wrong.  Well, not that wrong.  And, you see, it's just not adding up!"

"What's not adding up?" Al wanted to wrap his head around her directionless babbling.  

Izumi offered the vacant spots of their booth to their mystery guest, "Have a seat."

Making a point to seat herself directly across from Al, the girl smoothed her hands over her knees and immediately brightened.  Her eyes picked up the light and, like Izumi's foreboding presence had inexplicably vanished, Al was the only one she saw.  

"It can't be you.  I thought maybe it was, but this isn't…" she peered in a little closer, "you're not the right size at all, but you do sound the same."

Every inconclusive word teased Al's curiosity a little more, and she left him sitting on pins and needles with a poignant pause.

"Do you have a brother named Ed?"

Al's heart screamed.

"Edward Elric?  He's an alchemist."  

Yes.

No.

Al anchored his gaze in her direction and stared right through her.  The vibration of the train tamed, the noise of the world's chatter silenced, the breeze of the open window was lost.  The world moving outside the four walls around them ended.

This girl knew him.

Not the fictitious Al Curtis bouncing through Central City and down to Dublith alongside the woman who would guide him towards his aspirations.  This girl knew that Alphonse Elric.  The one Al didn't know.  The one he'd forgotten.

Izumi crossed her legs and put a hand on Al's shoulder, "Never heard of him."

Wounded ears shuttered themselves to cruel, necessary words.  The muffled sounds that reached Al echoed like he was trapped inside the hollow chamber of armour he couldn't remember.  He had no brother for this trip.  He was an only child.  It was so much more fun when words didn't actualize it.

"Why do you ask?" Izumi continued.

"Something like five or six years ago, two alchemists were in a town I used to live in," she explained, returning a fragment of Al's lost life to his hands, "it was two boys, I guess not much older than me, and their names were Edward and Alphonse Elric."

There it was – a glimpse into the life taken from him found in the wild.  His family discouraged him from seeking the missing pieces, but instead encouraged him to find his own path, and implored him not to mould himself around a lost reality.  These loose ends weren't supposed to just find him.  No one should recognize him.  The Elric brothers had 'vanished' and Alphonse Elric was his own best disguise.

"It was something that was kind of hard to forget.  They were pretty unique.  After they left, my dad heard that one of them ended up becoming a State Alchemist, but… your voice, when I first heard it I was expecting to see a giant!  It was so unforgettable: this big guy in a suit of armour with a little boy's voice echoing inside it."  She raised her arms above her head, as though to remind herself how it felt to be in that towering presence, "I never thought I'd hear it again, but you sound exactly like him."

A ghost from Al's past had heard him.

"That's quite an interesting person you're describing, but it's a coincidence." Izumi's voice softened and her exhausted tension eased.  She moved her hand off Al's shoulder and down to his knee to squeeze it, "This is my son, Al Curtis.  He's never travelled without me and he's never worn a suit of armour.  I'm sorry, dear.  He's not who you thought he was."

The girl shifted uneasily in her seat and frowned to consider the answer given.  "Okay.  I'm sorry I bothered you like I did."

"Don't apologize," Izumi smiled her reassurance, "if you weren't observant, I doubt your parents would let you travel alone.  But since I've told you who we are, why not tell us who you are – what's your name, dear?" 

"Clausé," the answer was eagerly given.  "My dad's never had a problem letting me travel alone.  I'm meeting him in Central, actually.  He'd come home if he could, but the terms are he can only get leave in Central, so I'm going to him."

Izumi kept the conversation going, cautiously probing for answers, "Your father's in the military?"

Clausé nodded, "He signed on six months ago to help the people rebuild what had been lost in the wars.  He supported the de-escalation the new government talked about, but we didn't have money to donate, and the only way to help was to offer labour, so he enlisted.  He's been serving in the Ishibal region long enough that his turn for leave came up, so he's back for a bit."

Regardless of her cynical opinion of the new government, Izumi conceded the young lady's father had his heart in the right place.  "He sounds like a good man."

"Thank you."  Clausé put her hands on her knees and pushed up to her feet, "I should go and keep an eye on my bags.  Sorry I bothered you with all this."

Wishing Clausé well and seeing her off with a wave, Izumi waited for her to be out of sight before refocussing her attention on the child who'd retreated next to her.

"Al," Izumi gently nudged him.  

"I've never heard that name before," he croaked, locked up with his faint reflection in the half open window, "I had no idea who she was.  I don't remember any of that."

Izumi reached an arm around his neck, and the fingers of her free hand slid into his hair.  Al's head went down on a soft space at her shoulder and Izumi put her chin down on his short bed of hair.  She tucked him away at her side and held him there, selfishly taking a moment to play the role of the soothing mother figure she was scarcely allowed to be.

"That's okay."

It was understood, but not apparent until Ed was physically gone, just how much strength Al drew from his brother.  There was a kind of confidence and emotional fortitude Ed possessed that Al relied on, and it was lost now.  It was no secret Al's refusal to come to terms with Ed's fate laid the groundwork for his motivation to venture out with Izumi on this quest.  

But such a magnificent job had been done focussing on the importance Ed had played in Al's life that none of his mental preparation considered how he might feel if he came face to face with the other parts of himself he'd lost along the way.

Al slumped into Izumi's side, closed his eyes, and waited for the uncomfortable feeling to pass.

 


 

"Holy hell, it's hot in here," Edward hung out the train cabin window like laundry draped over a line, "when was it ever this hot in August?"

Sitting idle for half an hour made the entire string of train cars insufferable.  Ed pressed his cheek against the wooden frame and even that didn't offer relief.  Was the passenger turnover done yet?  Better yet, was the track adjustment done?

At the risk of sweating buckets, there wasn't a whole lot more naked he could go.  Already without his jacket and vest discarded on the seat across, plus his shoes on the floor, Ed undid the top few buttons at his collar.  Was there any sort of protocol for how far he could unbutton his shirt in a premium coach?

Ed yanked his ponytail up a little higher to get it off the back of his neck and hoped that would help vent some heat.

So, the big question finally became: was it finally hot enough to make the paint run on the Danube station sign?  Ed was about ready to melt out the window, the paint couldn't be that far behind.  Did he want to open his eyes and find out?

"Paper, sir?!" A little voice peeped from the platform below.

Ed didn't open his eyes.  "Shoo."

It didn't discourage the peddler, "I have Weiner Tagblatt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Angewandte Chemie, Weiner Zeitung!  Come on, they're only a spot!"

Edward swung his left arm out the window and aimlessly flicked the child's oversized hat askew with his fingers, "I said 'shoo'."  

The nuisance persisted and managed to get Ed to crack an eye open to catch a glimpse of the feeble skeleton of a child.  A trail of sweat ran through the boy's face without care.  The skin stretched over his body seemed to be a more pale grey than any shade of pink.  The frail thing's wide eyes were swollen with desperation, and the healthiest thing about him seemed to be the determination to sell a single newspaper.

"Your papers are all German," and that probably meant they were old, "do you have anything more local?"

"Zeitung is!" The child eagerly shoved a thinner publication into Ed's face, "It's from Vienna! I promise."

Edward liquified, drained into his cabin, and reappeared moments later to toss a few coins down to the desperate paperboy, "Give me that, now go away."

The child tossed the paper up to his customer and marched proudly further down the track.  "Thank you for your patronage!" he called.

Ed uncoiled the paper.  Shaking out the pages, the headlines gave him more than enough reason to grumble.  "Of course it's old."  He tossed the paper aside.  "I'm sick of reading about what new province or border they're making up for whomever and wherever.  I'll read an Austrian paper next year, maybe by then they'll decide what country to leave Vienna in."

The window perch was relinquished and Edward had a go at laying on the wooden seat of his cabin.  Bundling his coat, Ed tucked it behind his head, shut his eyes, and let his thoughts be entertained by the only thing on his mind lately: Goddard's works.  

Edward's mind could run marathons through that man's theories and propositions by this point, manipulating and toying with chemistry and physics and propulsion was practically the only thing that could keep Ed occupied in his down-time.

An English copy of Goddard's 'Methods of Reaching Extreme Altitudes' was finally in his hands and he had eaten up every word of it.  For a few weeks it was his breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  The mathematical theories behind rocket flight looked like something only a madman could think up.  His experiments with fuel to penetrate the earth's atmosphere were spellbinding.  The Goddard Report had been scrutinized and memorized.  Tsiolkovsky had been a fun rabbit hole to go down, but Goddard was the kind of crazy son of a bitch Ed wanted to meet.  If the Atlantic ocean hadn't been between them, Ed would have picked that man's brain ages ago.  

Ed could only pass himself off as an Englishman or a German, so he wasn't going to touch the shitshow the Russian Empire had turned into just to translate Tsiolkovsky's mind with a dictionary.

Next on Edward Elric's hit list was Hermann Oberth.  

The youngest of rocket science's brightest stars, Oberth was making a name for himself in European circles.  Considering how easily Ed had gotten himself lost in Goddard's work, he was excited to see what sort of insights would someone like Oberth get from it – the man actually knew what he was doing!  If Ed wanted to launch himself into the stratosphere and reach the Gate he fell out of, he needed another brilliant mind to help him.  

It wasn't like he had Al to bounce things off of and critique his work.

The things Ed had piled up to tell Al all about when he got home was nothing short of a treasure trove.  An absolute mountain of treasure.  Every day, the mountain grew a little more, until one day Ed looked up and found himself standing in the shadow of it.

Ed lay his flesh arm over his eyes.  Well, he didn't need to bring all of that treasure home.  

Provided Al was home.  

Hope that Al was there to go back to was the only thing Ed could hang on to that gave this purgatory any meaning.  

"Sir?"

This second chance he didn't ask for.

"Sir…?"

Edward cracked his eyes open and looked over to a shy attendant peeking in through the cabin door.  "Sorry," he sat up and shook the fog from his head.

"Would you like more water?" she opened the door a little farther, "the heat isn't good for anyone."

Ed brushed his damp hair off his sweaty forehead, "Yes, thank you."

She nodded, "We've been cleared to depart in about ten minutes.  Ticket takers will be passing through shortly, have your pass ready."

"I will, thank you— oh hey, excuse me!" Ed stopped her before she could move on.  Straightening himself out on the bench more presentably, Edward offered a sheepish grin to the young lady, "Once they've checked tickets, is there any problem if I… uh…" he shook out the collar of his shirt and wondered how to word this, "take some liberties with what I'm wearing to get more comfortable in the heat?"

The mousy smile he got from the young attendant made Ed squirm.  It wasn't like he was asking if it was okay if he stripped.

"We can bring a hanger for your door, so you can enjoy your space freely, without disturbance."

"Perfect, thank you."  On second thought, maybe he had just asked if he could strip, if only so he could hang his clothes to dry in the window before he got to Vienna.  He didn't need to turn up on Oberth's doorstep smelling like something the cat dragged in.

 


 

Wonder stretched Al's face tall and dialed the life in his eyes up on high.  "There are so many people here.  Central City is huge!" 

"Yup.  Central City Terminal is a blasted maze."  If Izumi had her way they would only be transferring here, but the national rail mess that no politician was addressing was forcing the pair to spend the night in the city.  Izumi rolled her head around on her neck, body begging for a proper bed, and she lit a fire under Al's idle backside.  "Stop gawking and pick up your bags!"

Alphonse snapped them up.  Bouncing alongside his teacher as they navigated the departing crowd, he chirped, "We have somewhere to stay, right?  Is there time to look around the city?  There's so much to see already!  Can we go to a bookstore?  The alchemy texts have to be amazing here.  We should check out the new releases first, maybe there's been new research in the last five years that's come out that can help us!"

Where did children find this energy?  Izumi wished she could borrow from his exuberance and see the city through Al's lens.  It was his 'first time' seeing Central City, of course the rush would hit him, but Izumi was too tired to share in it.  Too cautious.  Too worried.  They couldn't leave this city fast enough.  This was the last place in the country Izumi wanted to be.

"I called for a room at an inn when we skipped that transfer to look around, so we have some time to find some books you want."

"Yes!" Al's fist pump nearly launched him into the air.

At least Izumi could be thankful he hadn't stayed upset for too long.  "Use that energy to find us a lift.  If all these people are taking cabs, there'll be none left for us." 

Alphonse was ten strides ahead of her before the sentence had finished.

Izumi's posture sagged and the tired darkness around her eyes grew thicker.  She wanted to cap Al's energy, put a leash on him, and take him as far away from Central as she could get.  For twenty-four hours she had to focus on keeping their presence low.  If she couldn't lock Al away at the inn, she'd bury him in a bookstore – out of sight and out of trouble.

Al came back into Izumi's sightline again near the vehicle corral; stopped fifteen or twenty metres ahead, instead of holding a taxi he was already neck deep in trouble.  Izumi's heart plummeted to the pit of her stomach.  Why on earth was it so hard to keep these Elrics from running amok?  She clenched her hands to keep herself from strangling him – what was Alphonse thinking talking to a man in a military uniform in Central City!?  Of all places!

Surging forwards, Izumi's ears captured the conversation before she could capture Al.

"It's good that you have time off to spend with your daughter!" Al beamed.

"Where did you say you were going?  Dublith?" the officer tapped his chin, his military jacket unbuttoned to accommodate the heat, "I think I have a cousin who lives there…"

"We are, but we have to wait until tomorrow, so we're staying in an inn for now," Al said.

Clausé combed her fingers through the ends of her hair, "Dad, I don't think they'll have much luck getting a ride this time of day.  Could we drop them off?"

Al protested with an emphatic wave of his hands, "No, don't do that. We'll be fine!"

"Yes, we will be fine."  Izumi's shadow overtook Al. She placed a very firm hand on his shoulder, and decorated her words with the kind of overly pleasant tone that she knew would make this young man's heart shiver. "Good afternoon, folks."

"Dad, this is Al's mother, Mrs. Curtis," Clausé smiled.

Izumi lightly bowed her head to greet them, "I hope my boy isn't holding you up, Clausé… and… Sergeant Clausé?"

"I'm property of my own daughter now?  How the tables have turned," the military man burst with a hearty laugh at the address and enlightened his company, "It's Serif.  Harrod Serif.  Clausé was thinking you may have some trouble catching a lift this time of day and I don't think she's wrong.  Can I offer you a ride to your inn?  Your son mentioned it was his first time in Central, we can pass by the Open Market Fair for a bite to eat before you settle in for the night.  We'll give the young man a solid first impression of the city, what do you think?"

No.

Izumi wanted to pick Al up and march off without another word.  If only she was a 15-year-old brat and could hiss.  Being chartered around Central City by an off duty military officer was not something she wanted to do for more reasons than she could count.  "We really shouldn't impose on you like that.  I know my way around Central City, we'll be fine on our own."

"No, really, we insist!" Clausé chirped.

Izumi fought the urge to outwardly cringe.  On the surface, there was little viable reason to decline.  The internal motivation to refuse didn't even boil down to her deep-rooted disgust of the military.  The two of them were meant to travel unnoticed, even to the kindness of strangers.  But a girl who'd recognized Alphonse Elric by voice alone was sharing her interest with a man involved in an institution Izumi wanted to hide Al from.  How treacherous was this slope they were on?

"Leave time in the military is hard to come by – focus on spending time with your daughter.  We'll be fine," Izumi tried to politely excuse herself again, "we do appreciate the offer, though."

"Nonsense!" Clausé's father threw his rich, jovial voice out for too many voices to hear, "there are more than enough hours available to me this week that I can see you safely to your inn, and you can join us for an early evening dinner at the market along the way."

Clausé smiled sweetly at Izumi.  Dammit, she knew this girl was going to be trouble.  Her father's countryside courtesy shone proudly with his thick fists planted on his waist.  And Alphonse, for as much hot water as he knew he was in, gambled away his trip to the bookstore and looked up at Izumi from the corner of his eye with that look.  

"Well," she was still weak to it, "it's an offer too good to refuse, I suppose."  They would get this over with as quickly as possible and then she would lock Al up for every single one of their remaining hours in Central City.

 


 

Edward flipped his pocket watch open.  And closed it.  Open again.  Closed.  Click, click, click.  A boredom ritual since he was twelve, Ed mindlessly flipped the lid of his pocket watch.  It helped him concentrate, be damned if he could explain why or how.  There were too many thoughts for his mind to juggle and he was growing tired of all of them.  Whatever he had left for boredom relief had been sucked dry in Vienna.  He slumped further on this creaky wooden bench.

"That's a very lovely watch," someone stepped into his light, "who's your craftsman?"

Ed looked up to the eclipsed sun and met a bright face dressed like every young woman who cared about her appearance in 1921 did.  She tilted her head, hoping to encourage a response.

Ed answered by snapping his watch shut, "Someone my father knew had it made."

The presumptuous woman sat down next to him on the station bench, curls bouncing lively around her face, "I've never seen that sort of insignia before.  Is it Persian?  A war token, maybe?  It seems militaristic, are you a soldier?"

Confusion was the primary element in the leery stare Edward was giving her.  Who was this woman and why was she in his business all of a sudden?  Ed took a second to examine this busybody.  She was dressed like she'd walked out of a magazine.  Her knee length tan jacket was tied perfectly at the middle and her hat sat slightly askew to let her curls bounce with more enthusiasm on one side than the other.  The tops of her high-heeled boots hid beneath the reach of her dress hanging below her jacket's hem.  She was wrapped in fragrant mystique and presented her smile like a bow atop a gift.  

Flirting impatience, she crossed one leg over the other.  Daintily, almost mockingly, she clasped her hands together over her knees and Ed could clearly see the wedding ring on her finger.  What the hell this random, married woman could want with him?

"Well," Ed gave a half assed answer to explain why he carried a replica of his State Alchemist watch around in a world where no one would recognize it, "it's a personal keepsake… for an old friend."

The woman's eyes widened with delight, "Oh, that's sweet, what a nice thing to do for a friend.  Did they pass in the war?"

"No…" Ed garbled his words, "it's complicated."

"I understand how that is," she continued, "it's fine craftsmanship though with the edging and the lines.  I could tell from a distance it was something exquisitely made.  You must have used the finest silver for it.  How does it work?  Do you wind it?  Is it automatic?"

The woman's questions sent a chill down Ed's spine and he stuffed the watch back into his pocket.  "What's your name?"

"Me?" she smiled as if she'd been hoping all along he would ask, "Mathilde.  And what might yours be?"

"Edward," he gave Mathilde a wary eye; the name didn't ring a bell, so what business did she have with him?  "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Mathilde re-crossed her legs and lounged on the bench they shared.  "I'm not certain.  Are you from Schässburg?  Have you ever been there?"

Of all the cities she could have brought up, she managed to pick the one that worsened Ed's frown, "That's where I'm headed, actually."

"Are you?" she lit up.

Just once someone had managed to drag Edward into a cabaret club and this lady had all the earmarkings of the flamboyant dancer he'd been forced to converse with at the table.  She was too old for this to be some sort of gimmick or prank.  Was this the front of a scam?  Where was the husband to go with this ring?

"Guess we can't say we've met there, can we?" Mathilde tapped her chin lightly, as if she were playing a game, "how about Munich?  Have you ever been there?"

Ed's suspicion swelled, "I live in Munich." 

Unfazed by Edward's lack of enthusiasm in their conversation, Mathilde babbled on, "Brilliant!  Have you ever been to the university there?  I've had a number of friends that attended and my husband is on great terms with several professors.  It's the best education Germany has to offer."

Now she was beyond suspicious.  Edward locked her in his crosshairs, "My father teaches there."

"Does he really?" legitimate surprise resonated in Mathilde's response, "well, he must be a great man to be a professor at Munich's university.  What's his name?"

"Why?" that was as far as Ed was letting her go with this game or scam or whatever.  "What're you trying to get at?  Why are you talking to me?"

Taken aback by the harsh accusation, Mathilde's feathers ruffled, "You asked if we knew each other from somewhere, I was getting to the bottom of it." 

Ed dismissed her, "Sorry, I don't know you from anywhere." 

A wave of dissatisfaction took over Mathilde's presentation, "You're a miserable bugger, aren't you?  For a young man dressed as nicely as you are, your social skills leave everything to be desired.  It's no wonder you're travelling alone," she chirped.  Mathilde stood up sharply and straightened her jacket with a dignified tug, "I can't imagine anyone taking a fancy with you and I guarantee the brothel owners all through Austria will kick you out if you're so disrespectful to the service.  You aren't big enough to—"

A vein pulsed on Edward's forehead and he shot up like a firecracker.  "LISTEN, LADY!"

In the middle of a crowd of watchers whose ears had picked up the commotion, Ed laid the law down for the most crucial accusation she'd gotten wrong.

"I've grown."

"Tilly!" a male voice beckoned from a distance, ending the altercation before it could degrade any farther.  "We're boarding!"

"I'll be right there!" Mathilde hollered, stepping away from Edward still fuming with righteous indignation.  The playful tease she'd wrapped herself in fell away like a shawl that had slid off her shoulders.  A woman with eyes mature beyond her years smiled at him.  "I hope you find what you're looking for in Schässburg.  There have been some problems with rebel groups since we became Rumanians, so keep alert, won't you?"  Mathilde spun on her toes, tossed her hair from her face, and walked away.

"What on earth…" Ed gawked at the back of this chaotic woman until she vanished into the crowd of people.

As if a passing train had barrelled into him, Ed was struck by the acute awareness of all eyes around him trying to pretend like they hadn't been watching the scene.  Ed sharply adjusted his vest and shirt cuffs like he was civilized, cleared his throat, and sat back down.  His pocket watch chain rattled on the bench and the device found its way back into his hand.  Ed glanced at the time, crossed one leg over the other, clasped his hands around the watch in his lap, and gave no one else in this crowd of gossipy snoops any further reason to stare at him.

 


 

"Wow."  Al gawked at the crowded street.

Clausé screwed her hands to her hips, voice bursting with delight, "The Open Market Fair began a few days ago.  Streets and streets of little shops selling everyone's best products!  Food, clothes, sweets and candy, toys and games… and gadgets for that girlfriend you were talking about – you can find them all here!"

Momentarily overlooking all the perks and benefits of the adventure, Al recoiled in a childish horror.  "Winry is not my girlfriend."

"Awww," Clausé teased, walking a stride ahead of him into the bustling market, "she sounds so sweet though."

"Winry is six mo--years older than me!  There's no way!"

"Well fine, she can be a big sister then," Clausé let Al have his way, then let the entire conversation fall to the wayside when she turned on a dime, answering the call of a booth that caught her eye.

This was perfect, Al thought.  Exactly how perfect, he wasn't entirely sure.  

After devouring their meals at one of the many sprawling cafés, the duo had managed to beg and plead themselves away from their guardians.  In this bubbling market lined with streamers and decorative knick knacks, Al had approximately fifteen minutes to get to personally know the stranger he'd forgotten.  

He hadn't expected his first encounter with someone he'd lost to hit him so hard.  Unbelievable stories had weighed heavily on his heart when he listened to them at home.   Sometimes, he didn't want to hear them at all.  Every tale felt like a storybook adventure that had been ripped out of him, stolen or confiscated for reasons his teacher could theorize, but no one could say for sure.  Clausé was part of that.  Maybe he could learn something from her that would shed better light on who she was to him.  It wasn't like he could lose much more, and at worst he'd make a new friend.

Five fingers of a firm hand dug into Al's shoulder in the middle of the crowd, ripping him out of his thoughts.  His feet skated around in the muddy road beneath his feet, and Al landed on his hands and knees when someone pushed him aside.  Throwing his head up and tossing his scowl into the sea of patrons, a towering figure stared at the fallen child.  The looming man's square jaw held firm, his empty brown gaze not giving away if he was the culprit or simply the only one to acknowledge the result of a careless act.  His solid suntanned arm reached down, hoisted Al out of the muck, put him on his feet, and moved on without a word.

Slapping the dirt off his hands over his knees, Al visually tailed him, eyes latching on to the sun bouncing off his long, dancing earrings like a crow, before the man vanished in the shade between buildings.

"The feathers won me over!" 

"What?" Clausé's prized new possession landed between Al's eyes.

"It's an ink pen!" grabbing his wrist, Clausé pulled Al to the side of a booth to escape foot traffic.  "It looks like a dip pen, but it can store the ink in its body too, so you don't have to keep dipping it.  Here, look!"

Al sort of looked.  He looked at Clausé folding the white paper bag her pen set came in.  He looked at her slip a new nib into the polished black pen stem.  And he looked at her unscrewing the lid to a black ink well.  

"You dip it in the ink jar like so and just wait a few seconds."

"Uh huh."

All the times in between, Al was inching backwards trying to see into the alley between two buildings.

"It'll suck it right up!"

"Uh huh."

"I'm going to draw something for you."

"Uh huh."  Al's focus toiled in the shadows.  What reason did someone have to go down there?

As far as he could see, the alleyways were only wide enough to let a couple of steel doors open, and were clogged with street slop and garbage cans.  There wasn't an obvious exit into the adjacent street – the alleyway split against the wall of a multi-storey complex.  The sun wasn't high enough this time of day to shine any light anywhere in there.  

"Al?"

Al returned to Clausé and cringed at the sight of her soured face.  Oops, he was supposed to be paying attention, wasn't he?  "Sorry."  He didn't protest when she snatched up his right hand and started doodling in his palm with fresh black ink.  

"What are you looking for?" she tightened her pinched lips, "did you see a chimera?"

That got Al's undivided attention, "A chimera!?"

"There are chimeras living in the alleys of Central City," Clausé pried open Al's curling fingers to get a flatter surface for her work, "I heard they eat kids."

People-eating chimeras?  It sounded like something stupid his brother would say to scare him, but Al wasn't completely ignorant of the darkness lurking in the country.  Enough stories had been told by Rose, Izumi, and Winry that there was probably some basis to Clausé's claim.  However, a chimera hunkered down this close to so much noise and people traffic in the middle of the day?  Nah.

The crass echo of tin clattered off the tight walls, startling the duo.  A fallen garbage can scraped off the brick and rolled to a stop, its lid wobbling away to settle to its own abrasive soundtrack.  Peering into the mouth of the alley, the children watched a pair of yellow eyes, and a second coloured deeper orange, glow in the depths of the disturbed darkness, as frozen as those watching them.  A few moments were needed for the human eyes to adjust to the dim lighting and see what had happened.  

"Cats," Al exhaled.  A mangy orange one and a black one with dirtied white paws.

Clausé sighed the tension away, "No hungry chimeras in the alley if the cats are around."

Which made the alley perfectly safe to enter.  

Already several strides deep into the shade of tall brick walls, Al started lowering his centre of gravity and slowing his approach to the skittish animals.  His voice softened, "Don't be scared, I'm not going to hurt you."

Two creatures that had been put on edge by aggressive noises weren't so sure.

Carefully, cautiously, Alphonse reached out his arm and extended an index finger for the animals to sniff as he grew closer.  The darker cat, the braver of the two, held its ground as Al approached, stretching its neck to move its nose closer to the encroaching human smell.  Something left behind from dinner must have been lingering on his hands, because the index finger that arrived first was of great interest, but the scratches behind the ear that Al gave were even better.

"You're a cat guy."  Clausé floated up behind him, clasping her hands behind her back.

Curling four fingers into dusty fur, Al's smile shone in the dark, "I am."

The cat vanished.

Al's hand hung empty in the air as a deafening noise exploded off the brick walls louder than a dozen toppled garbage cans.  The angry sound clenched Alphonse's eyes for long enough that the cat and its companion had not only vanished from reach, but disappeared from sight altogether.  

Life inexplicably slowed down when Al began searching for an answer to what just happened.  Beyond his shoulder, he looked at the back of Clausé's head and followed her gaze out into the bright glow of the sun lit market.  Merchants stood in shock.  Patrons stumbled through their strides.  At the centre of the light at the end of the alleyway, an elderly peddler's body jerked unnaturally in slow motion.  Like a fishhook had caught her by the ear, she toppled to the ground untouched by human hands.

The children's world paused for a single heartbeat to audibly thump, before a woman screamed and the sound of gunfire began crashing off the building walls.

Time exploded into motion.  Alphonse and Clausé threw their bodies in the direction the cats must have ran, ducking beneath the echo of bullets and covering their ears to the human panic bouncing mercilessly between the tight walls.  Soiled feet pounded through the murky layer of filth on the alley floor, their hearts thundering in their heads.  Nearly slipping to their knees when the route ended with a split, Al led their escape left and he grabbed onto the unmovable handle of a locked steel door.

Clausé's bone chilling shriek spun Al around.  Catching himself before he fell in the alley sludge, the two cats ran through their feet.  The creatures fled into the darkness opposite them.  In the shadows the cats abandoned, thirty or more strides beyond the children, a human figure stood hunched over deep in the dirty crevice between brick walls.  Suffocating in the cataclysmic sound of the world falling apart, Clausé and Al watched the dark, foreboding figure rise and turn to face them, chilling the shiver that rippled through their spines.  A toxic glimmer of pale light flashed like lightning near the figure's face as he moved.  The pair abandoned the door, turned, and raced after the cats that must have known better.

Al sailed a stride ahead, searching for the dreary corridor the cats disappeared down.  Clausé clawed her hands over her ears, unable to drown out the endless echoes bombarding them.  Reaching back to snag her for a sharp turn, Al's feet slipped out from under him like the muck had turned to ice.  Clausé tumbled on top of him in the dim escape route and they scrambled into the narrow space between two more building walls.

A noise far more violent and jarring than all the other deafening chaos shook their bodies, rattled their bones, and blew their limbs out from under them.  A gust of pressure sent Alphonse and Clausé flying as an explosion ravaged the route they had just abandoned, launching them like projectiles into the garbage bags piled at the end of the corridor.

 


 

To Be Continued…

 


 

Notes:

'Clausé' use to be spelt 'Klose' in the fic, so if you happen to stumble on a spelling I haven't fixed, that's who I'm referring to!

Though its not in this chapter, Ed and Al will refer to Izumi as “Sensei” in verbal context only. I know Japanese words in English stories isn’t exactly the thing to do, but I feel it’s a word that can pass since certain martial arts disciplines use the title outside of Japan (and I called my Japanese teacher “Sensei” for years). I never became comfortable hearing Izumi addressed as “teacher” or “master”… it feels very awkward. Everything else is anglicised.

 

(Revised: 2023-09-14)

Chapter 2: A Stranger's Face

Summary:

Edward doesn't find exactly what he's looking for in Schässburg, and the chaos in Central puts Al in contact with numerous people he doesn't realize he should know.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

There was a point in time in my life when I had the distinction of being a 'Dog of the Military' who sided with the people.  I visited cities like this when I was younger.  It's almost as if this world enjoys showing me ghosts of those memories.  To always remind me… 

 


 

Tension held Al's body together as he sank in garbage and debris.  A spear of sunlight penetrated the mess, illuminating pockets within.  Somewhere beneath him Clausé moved, trying unsuccessfully to orient herself.  Her effort caused the pair to sink deeper into the waste, widening the cavity containing them.  

Another column of daylight broke through the cracks.  Al reached into the sun, feeling around with his fingertips and trying to crane his head around enough to find out if either of these light holes could be widened.  Al's nostrils picked up the additional scents of smoke and gasoline in spite of the putrid garbage's best efforts.  Clawing with his bare fingers, Al tried wiping the gunk from his hands and stopped when his right one didn't come clean.

He held his right palm open in the dirty sunlight.  "Clausé?"

"Yeah?" she choked.

Black ink painted his hand.  

A feather tip pen he hadn't paid attention to had tattooed his palm with a rudimentary transmutation circle.  It was an image as familiar to him as the hand it was written on, and it wasn't even his.  

It was the one his brother had attached himself to from the day they first opened their father's alchemy texts.

"Which way's the wall!?" Al yelled.

Clausé poked his right side, "This way."

Al tucked his right hand into his stomach and jarred his body around.  Digging through the mess, his heart jumped in excitement when his nails scratched rough brick.  Sweeping a flat section of brick wall clear, Al brought both his hands into play.  The transmutation circle was printed on one hand and he could bring it alive with the other.  Al slapped his hands together, swept his palms apart, and slammed the inked circle against the wall.

Two filthy children tumbled into a littered hallway like rag dolls, expelled into the adjacent building by the transmutation.  

Neither one put effort into picking themselves up once they were free.

Muddy plumes polluted the stagnant air above their bodies.  Sunlight leaked in through smokey cracks in the hallway wall, weakly lighting the extent of debris.  Power had been lost, but healthy batteries drove the endless screams of the fire alarm.  

Gathering the energy he needed to sit up, Al curled forwards into his drawn up knees, trying to keep below the smoke clouds.  He put his chin down and looked at his empty hand; the circle's ink had been transferred to the wall with his transmutation, so he didn't incidentally transmute his own flesh to facilitate their escape.

"Why did you draw that on me?" Al coughed.

Getting to her knees slowly, Clausé wiped her face with her forearm, "I saw Edward Elric draw that once, I thought maybe you'd recognize it."

Al numbly replied, "It was a transmutation circle."

"I've tried to use it before, but I guess I don't have the knack," Clausé started wringing the sludge out of her hair, "you definitely do."

"I do," without a doubt, Alphonse did.  But, it wasn't the time or the place for a conversation about that.  Smoke was flooding into the hall and the alarm was screaming loud enough to drown out his thoughts.  Al clenched the hand that Clausé had rescued them with, "We need to get out of here."

 


 

A fresh sliver of light at the break of dawn stirred Ed from a sleepless daze.  It crept over the horizon beyond the forested hills wrapping Schässburg.  The early sun breathed some diluted resemblance of colour into the tops of the old buildings lining the streets.  The town was on the verge of waking up, but Edward's eyes were already on the way back down.  Six in the morning was a time for farmers to rise and not a whole lot else.  He needed another hour to go by before people started emerging to help him with today's problem.

He was lost.

A page of written instructions directing him to an inn had been useless.  Wandering the streets in the dead of night didn't help his cause.  Ancient house after ancient house started to look the same.  His pocket watch crawled through every second of the debacle that had started at half past one in the morning.  

Somewhere in the middle of a residential area that had nowhere for him to stay, Ed called it quits and made himself at home in an open grassy patch beneath the stars.  If the bugs wanted him, they could have him.  He was too old and too much of a stranger for anyone to pass him the kind of sympathy he got when he was younger, especially at this time of night.

Now that the sun was eking over the hills, Ed picked himself up and began staggering down the street all over again.  

Ah, if it weren't a familiar foe dropping by for a visit: the repercussions of his actions.  This blasted right shoulder of his ached because he hadn't spent the night laying flat on his back.  He'd gone days without a good night's sleep and just as many with his left leg strapped in the artificial socket – his hip was killing him and his stump was threatening to develop a rash if he didn't air it out.  Both the upper and lower halves of his body were protesting before the sun was even up.  Ed cursed himself, he knew better than to let this happen.

The crest of Ed's hilltop road swooped down and veered into the Tarnava Valley, rich with lush forests and offering a view of the full scope of the township he was set to navigate.  There was something uncanny about the area, it emitted a nostalgic sense reminiscent of valleys he'd traversed with Al back home.  What he wouldn't give…

Scratch that.  He didn't have much left to give.

Ed stopped again and waited for the city to wake so he could get directions.  Teetering on the end of his suitcase in a sleepless haze, the morning birdsong filled his ears, the perpetual country breeze kept him cool, and somewhere off in the distance a damned cowbell was clanging… 

"Young man, are you alright?" 

…and there was a monstrous headache pounding against his forehead, and a gurgle harassing his empty stomach…

"Son?"

…and a hand on his shoulder.

Edward snapped his head up, then tried to get up, and put too much weight on his sore false leg.  It gave out, dumping him in a heap on the ground.

"My Lord, be careful there," an elder voice chided.  

Two firm hands reached in to grab him under his right arm.  The help paused to consider the strange sensation of a false underarm, but deemed it secure and helped Ed back to his feet.  

"I'd have sworn you were drunk, but instead you smell like a musty old closet."

Figuring the man actually meant 'sweaty old train car', Edward pulled himself away from the assistance and took control over his balance.  Shaking the cobwebs out of his head, Ed laid eyes on the man who'd helped him: an elder, upright, rounder gentleman in a loose grey overcoat.  He tucked his hat under his arm to reveal a full head of striking silver hair.  

The elder man adjusted his glasses before he reached down and picked up a black leather bag at his feet, "I know every lass and lad in this valley, and a good number beyond, but I don't know you."

"No one here was going to know me until today," Ed dusted his slacks off.

"Well, on first impression you appear to be planning a visit to death's door.  I'll have none of that here, come with me."

Ed tried to gawk at the abrupt order, but his face just ended up sagging.  Come where?  Did it have a bed?  Half of his head was still drowning in a sleepless stew.  The next thing Ed knew he was obediently toddling down the cobblestone roadway through town two steps behind some old guy who'd appeared out of thin air.  Ed scratched his hand through his hair and hoped it wasn't a hallucination.  

"Who the heck are you and where are we going?" he asked.

"You're a blunt fellow.  It's a pleasure to meet you too," the man replied, "I'm not in the mood for a post-mortem on a stranger this week, we're heading to my clinic."

Abruptly wide awake, Ed pulled a U-turn, "No thanks.  I don't need a hospital."

The elder man stopped him with an inarguably authoritative bark, "How long have you been travelling?  When did you last have a bath?  Are you properly resting that bad leg?  And what about that arm?  Did you even eat yesterday?  Do you have fluids in you?"

The barrage of questions may have stopped Ed, but they didn't elicit any answers. 

Getting the bare minimum of the non-compliant Elric's attention, the elder man marched up to his listener and gave his cheek a firm smack with the back of his hand.  "Stupid boy.  It was hot as sin yesterday; your lips are dried out and your eyes are sunken in – you're dehydrated!  If I grabbed you by the chin and gave your marbles a good shake you'd drop like a fly.  Who let you out of the house without enough common sense to take care of your health, let alone your disabilities?  You can't just wander off willy-nilly into the countryside and think you'll be fine.  Do you not realize where you are?"

Ed understood all too well where he was, but still gave him an ornery look for the tongue lashing.

"Of all of the diseases, injuries, mangled bodies, and problems that have turned up on my doorstep in recent years, you will be someone I'll enjoy treating for the sheer simplicity of it.  Come along," the doctor ordered.

His commandeered patient reluctantly complied.

 


 

The visual inventory Al took of Clausé's condition revealed her knuckles were a mess and there were open wounds on her right cheek. Tears to the right side of her dress suggested more damage underneath, but most concerning was her right arm being held close to her chest.  Thankfully she was mobile, up on two feet, and that would get them away from the smoke billowing in from the cavity in the wall.

Al dipped his hands into his pockets and produced nothing but chalk dust.  Clausé's inkwell was nowhere to be found.  Adrenaline stopped Al's body from setting off any alarm bells about his own condition, and pumped him full of temporary strength to take initiative.  He grabbed Clausé by the wrist and led their escape on foot through the dim, unknown corridors of a building filling with smoke.

Shattered panelling and wall plaster littered the hallway obstacle course of broken structural beams.  Treacherous footing was made worse by the low light.  Doors that hadn't been blown open or didn't have things in their way refused to budge.  Room after room denied them the hope of an external window that would lead them out.  

The thickening smoke summoned the heat with it.  Polluted air had Al's lungs crying while salty sweat ran down his face.  Were they even going the right way?  How much time did this building have before the flames arrived to get them?

Frustration was a force adrenaline couldn't overcome.  It threw open the mental doors that made Al excruciatingly aware that his cheek stung, his shoulder was bleeding, and his right leg wasn't doing much better.  

Al lowered himself to his hands and knees; the building couldn't be navigated from the floor, debris was everywhere, but fresher air could be found here.  A spot was swept clear of broken bits and Al pressed his forehead against the floor's cool surface.  

"Don't do that!  Get up!"  Clausé wedged her arms under Al's and hauled his upper body off the floor.

Hanging in her grasp, Al pulled in a few more breaths of cleaner air before he lost it.  Getting his feet under him, steadied by Clausé's hands, Al resumed the trek forward.  "Sorry, let's go."

Smoke antagonized their eyes.  It burned their lungs.  The broken material in the hallway made the challenge of escape never ending.  Panic began motivating hearts.  Fear took form in faces.  No promise of freedom ever came into view.  There was no way out from this building.

There was a window, though.  

Alphonse and Clausé scrambled through wreckage and stood side by side beneath a glowing quarter window near the ceiling.  

Al wrestled a twisted metal bar out of the wreckage and handed it to Clausé.  He stepped up under the window and laced his hands together to offer a cup-hold to hoist her up with.

Wiping the tears from her smokey eyes, Clausé cemented her grip on the weapon with her left hand, marched up to Al, and kicked off her sandals.  Al put his back against the wall for support as Clausé entrusted his arms with her.  He boosted her up, taking the weight of her other leg on his shoulder.  Flattening her chest and arms against the upper reach of the wall, clawing at nicks and gouges to steady herself, Clausé awkwardly mounted Al's shoulders.  His stance widened and Al's hands clamped around her ankles.  Clausé swam up the wall until the solid lip of the window frame was in her grasp.  She straightened her body up, only to see her ravaged reflection in the smoky glass.  

"What's out there!?" Al begged.

"I don't know!" she cried.

In the centre of the window with no sliding panes Clause aligned the twisted rod Al had armed her with and reared it back.  With all her remaining might, she slammed the rough end of the metal rod into the glass.  Again.  And again.  And again.  It skated over the window, cutting streaks into the pane.

"BREAK!" 

"Clausé!" Al choked on her name, his knees trembling under her moving weight.

"Damn you!" 

A two handed grip was taken on the weapon tearing grooves in the glass.  Sacrificing her balance, propelling her weight into a single overhead thrust, Clausé drove the rod into the glass.  

Aggression atop his shoulders buckled Al's knees, dropping him to the floor, then completely collapsing him when Clausé's body weight landed on his back.

Two children ended up in a heap on the floor in a shower of glass.

In the unsteady, hazy corner of his eye Al watched the new oxygen hole suck the smoke out.  Beyond this wall was fresh air.  Screwing his watering eyes shut, Al fished the mangled rod out of the glassy debris and crawled along the floor until he bumped into the wall.  Finding a flat enough surface he could use, Al put that simple transmutation circle his brother trusted in his mind's eye, and blindly carved the vision into the wall with the rod's jagged end.  

An archway to freedom opened up at ground level with the swipe of his hand.

Precariously balanced on unsteady hands and knees, Al grabbed Clausé by the back of her dress collar and started pulling her towards the exit.  Her own strength resurfaced just long enough that her limbs put some paltry effort into their escape.  Together they crawled onto the welcoming outside ground.

Bleary eyes leaked in the body's coughing storm.  The world spun in an illogical, topsy turvy way, rendering both of them unable to process the angry orange flames dancing in the broken windows of floors overhead.  

Neither Al nor Clausé cried out for help, but someone heard their bodies' coughing cries.  An unfamiliar hand caused Al to flinch when it touched his neck, and he felt two arm lift his body off the ground as he faded.

 


 

"Slow down," a concerned eye accompanied the request, "you're going to make yourself sick."

"I have an iron stomach," Ed grinned his response.

"Be that as it may, you've had enough for tonight," the doctor frowned, "I hope that stomach of yours functions as well as your arm does." 

Ed continued to kick himself for passing out after he landed in the clinic – it opened a window of opportunity that turned him into a specimen.  

He woke up in a medical gown with his arm exposed and leg off and facing an interrogation.  The trade off was a solid nine hours of sleep, some salve for the inflammation in his leg stump, and more than one good meal.  Did that even out to an equivalent exchange?  The bombardment of questions about his right arm had Ed firmly in the 'no' category.

The out-of-sight out-of-mind tactic of getting properly dressed discouraged the doctor and his two nurses from poking and prodding him much more.  Unfortunately, escaping the town's medical clutches wouldn't be in his future until he could get his left leg back on.

The doctor leaned back in his chair, "Mr. Elric, your surname is nagging at me."

Edward put down the bowl of food he'd polished off, chomped down on the final heaping mouthful, and abandoned his manners, "A danno wae eh shood." 

The doctor rattled the end of his pen off his desk, "Everything about you has kept me from getting a damned thing accomplished today."

Straightening up at the little side table in a clean white office, Ed swallowed his final bites,  "Sorry.  I'd be outta your hair, but you took my leg."

"You're damn right I did," the doctor huffed, "you aren't going anywhere and in the grand scheme of things I'm telling myself that I don't mind – I mean, my God!  Look at you.  Look at that arm!"

Ed sighed.  Here we go again.

"Who on earth thought up a technology like that?"

No one in this world, that was for sure.

"The principles behind it all are astonishing – to combine so much complicated mechanical technology in such microfashion, apply it to limb replacement, and then integrate that into a biological element and have it function?  I've never even heard of such a thing even being attempted."

Good, his arm wasn't meant to be a show piece and he had no intention of letting it become one either.

"Who out there knows enough about a man's body to dream this up?  I am in shock that you can even lift that arm to shoulder's height.  I have never encountered a man I've wanted to study more than yourself, Mr. Elric."

And that was never, ever going to happen.  The biological base knowledge that went into his piece of shit AutoMail hadn't been discovered yet and no one here was going to learn about it from him.

As he regularly did to direct attention elsewhere, Ed laughed off the sentiment, "Yeah, well, it's got a long way to go before it's any good.  I can't really move my fingers," conveniently omitting that his fingers were only immobile because he couldn't reach the spots that needed adjusting.

"I cannot believe you view this as substandard," the doctor gawked, "it's intertwined with your physical biology."

"Well, I've had…" Ed stopped himself, "I guess, my father and I had a vision that's greater than this burden I take around with me."

Digging his elbows into the desk, the doctor's face brightened, "And who is your father?"

Ed hesitated, but couldn't find a reason not to answer, "Hohenheim Elric."

Snapping his fingers, "Ah-hah. That's why your surname sounded familiar.  Professor Hohenheim Elric; I should have remembered a name like that."

Crap, which pill did Ed prefer to swallow – a conversation about his arm or a conversation about his old man?

"Such a respected name in science at the University of Munich, I'm ashamed to admit I'd forgotten it."

Ed found it a little odd for this doctor to know about his old man all the way out here.  Hohenehim had never mentioned having any connections in Rumania or Transylvania.  Curiosity drove Ed to ask, "How'd you hear about my father?"

"My daughter-in-law thought very highly of him when she visited the University with my son last year.  She attended one of his lectures and thoroughly enjoyed how he presented information as an educator.  She said she'd never been so engaged in a subject she knew so little about before," the doctor laughed at the memory, "she considered writing him, but my son said he'll call in a favour to slip her into another lecture once they returned to Munich."

Ed offered to make the quest a little easier for his caretaker's daughter-in-law and completely get the old man's mind off the arm, "How 'bout a trade, Doc?  You give me my leg back and I'll arrange for her to sit in on one of his lectures to save your son the hassle."

The doctor's chuckle was almost menacing, "Sounds like a fair trade, son.  But if that stump is still too swollen for it, keep it off and don't push your luck."

"Deal," Edward agreed, "what's her name?"

"Tilly Hummel," the man presented his daughter-in-law's name with pride.

Finally!  Ed nearly sighed his relief – he had been here all day and hadn't heard anyone call this man by his name.  The two nurses addressed him as 'Doctor' as if it were a title like 'King' where no surname was required.

"Alright Doctor Hummel," Ed flexed his short left leg and bounced the empty sleeve, "if someone can get my suitcase for me, as well as my leg, I'll put her in my notes."

"Yes, yes, yes.  You're a persistent nuisance, aren't you?" the doctor rose from his seat, shaking his head, "but you're mistaken."

"About?" Ed blinked.

"Tilly still uses her maiden name," he corrected his guest's mistake in identity, "I am not a Hummel."

"Oh," Ed gritted his teeth sheepishly, "I guess I should have asked."

"That's fine," the man passed Edward his suitcase tucked away behind the desk, "I didn't introduce myself properly.  The name is Oberth."

Edward's expression collapsed, "… Pardon?"

 


 

Drifting in and out of consciousness, the blissful lack of awareness about how much Al's body hurt was undone by a cough.  Every muscle wailed.  Al cupped his mouth, unable to come out of the fog in his head to get a grasp on his situation.  A damp cloth washed over his forehead, a cool comfort to counteract how warm his face felt.

"Easy now…" a woman's voice filtered into his ears, "let's get something more in you and fix that dry throat." 

Al heard the familiar sound of water being poured into a cup.

"Come on, sit up a bit more."  Gentle and non abrasive, the woman who sat with him helped Al rise in bed.  "There we go, you got it.  Much better." 

Al felt the rim of a glass press lightly against his split lower lip.  Shaky, bandaged hands fought through the soreness to take control of his drink, and he helped himself to every last drop.

"That's good.  Would you like some more?"

Al popped his mouth open for a refreshing sigh and the glass was gingerly returned.  "Yes, please."

The mattress shifted as the woman's weight left.  "The young lady you arrived with was pretty disoriented when you two got in and confused about who you were," she picked up the pitcher from the bedside table and began to pour, "what's your name, sweetheart?"

"Alphonse," curling his sore fingers into a fist, Al dug his knuckles into his eyes to rub them, "is Clausé okay?"

"She's doing fine," the woman paused for a heartbeat, then placed the pitcher down without a sound, "and what's your last name?"

The urgent guise of the adventure thus far began penetrating the fog, flashing like warning lights behind Al's eyes.  He pulled his fists away from his face and tried to sort critical information in the mental haze.  "Curtis."

"And how old are you?" she asked.

"Eleven," he answered.

"I see."

The mattress wobbled when the woman's weight returned and Al opened his eyes to see who his company was.  She was an adult – an average adult like so many others.  She sat prim and proper, like her parents had never allowed her to slouch once at the table.  All the buttons of her starched, white dress shirt were done up to her neck.  Her hands neatly held the water glass resting in her lap.  The pale tone of her skin stood out in contrast to the rich browns of her short cut hair.  Her blue eyes blended in with her complexion, and it made the mole under her left one that much more noticeable.  

Al scanned his visitor one more time unknowingly.  "What's your name?"

Her fingers curled, short cut nails dragging over the rivets of the pattered waterglass.  She smiled and handed it to him.  "Maria."

Al took it from her.  "Are you a nurse?"

"I'm security," she corrected, sweeping some of the hair stuck to his forehead away with the backs of her fingers, "the doctors and nurses are very busy with all the patients from the accident, so me and my partner are looking after you."

Pieces of critical information tossed about in Alphonse's mental fog suddenly had terrifying ties that bound the details together.  Throwing his sheets aside, Al tried to get out of bed.   "My… my mom was in that market," a raw cough ravaged his movements.  "I got separated from her!" he wheezed.

"Woah woah woah, calm down," Maria plucked the glass from his hand before it spilled.  Catching Al by the shoulders before his feet reached the floor, she guided his black and blue body down to the pillows.  "You're in no condition to do anything.  Let me help, what's her name?"

"Izumi, but…"

But what?  

Unless her body was so battered and broken she couldn't get out of the rubble, law enforcement wasn't going to find her.  There was no way his teacher, of all people, wouldn't be able to protect herself from anything that went on.  She had too much skill.  Too much tallent.  Nobody, not even Al, was going to find her unless she wanted to be found in Central City.  The strain on Al's aching muscles let go, recognizing that he would have to wait for her to come to him.

Though she tried to hide it behind a gentle smile, concern plagued Maria's gaze, "I'm going to get my colleagues to keep an eye out for your mother, alright?"

Oh no.  

Al lay silently on his back, eyes latching onto a hand that swept the hair out of his face again.  

Oh no… this wasn't supposed to happen.  No one was supposed to be looking for or at them.  They were supposed to travel to Dublith unnoticed.  Be a thought to no one.  

"I want to see Clausé." Al helplessly redirected the train of thought, "she was hurt before we got out, can I go see her?"

"She's fine," Maria reassured him, pacifying the change in topics, "you can see her soon.  You need to rest more first." 

Al's body wasted no time reminding him how tired he was; how his right side hurt, how many crying muscles he had, and where all his bruises were.  No, he wasn't going anywhere.  Al deflated into the bedding, reluctantly relaxing into Maria's care.

"There's one else you're worried about?" she placed her hand on Al's warm, scabbed-speckled cheek, "no one else was with you in the market?  Just Clausé and your mom?" 

Al thought back to the meal they'd shared fifteen minutes prior to everything coming undone.  "Clausé's dad was with us." 

"No one else?" she asked.

"No one," he mumbled. 

Maria gently patted the cheek she held.  "Your eyes are too lovely to have so much burden in them.  Don't worry, let the adults around you help." 

"Okay…" Al breathed his reply like she'd coaxed the words out of his mouth. 

A flicker of emotion toiled in Maria's gaze, a tumultuous spark that Al had become familiar with – Winry and Rose got them in their eyes before they cried.  Maria didn't get that far, she climbed to her feet and wiped the reaction from her face instead.  Her movements swift and precise, she stood confident and straight, though her tone remained soft.  "I'm going to step out for a bit.  If you need anything, my partner Denny is right outside the door.  Just ask him and he'll help you, okay?"

Al nodded and Maria left the room, closing the door without a sound.  

Tired eyes settled on the seam in the wall where it met the ceiling.  Al's thoughts wandered in an exhausted stupor through the prospects of an unimaginable amount of trouble he was on the verge of causing for his teacher.  His hands crawled over his face – they should be on their way to Dublith.  They should be working on a way to prove his brother was still alive somewhere.  Now, he didn't have either of them.  If it hadn't been for the relentless chatter of robins beyond his hospital window, Al might not have had anything to interrupt his waking nightmare and grant him the reprieve of sleep.

 


 

There was a cursed, flaming ball dipping behind the landscape and Ed was certain it was having a good laugh at his expense on the way out.  Sitting on the wooden staircase of Doctor Oberth's rural home, Ed drilled his chin into the palm of his left hand.  

Herman Oberth, the man he'd come to Schässburg for, wasn't here.  He'd left… for Munich. 

A frustrated scowl scribbled across Ed's face.  Dammit, he was too old to throw a tantrum, but he sure had one rearing to go in his head.  Ed let his face melt into his hand, "When does the next train depart for Vienna?"

"Six in the morning every day," the doctor answered.

Ed scowled through his fingers, "Goodie."

Doctor Oberth grabbed Edward under his mechanical arm and hauled him to his feet.  "There's nothing more you can do about things today, don't ruin the evening with childish pouting.  I used to slap Hermann upside the head when he needed a reminder to act his age, don't you give me cause to discipline you, too."

Stumbling around on an achy left leg, Ed rolled his shoulder out of the hold and brushed the backside of his jacket off, "Yeah, I don't need to be 'disciplined', thanks.  I'm not a child."

Doctor Oberth huffed, "Son, no matter how old you become you will always be someone's child.  And as long as there's someone out there old enough to be your parent figure, he or she should take the initiative to make sure your family's inheritance stays in line.  It takes a village to raise a child as the saying goes, so don't think for a moment because you weren't born in this village that you will be treated any differently from our own if you act up." 

Ed swallowed his grumble and looked away.

The stern father re-gripped Edward's arm and hauled him into the house.  "Get inside; let's have some tea to end this day."

Shutting the door behind his wayward guest, Doctor Oberth brought Ed into the front kitchen and deposited him at a cloth-covered dining table.  Faded floral wallpaper covered the quaint room from the baseboards to the ceiling.  The busy nature of the walls swallowed all the decorations hanging on them, but made the plainness of the wooden cupboards even more apparent.  White curtains hung over the open window allowing evening light to fill the room, while encouraging the lingering smell of bleach to leave the air.

From towels to teaspoons to tapestry, not a single thing was out of place.  Ed kept his hands in lap.

The elder doctor filled the kettle and put it on the stove, "So, you pursue the sciences much like your father, eh?  I'm envious of him.  But what type of business does someone of your age and skill have with my son?"

Ed watched him fight with the pilot light, "Your son has a gifted mind, he's probably going to have a lot of people wanting in his business someday.  I've been studying the works of a few scientists studying propulsion and extreme flight – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard, and your son's as well."

Doctor Oberth left the kettle to boil and turned to the table.  "Ah, that," he settled in his chair and picked up his pipe,  "I'd thought as much; I mean with an arm like yours it seemed inevitable."

The state of Ed's arm had nothing to do with his interest in Hermann Oberth's scientific studies – it wasn't his arm he wanted to strap a rocket to.  "I've read all his published works and journals, even the earliest ones.  A thirteen-year-old has to be pretty gifted to come up with these kinds of complicated gravimetric computations for space flight.  The ease your son has understanding the nuances of physics makes him one of the most reliable sources of information in Europe.  I was hoping when I caught up to him that he'd be willing to discuss things in more detail with me."

Shaking out a match, the doctor coughed lightly and cleared his throat, "I'm sure he'd be delighted to talk with you.  He gets too much criticism from his peers; I don't think he gets much praise beyond Tilly and Valerie.  I haven't understood a damn thing that's come out of his mouth in years, but I do understand that the vast majority of people in the scientific community treat him like an outcast.  A comrade in madness will be good for him."

Oh, there it was – Edward's ears picked up the warning sound.  That all too familiar snide, bitter tone that older men on this side of the Gate got when something didn't meet their approval.  It was reminiscent of sarcasm, but too miserably honest.  Ed raised a question cautiously, "You disapprove of what your son does?"

Tapping his pipe into an ashtray, he answered, "I am a selfish old man and want my son to follow in my footsteps.  For a time he was, Hermann went out of his way to please me and abide by his family's wishes!  That good lad graduated from the University of Munich and became a doctor just like I told him to.  Sadly his first love was never medical science, it was mechanical and theoretical science."

"That's not a bad thing," Ed put his elbows on the table, "some of the most successful engineers have doctors for parents."

"Unfortunately for me, Val says that our son is living my father's dream and I used to think that old man was a mad fool for it."  The doctor sighed and leaned back in his seat, "However, my father allowed me to choose my own profession and didn't force me to follow in his footsteps, so I'll concede and allow my son to do as he wishes.  He appears to be successful in whatever he does."  The kettle's whistle got the elder Oberth up from his seat, "And God forbid he fails, he can always be a doctor again."

Edward was too intrigued not to ask, "What was your father's dream?"

The doctor plopped a tea bag into his tea pot, wrapped his hand in a towel, and added hot water from the kettle, "That old man embarrassed the whole family, possibly the entire town, by declaring that someday man would stand on that rising moon."  He plucked a set of tea cups and saucers from the cupboard, "I was a child when that happened, but all of Hermannstadt has laughed about it ever since.  Now, look at what that old man has gone and done, inspiring kids like Hermann and you."

Ed smirked in front of the tea pot added to the table.

Carrying the rest of the menagerie over to his company, the doctor asked, "What do you boys possibly expect to find up there in God's heavens?"

Straightening the fragile cup he'd been handed, Edward put his thoughts in the empty, tea-stained bottom.  "I don't know," his distorted reflection danced in the dark tea as it was poured, "I guess we'll find out when we get there."

 


 

Adjusting her blazer, Riza Hawkeye lowered her voice, "Are you sure you don't want to sit?"

Stubbornly drilling his free hand into the pocket of freshly ironed trousers, Roy Mustang adjusted his posture against the wall.  "I'm fine."

Presenting himself in uniform, the lumbering Lieutenant Colonel Alex Louis Armstrong glanced over his shoulder, pleading for silence from the two whisperers lurking behind him.  The massive officer returned to his ornery obstacle.  

"Miss Clausé, if you would please–"

"No!" she snapped, perched defiantly with arms and legs crossed on her bed, her glare pointed towards the window, "I'm not talking to you!"  After everything she had been through in the last twenty-four hours, Armstrong's raging muscles and impossible figure struck no fear in her heart.  "You separated us, you won't explain why you're harassing me, and you won't let me talk to my father.  Even prisoners get phone calls!  Does anyone even know where I am?  Does my dad think I'm dead?!" she slammed her free fist down on the mattress, "my dad is in the military, why are you here interrogating me like a prisoner!?  I want to talk to him.  You said you located him, so go GET him!" 

Clausé stuck her nose back into the air and bounced around to face the window.

Tucked away behind Armstrong's shadow, Jean Havoc rolled his chewed cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other, tossing a 'what do we do?' look to his superiors frowning in the corner.

Armstrong gathered another breath and deepened his pleading voice, "Miss Clausé, we simply–"

"Forget it!" she chirped, "I'm not answering any more of your questions!"

All parties were spared the infuriation of another argument when a distraction came via a knock at the door.  Second Lieutenant Maria Ross pardoned herself as she opened the door and gestured for her comrades to join in the hall.  One by one they filtered out, each passing a glance back to Clausé defiantly holding her ground, leaving Lieutenant Havoc behind to supervise their upstart.

Armstrong lowered the rumble of his voice once the door clicked shut, "What have you found, Lieutenant?" 

"Not a whole lot," Lieutenant Ross sighed, lifted the top page from her clipboard, and began reading off the points she'd written down, "Officer Serif only met them at Central Station after Al approached his daughter.  They presented themselves as mother and son en route to Dublith with a one night stay in Central City.  He offered to drive them to their inn, but stopped in the market for an early dinner.  He never found out where they were spending the night.  They had seats on the patio, but the kids went to the market.  Officer Serif had gone inside to pay for the meal when the terrorist attack started.  By the time the situation was secure enough for him to return to the table, Izumi was gone.  He went on to help with citizen evacuation from the area and hasn't seen either of them since." 

An indecisive hush hung over the quartet of officers in the hallway.  The distant sounds of a hospital overwhelmed by an emergency echoed incoherently while each officer privately digested the information that had come to light in the last twenty four hours. 

His brow coming down heavily over his good eye, it darkened almost enough to match his black eye patch.  "But that is Alphonse Elric?" Mustang breached the silence.

Smoothing out the curled page atop her clipboard, Ross replied, "It sounds like him." 

"For generations the Armstrong family has celebrated our photographic memory and keen recollection.  I have seen the photographs Mrs. Pinako Rockbell kept of Alphonse as a boy," Armstrong's knotted arms tried to contain the swell of his chest as he took a deep breath, "I'll visit this young man when he's up again."

Ross threw a wrench into their situation.  "He still hasn't recognized me at all.  If he is our Al, I don't know why I'm a complete stranger to him."

"And why the hell isn't Ed glued to his side?"  Mustang hissed the question through his teeth, taking an angry, white knuckle grip of his cane.  With every question the team explored, a handful of unexplainable new ones came to light.  "Why is this kid so young?  Why is he pretending to be Izumi Curtis' child?" 

Hawkeye addressed the lieutenant holding very few answers, "This Alphonse gave no indication that any one else was with him in Central, correct?"

Ross nodded affirmatively and tucked the clipboard away under her arm, "The only two people he's shown concern for are Clausé and Izumi, and he doesn't seem too eager to talk about Izumi any more."

The web of questions was spreading like a spider crack growing in broken glass.  Mustang's frustrated scowl crushed his good eye and tightened the corners of his lips.  Out of the terrorist incidents that had gone on since this piss poor government had taken charge, it didn't sit well with him that they had become involved in this one.  There was information he was missing.  Mustang's next question was directed at Armstrong, "Who's aware of our search for Mrs. Curtis?"

"My direct team, a contact within the police department, and a liaison at the prime minister's office," he answered.

Though one was hidden, Mustang lifted both his brows, "The prime minister's office?"

Armstrong nodded without enthusiasm, "I reached out to a connection I had within the municipal police force.  Unfortunately, the request was intercepted by the prime minister's office.  We've been instructed to use official channels or file a missing person's report if we are looking for their assistance."

"A missing person's report?" Mustang nearly laughed at the audacity of the institutional circus hoops they were being herded towards.  'Official channels' were clogged with red tape.  But it was the first time he'd found a silver lining to the new government's crippling of military power.  "That works in our favour.  Burn anything pertaining to a search for Mrs Curtis destined for anyone other than your direct subordinates, plus anything that has been documented about Clausé's mention of the surname 'Elric'.  Limit knowledge of the investigation to your team as best you can from here on out."

"Yes, Sir!"

Putting his shoulders back, Mustang turned to address Lieutenant Ross next, "The moment this 'Al Curtis' wakes up again, either yourself or Broche will contact Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong immediately, understood?"

"Yes, Sir!"

Mustang snatched up his cane and gripped the body firmly in his hand.  Squaring his stance a little wider to keep his balance, he adjusted his white shirt collar, straightened the grey sweater he wore over it, and tugged the ironed pleat running straight down both his pant legs to even them out.  Tensing his expression, he roughly cleared his throat and tried to stab the cane through the floor when he put it back down.  "I will have a talk with this mouthy young lady."

"Sir," Hawkeye courtly interrupted him, "it is my duty to remind you that you are on medical leave until your doctor gives you clearance to return to active assignment.  You aren't in a position to give or receive orders."

"Ah, yes," this was Mustang's daily reminder to park his ass at home and focus on himself while everyone and everything around him continued to move forward, "Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong should have final say on the matters at hand."

Those matters at hand were swiftly settled by the largest officer, "We will proceed as discussed."

The quartet in the hallway nodded in agreement.

Relaxing his grip on the cane, Mustang turned to his mobility escort, "I am going to need a large coffee before I go back in that room, care to join me?"

"Of course," Hawkeye smiled.

 


 

Just like he had started out twenty four hours ago, Ed was perched on the tall end of his suitcase.  He stared into the pale greys and oranges beginning to chase away the night beyond the lush forest hills.  Ah, it was back: the sunrise.  Hooking his thumb around the chain of the watch in his hip pocket, Ed yanked it out, whipped it through the air, and caught it in his left hand.  He popped open the lid and checked the time.  Quarter after five. 

From the second floor window of Doctor Oberth's old home, the doctor leaned out to warn Edward, "The sun isn't up quite yet, Vlad may still be out.  Watch yourself."

"Who?" Ed looked blankly over his shoulder at the window and stuffed the watch back into his pocket.  

The morning serenity allowed him to hear Doctor Oberth's every step inside the old house.  Ed listened to him descend the staircase, rustle with his coat at the door, slam his feet into a pair of shoes, and finally saw him emerge toting a leather bag of supplies for his clinic later that morning.

"Who's Vlad?" Ed asked again, straightening his vest as he stood up.

"Don't worry about it," the doctor laughed, embarking on their early morning walk to the train station, "simply a ghost story told to keep the children from playing in the streets all night long.  It's teased about in Sunday School since the devil's house is so close to the church."

Ed looked down the stone path laid out before them, matched the stride of his company's footsteps, and said nothing.  Mention of church was a can of worms he didn't dare to tempt, there was no telling where the conversation would head.  Edward's disinterest in religion haunted him wherever he went – it was a part of everyday life on this side of the Gate no matter what country he'd entered.  The extent of it was astonishing and like nothing he'd ever encountered back home.  Sure, Amestris and beyond had distinct religious groups, but church activities and religious practices were localized and not an ideology plague that nearly every single person had bought into.

Willful apathy on the subject was tiring, though.  Over the last year Ed had found his disinterest turned into a blanket of dislike of religious views on a whole, an opinion that was amplified by a speech given by the NSDAP chairman in April.  Could his old man stop dragging him to those events!?  He got the point already; it was safer to say nothing at all when the subject of religion came up.

Saying nothing at all had turned into the mantra for his day spent in Schässburg as well.  Ed was thankful the train was rolling in at this early hour, because his walk through town with the doctor in the evening had been unexpectedly uncomfortable.  

News of a stranger in town had spread like wildfire before Ed was mobile again.  Out in the public eye townspeople spied on him from their windows at every angle.  It was uncommon for a mysterious face to show up out of the blue and the fears war had instilled in the psyche of the European people roared to the surface.  In a place where everyone knew everyone else, no one knew Ed, and his presence compromised the sense of security.  

To make matters worse, the doctor mentioned that he could tell Edward's first language wasn't German and that became another glowing label slapped on his forehead.  Thankfully it appeared to be a universal rule that doctors were un-prejudicial by nature and Doctor Olberth never asked what Ed's first language was.  

There had been more than one language Ed had picked up on fairly easily once he'd started studying them, but German was the only one he could claim to be fluent in.  There was hardly any opportunity in Amestris to encounter a foreign language, let alone study one.  To both Ed's delight and surprise, historical alchemy in this world was the basis for several language scripts and could be reverse engineered…

"You're up so early!" Doctor Oberth exclaimed.

Of all of the times for his thoughts to get derailed, of course it had to be while he'd started daydreaming about alchemy.  Ed stopped, looking ahead to the train station in clear view and the young girl on the path the doctor had addressed.

A tiny brown haired, hazel eyed girl no more than ten sat her carton of glass milk bottles down on the clay path, "The cows have been generous early in the mornings these last few days.  Mother wants us to get everything we can while it lasts,"

"Where did your brother bugger off to?  He should be carrying those," Doctor Oberth's fathering voice surfaced, "what sort of young man lets a lass carry something so heavy?"

"No, no, I took them!  They're for the store," she waved her hands hurriedly to dismiss the worry then plucked a sealed bottle from the lot, "did you want one, Doctor?  Or perhaps one for your friend?"

It was Ed's turn to raise his hands in defence.  "Oh no, no, no, no… no, you should sell it at your store.  That's wasted on me."

"The body would never waste milk," she smiled sweetly and offered the bottle, "it's freshest early in the morning."

Ed laughed nervously and took a sharp step back, "Nope.  No, really, I had breakfast.  I'm good for the day."

"Everyone knows to drink their milk!" the doctor's firm hand connected with the centre of Ed's back, "it's good for your bones and will help you grow str—"

"I don't need to grow," Ed's eye twitched unnaturally as a maddened look crossed his face, "I did that already!  How come this never stops?" the circles under his eyes darkened, "I grew!  I am grown!  You all need to appreciate that getting this tall is the only good thing that's happened to me since I got here.  I'd like one of you to find a bean out there this big." 

The small milkmaid put the glass jar away and stared at their ranting visitor like he had a few marbles loose.

Ed huffed at the impertinence.

Doctor Oberth adjusted the bag in his hand and offered a slight bow of his head to their town's departing guest, "Well young man, I think it's time we go our separate ways.  I'm going to give this young lady a hand.  Have yourself a safe trip home, Edward Elric."

'Home' wasn't exactly where he was going, but Munich would do for now.  Ed snapped his overcoat straight and stood tall, "Thank you."

 


 

It was either a comical farce or an infuriating engagement.  Mustang sat in a chair facing yet another mouthy, headstrong child and had to ignore the fact she was mocking him.  

Clausé sat on the edge of her bed, one leg thrown over the other like Mustang had done, her good hand wedged into the sling of her broken arm to mimic how he'd folded his arms.  She'd narrowed her eyes to mirror his scowl, and once in a while she'd close her left eye.

All of Mustang's patience was going to be needed for this young lady.

Beyond his left shoulder, monitoring his blind spot, Mustang heard Hawkeye take off her blazer and fold it over her arms.  Once the rustling faded, silence would be his cue to continue.  

"Are you ready to move on from tantrums?" his words were a little tart.

Clausé curled a tight little smile, "Whatever, Boss."

If only Havoc hadn't opened his mouth on the way out the door.  Hawkeye was with Mustang today for the sole purpose of keeping him from reaching out and strangling this sassy girl.  He cleared his throat, "You garnered all this attention for two reasons: you were in the right place at the wrong time, and you misspoke a very important name."

"Yeah, exactly that!  I misspoke!" Clausé broke from her act and came alive when someone finally acknowledged she'd made a mistake.  "I keep telling you miserable people I was tired and confused when I got here and I was wrong.  That kid isn't Alph—"

"Alphonse Elric, yes.  I don't care about that."  Mustang's quick dismissal of an error that had kept people coming and going from her room the entire day quieted Clausé's fighting spirit long enough that an easier question could be asked.  "I care about where you got that name in the first place."

Thrown off her game, Clausé's arms untangled.  

"How do you know 'Elric'?"

Her jaw teetered open, visibly unsure why Mustang was willing to listen to her explain herself now.  "A pair of brothers named Edward and Alphonse Elric came to my hometown years ago.  I thought Al sounded like one of them."

Off the top of his head, Mustang couldn't remember ever sending Ed on an assignment in the hometown listed on her or her father's records, nor had the village come up on any report Ed submitted.  But it was accessible on the route between Central City and Resembool, so it wasn't an out of the way location for them either.  "That's a unique detail for someone of your age to hold on to."

"They were unique people," Clausé shrugged her explanation, "they were alchemists and I heard one of them became some kind of famous alchemist.  A State Alchemist or whatever that used to be called."

This was Mustang's favourite puzzle piece thus far.  Clausé had met the brothers before they had met him in Central City.  The encounter had to have been after Al had become linked to the suit of armour, else it wouldn't have been his 'sound' that had been memorable.  "This Al Curtis was travelling with his mother, not a brother, from what you've described.  It was only the two of them?" 

"I've told you people this a thousand times already, yes!" the bitter snap returned to Clausé's tongue, "his mom said he'd only ever travelled with her.  Why don't you ask him if you don't believe me, I barely know these people!  Why do you even care?"

How does one stop caring after so long?  It was a good question.  Roy Mustang still had an invested interest in anyone with the surname 'Elric', and the eyes and ears he relied on were how he got wind of Clausé's 'mistake'.

Mustang blocked out the sass he was getting, retreating into his thoughts to entertain a mountain of questions he couldn't scale.  Ed intended on disappearing once he'd destroyed the Philosopher's Stone and Mustang had allowed the Elrics that peace by mentally erasing Resembool from the map.  A dream was set to be lost and it wasn't Mustang's place to pursue Ed any further.  He never returned to Central, disappearing from radar as he'd wished.  Mustang left the radar running though, in case the desire changed.

Guarded inside a room in an adjacent hall, Alphonse Elric was potentially there.  As a boy.  A human boy.  The brother Ed's entire world revolved around.  The brother he could not reclaim because he would rather destroy the Philosopher's Stone than use it, knowing its horrific origins.  It didn't make sense.

This boy, who could have been anyone, travelled with a woman Mustang had learned was the Elric's alchemy teacher.  Their mentor.  It was a foregone conclusion that Ed would protect Al to the ends of the earth if that's where they went, so where the hell was he?  Why was Al travelling alone under an alias in his teacher's care?  And if the alias was important enough for Al to diligently maintain, what was so much more important that neither she nor Ed had turned this hospital inside out to retrieve him by now?

Mustang wanted to let his hands crawl through his face.  This girl across from him didn't have the answers he really wanted.  Was there anything else worthwhile to learn from this exhausting exercise?

"What were you two doing in that building?"

"Suffocating," Clausé grumbled.

It took every ounce of energy Mustang had not to snarl at her before re-wording his question, "I'm asking how you got into the building.  Its public entrances are two blocks from the market and the back portion nearest the explosion had collapsed.  Why were you found so far from where your parents expected you to be?"

"I… I don't remember," frustration raised its ugly head in Clausé's whine and she heaved her voice back at Mustang, "I remember gunshots, I remember things blowing up, I remember smoke, garbage, a dark mess, but I don't remember anything else.  I don't even remember when I broke my arm!  It just happened so fast!"

"Then slow it down for me!" an irritated Mustang challenged her.

The last eight months of forced leave had taken a toll on Mustang's temperament.  He dialled his abrasive tone down when Hawkeye's hand landed on his shoulder.  

"Slow it down," she stepped in calmly before Clausé could tantrum her way out of the conversation, "you were in the market when they opened fire – what do you remember about how it started?"

Hesitantly glancing between her interrogator and the woman keeping him under control, Clausé replied, "We weren't in the market."

"Where were you?" Hawkeye asked.

"In the alley."

"What were you doing in there?"

"Petting the cats," she answered.

It was a charmingly innocent answer that Mustang hated when the only mental image he could dig up was that huge suit of armour cradling a stray orange cat that he didn't take home.  

"Okay," Hawkeye continued to walk with Clausé through her memories, "and you heard the gunshots from where you were?"

Clausé visibly winced, "Yeah, so we ran away."

"Further into the alley?"

"Yeah.  We found a door, but it was locked and…"

The deliberate way Clausé's eyes shifted as she sorted the memory had Mustang's undivided attention, "And?"

"There was a man in the dark," Clausé sank into the pool of memories, "he was at the far end of the alley.  He looked right at us.  And we turned around and ran."  Her eyes slipped into her lap.  "And ran.  And then we were flying.  And then it was dark.  And… everything was garbage."

Mustang listened to Clause's words grow quiet and taper off, and he used the pause to piece together a mental map of events thus far.  Uncrossing his legs first, then unfolding his arms, Mustang clasped his hands together and leaned towards her, placing his forearms on his knees.  The guardrails around the young lady he faced were rattled and Mustang used the instability to get another question answered.  "How did you get into the building?"

"There was a flash of light and we fell into the hall," Clausé mumbled quietly, "like the wall barfed us out."

"Like a transmutation?" there was too much in alignment for it to be anything else, "and you escaped the same way?"

"Sure, if you say so," her head slid off her neck and Clausé's shoulders rode up to her ears.  Her body tensed as she drilled her eyes into her knees, voice barely emerging, "Can I see my dad now, please?"

"Yes," Hawkeye answered.

Mustang acknowledged this might be the most he'd get out of her before she either cried, reverted to a brat, or her rookie father figured out how to navigate the chain of command to collect her.  This was enough for Mustang to chew on and he got to his feet.  Adjusting the ends of his sleeves, Mustang threw his black trench coat over his shoulders.  Leaving Clausé to her thoughts, he picked up his cane and led Hawkeye to the door.

There was one profoundly critical player active on this map, one who'd gone missing, and one yet to show his face.  Critical thinking was a skill Mustang didn't want to damage by entertaining unfounded, irrational ideas, but goddammit if anyone had told him about Bradley this time two years ago he would have outright dismissed it.  Still, facts had to dominate over fiction.  Armstrong still needed to confirm the identity of the 'Al Curtis'.  

What if the boy claimed to not recognize someone as unmistakable as Alex Louis Armstrong?  What if he stuck to the story that his family name was Curtis?  What if he really wasn't the Al they were assuming he was and this was nothing but a circus?  What if.  What if.  What if.

With Hawkeye at his back, Mustang pulled open the door and nearly walked into a body blocking his path.  He lurched back and stabbed his cane into the floor.  "Step aside."

The visitor at the door did no such thing.

Locking his feet to the floor and squaring the top of his head up beneath the officer's nose, he held his ground.  His skin was an unwell shade of pale, and his face littered with bandages and fresh scabs.  His golden brown hair was a 'fresh out of bed' mess, and the exhausted circles under his grey eyes highlighted his cross expression.  Dressed in the hospital's washed out blue pants and bleached white shirt, he attempted to match Mustang's authoritative tone to announce: 

"Clausé is in there and I want to talk to her."

The unmistakable young voice, ringing without the hollow metallic echo, emerged from an unfamiliar boy's face.  The sound cracked the hard shell of the normally steadfast man and a startled look flooded into Roy Mustang's good eye as it widened. 

 


 

To Be Continued...

 




 

Notes:

Ed's height is 179cm (5'10")

I did not know if Oberth's father went by the surname of Krasser or Oberth, I chose Oberth.

Schässburg (Schäßburg) is the German name for the city. Its Romanian name is Sighişoara.

Hermannstadt is now called Sibiu.

 

Revised: 2023-09-14

Chapter 3: Caretakers

Summary:

Ed makes his way back to Munich through Vienna to brainstorm with his father about how to find Oberth. Mustang and Hawkeye try to figure out how this eleven-year-old Al Curtis can be sixteen-year-old Alphonse Elric as the new government make things difficult for them.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Well, his name was Roy Mustang and he was a Colonel in the military.  He was a soldier in the Ishibal War and he made a name for himself as the Flame Alchemist.  He showed up uninvited right after your accident, put ideas in Ed's head, and set a lot of things in motion.  He ended up being Ed's superior officer and you guys spent a couple of years in East City under his supervision.  Ed never liked him too much, though.  One time I got to talk with one of his people.  I don't know if I agreed with her position, but she was dedicated to him and what he stood for.  I suppose they thought they were doing the right thing.  I'm not sure what else to tell you about him…"

 


 

Sinking his teeth into an apple, Edward scanned a corner store's magazine stand.  His train out of Vienna wasn't leaving for another three hours, so rather than grow mould sitting on a bench, he decided to browse what he could of the city near the station.  Holding the ripe fruit in his mouth, Ed picked up a local paper and skimmed the headlines.

"Looking for something in particular?"

Edward returned it to the rack and dropped the apple to his hand, "Nope, just killing time."

A middle-aged man tending the stand leaned over a stack of magazines, "Where're you off to, traveller?"

"Back to Germany."  Ed scanned another row.

The man's thick black eyebrows twitched, "What the hell is up with all the Germans lately?" 

Intrigue lifted Ed's eyes.

"You'd think the lot of you would be too embarrassed to show your faces outside of the country," the man spat.

Ed snorted at the sentiment, "Why do you assume I'm German?"

The shopkeeper barked his reply, "You said 'Back to Germany'.  No other reason to go to Germany unless you belong there.  Half the country still can't figure out how to rebuild houses, the economy is horrid, and you lot are dragging us down with it.  Your politicians can't tell their asses apart from a hole in the ground, and the dirt I'm standing on is worth more than your Mark."

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Ed conceded.  The nuances of continental Europe's internal politics didn't interest him though and he took another bite of his apple.

Like he'd been waiting for someone to lay his rant on, the shopkeeper's voice rose another notch, "And then you arrogant pricks think you can walk into our beautiful city and pawn off your bullshit propaganda on us!" 

Ed rolled his eyes tiredly; why was he listening to this?  Now was a good time to move on, but… "What propaganda?" he asked.

The Shopkeeper knelt down behind his stand and launched a magazine into the air.  Ed put his apple down to catch it by its fluttering pages before it landed on the ground.

"Take that garbage back where it came from.  Just because the NSDAP chairman used to live in this city does not mean everyone here is going to obediently follow at his beck and call," the shopkeeper snarled.

Ed smoothed out the pages of the upside down magazine in his hand.  "Someone came all the way out here to give it to you?"

"Yeah.  Some guy, Hess I think he said his name was, came through here the other day and asked me to pass them out for free.  I'd seen a couple other stands with it downtown, so I put that filth on my shelves too.  Damn fool I was, I should have read it first."

From Ed's perspective, it seemed like a lot of effort for someone to go to.  Turning to the back page, he righted the magazine he held and hunted through the publisher's text to see if he could figure out who the heck was so desperate.  He spotted a name that rang an unfortunate bell.  "Eckart?" 

The shopkeeper zeroed in on Edward's interest, "Eckart what?"

Sweeping the magazine shut, Ed looked up at the man, "Eckart is the editor of this."

Shopkeeper stepped out from behind his stand, the aggression in his tone moving up a notch, "Someone you know?"

"Someone my father knows."  Did that old bastard even know the people he was keeping himself on good terms with were out pissing off the neighbours?  Edward tucked it under his right arm.  "You said it's garbage, right?"

"Take it!" the shopkeeper waved an arm emphatically, encouraging him to scram, "and take your food with you too!"

Snatching up his apple, Ed would have been content to bugger off without the encouragement.  He walked away from the riled shopkeeper before he got any more of an earful from him.  Taking a final bite of his apple, Ed tossed it into the street-side trash, and drifted a little closer to the train station. 

 


 

A tired, weary tremble pulsied through Al's body.  He clenched his fists and tightened as many muscles as he could to fight it off.  Staring at the one-eyed man blocking the entrance to Clausé's room, he added a bit of feisty bite to his words.  "I... I heard what you were talking about in there."  Some of it, anyways.  The end of it.  These people didn't need to know how long ago Al had snuck past Denny sleeping on his chair.  "There's no reason you need to upset Clausé like that when she's by herself."

Like he either hadn't interpreted Al's words, or simply didn't care, the eye-patch man blocking Al's way looked up from him and briefly searched the hall.  

Al was tempted to look along with him, but he'd left his room knowing the only person out there was napping.  Once the man was satisfied with the nothing he saw, the myriad of thoughts and concerns mixed with anger and annoyance plagued his expression and sent an uncomfortable chill down Al's spine.  He laid his good eye on Al like he had all the authority in the world behind him, stiffened his jaw like he had an order to give, and stepped backwards to let the young Elric into the room.

"Thank you very much."  Al marched in barefoot.

Clausé sank his heart when saw her on the bed.  The pep and personality she proudly flaunted had been worn down, leaving her tired, withered, wounded, and simply sad.  The bright blue eyes she'd widened projected a shadow of the life he'd expected to see from her.

"She said she wanted her dad, why aren't you going to get him?" Al turned around to interrogate her interrogators.

The one-eyed man's right hand deliberately turned the doorknob.  He slowly, meticulously, controlled the door until it shut.  He again turned the knob, rather than release it, to seal the room without a sound.

Al swallowed uncomfortably.  Now was the best time to get to the bed and give Clausé a good, strong hug.

Together they babbled on with inconsequential conversation and chatter, the same sort Al learned to distract Winry with when it looked like she was trying not cry about something.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.  It was working for Clausé.  The misery weighing her down was gradually shed from her shoulders, letting her natural, brazen personality reassert itself.

The distraction helped Al too.  His arrival in Central City was plagued with chaos – he needed his own distraction from the soreness of his body and clarity in his head to figure out what to do next.

The one thing Al couldn't take care of, or keep his eyes off of, were the two adults blocking the exit of the room.  They stood like cement pillars, watching them without a word.  The dark haired man with an eye-patch and cane and the professional, upright woman at his side never took their eyes off him.  At the onset their faces were alive with interest.  Then, in the brief gap between one moment and the next, they had both closed the windows to their mind's eyes so no one could see inside.  They observed the room with unreadable concentration, not letting on what they were thinking, and studying Al like a specimen.  It was unsettling.  It felt like the embodiment of his teacher's worries.  Maybe there was something to that after all.

"Hey!" Clausé finally chirped at them again, "why are you still standing over there like a couple of pylons?  I asked to see my dad!"

"And I heard you agree to go get him," Al chimed in, "what are you waiting for?"

"Young man…" the one-eyed man spoke with the same aggressive authority he'd used at the door, "what's your name?"

Al opened his mouth to reply and Clausé jumped all over him.

"Look!  You're in luck!" sarcasm dripped from her lips, "you didn't even need to go to Al to talk to him, he woke up and came to you!"

Wait, what?  'Came to you'?  Al's mouth cracked open and he stared wide-eyed at Clausé.  

She hopped up on her knees and planted a hand on Al's sore shoulder, throwing her voice as if to challenge them.  "Go ahead and ask him all your questions!"

Question?  What questions?  Al looked between Clausé, who seemed more than eager to transfer the spotlight to him, and the two adults who had him in their headlights.  What was going on?  Why did they want to talk to him?  Was there something they knew about Izumi that no one was telling him?  Al's head started to spin with possibilities.  

"What's your name?" the man repeated.

"Al," he answered quickly, then tacked on, "Curtis."

"Why are you in Central City?" his manner of speaking was abrupt.

All the questions asked of Al thus far were focussed on his health and wellbeing, but this was an investigatory question.  Was this guy a police officer?  Is that why security was looking after him and not any nurses?  "We had to transfer trains here."

"Where were you headed?" his words sizzled.

"Dublith," Al recited the story, "with my mom."

"Her name?" the question was fired like a gunshot.

Al raised his shield.  "Izumi."

"Seeee!" Clausé flashed her teeth as she dragged out the syllable, "I kept telling you people that was the truth."

"What!?  You didn't believe her?"  That was the last thing Al needed right now.  Throwing himself to his feet so he could battle the people questioning them, the lie was defended.  "Why wouldn't you believe her?"

For the first time since he'd entered the room Al felt and saw the two sets of eyes studying him lift.  They shifted to Clausé without delivering an answer.  Al followed their sightlines beyond his shoulder, the nervous energy radiating off her growing palpable.  She was grumpily grinding her lower lip in her teeth when he turned around.

"I misspoke," Clausé withered, wrinkling her nose in a feeble attempt at taunting the people focussed on her, "I was hurt, I was tired, I felt sick, and I misspoke."

Al paled.  What in the world had Clausé said about an incident that nearly killed them that generated so much tension and petty strife in a hospital room!?  

The echo of a blunt heel struck off the floor.  The linoleum and empty walls amplified the sound of a casual step being taken.  The woman who'd stood so stalwart at the one-eyed man's side advanced ahead of him, each precise step echoing in the room until she arrived.  She kindly led Al back to the bedside, encouraging him to sit down.  She took a seat in a simple wooden chair brought over to face them, then smoothed the pressed fabric of her dress pants over her knees and locked her knees together.  She loosely linked her fingers on top of her thighs and smiled at Al for the first time.

"Al, how old are you?"

Al couldn't explain how she'd managed to compel an answer so easily out of him.  "Eleven."

The tip of the cane in the blinded man's hand could be heard grinding into the floor.

The woman nodded, like she'd both expected an answer like that and was disappointed by it.  "Do you know who we are?"

Police officers.  Special Investigators.  Interrogators.  Security.  All of those were the logical answers.  Al was absolutely certain they were all wrong answers.  That wasn't how the question was asked.  It was like how his mom worded things when she wanted a confession out of him.  'Do you know who we are?'  No… but the heart pounding in Al's chest told him that she knew him.  If he was any other person, he would have known the answer.  

Al's next breath parched his lips and dried out his mouth, "Clausé, what did you say?"

The mattress beneath Al rocked when Clausé flopped over.  He listened to her nasally whine.  Entangled with the mystery woman in front of him, Al realized too late that she was in perfect position to capture every minor detail of his reaction to Clausé's answer.  

"I said your last name might be 'Elric', but…"

 


 

"Edward!"

The call of his name was swallowed by the buzz of the train station crowd in Munich.

"Edward!  Edward Elric!  Dammit, over here!  EDWARD!"

Ed glanced over his shoulder and spotted a waving hand in the crowd.  "Aw shit…" displeasure leaked into both his expression and tone.  He couldn't ignore the bastard now – well he could, but he was too tired to deal with the amount of shit that would bring him.  Shoving through the crowd, Ed begrudgingly headed towards the young man calling his name.

"Ah!  Thank God."  The bright face of a boy just old enough to be considered a man pushed through the crowd.

Ed skulked into earshot so he could bark, "Hoffie, what the hell are you doing here?" 

"Your father couldn't get away, so he asked me to pick you up!" he triumphantly announced once his target was acquired.

"You mean the old man actually got the telegram I sent from Vienna?" Ed popped his brows and swung his briefcase over his shoulder, "well shit, I was sure I'd have to pay for a taxi or walk."

"Good grief, Edward.  You can't possibly expect to walk yourself halfway across Munich!" 

Actually, he did have that expectation of himself, regardless of its feasibility.  

The young man at Ed's side put his hands in his pockets and the two began their exit from the train station's bustle.  "It's a good thing the professor asked me to pick you up, or you'd have hurt yourself."

Edward's brow came down heavily as he sighed, long past tired of everyone's concern over his physical state.  "Hoffie, I don't need a caretaker.  If I can take off to the vast land of Rumania, I can get my ass across the even vaster land of Munich."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure you think so," the young man quipped with complete disregard to Edward's sarcastic tone, "and stop calling me that!"

Edward maliciously curled his grin as they stepped out into the mid-day street.  "There's nothing wrong with me calling you Hoffie." 

A disapproving scowl drove into Ed, "There's everything wrong with that.  How the hell did you come up with something like 'Hoffie'?!  It sounds like something a toddler would say."

"Hoffie is?" Edward looked up at a sickly blue sky and had some fun antagonizing him, "I've called you Hoffie for years, I thought you got over it."

The protesting company took a swift, deep breath through his teeth, "How could you think that!?  I've never stopped objecting!"

Ed's grin turned into a cocky smirk, "So what?  Now that you're a big eighteen-year-old-boy, I can't call you Hoffie?  Your dad doesn't have a problem with it."

"You're not that much older, don't lecture me like twenty-one makes you a superior being."  'Hoffie' exhaled his annoyances and moved on to shaking his head as they reached his vehicle, "What's wrong with calling me Al?"

"I'm not calling you 'Al'," the dead tone in Ed's voice slapped his listener across the face.

Reaching into his pocket for a set of car keys, Albrecht Haushofer opened the door for Edward and pleaded, "But everyone else calls me Al."

"Your friends call you Al," Ed manoeuvred himself into the passenger's seat, "I'm not calling you Al."

Albrecht shut the door in a huff and sulked all the way around to the front of the vehicle.  "Could we settle on Albrecht at least?"

"No, I like Hoffie."

The car rocked when Albrecht pulled the choke on the front of the car and wrenched the crank around to get the motor going.  He dropped his bodyweight into the driver's side, jammed the spark, and threw the throttle into position.  The car lurched forward and Ed deposited his troublesome grin out the window.  

The trek through the city continued in blissful silence, and while his ears were happy, Ed's nose wasn't.  Garbage collection had been neglected and the sidewalks were covered in filth yet again.  The smell of rot created by the city's inability to pay enough employees to get work done seeped in through the windows as they drove on.  This place was an absolute mess.

An intersection brought the vehicle to a momentary stop.

"Did you want to head out there or just go to the university?" Albrecht asked.

If he could help it, Edward would never go there again.  "I got no business there, let's just go to the university."  The question did, however, remind Ed of something he'd stuffed in his briefcase.  "When the heck did Rudolf find time to go to Vienna?"

Albrecht chuckled at the question as he veered onto school grounds.  "Last weekend!  You were busy off at the central office trying to locate that Obergg-something-er-other."

"Does he really think that trying to corrupt shop owners in Vienna would do any good?" Ed pressed his cheek against the window, "I think he pissed them off more than anything."

The wording of Ed's concerns got Albrecht's back up, "What do you mean 'corrupt'?  It's important to get the message out, so he does what he has to.  Rudolf has every intention of being the right hand man when they push again for a leadership change, this is just one of his ways of showing support." 

The car pulled to a stop and Ed was already regretting bringing this up with Albrecht.  He wasn't careful with his words and now he had to bite his tongue.  Of all the times he should have actually saved a conversation for his father… 

"I suggested he decentralize a bit, get his ideas out to more than just the German people.  Talk to the Austrians and Hungarians and get an allegiance of supporters outside of the country as well.  Alliances are needed internally and externally."  Albrecht's tone hardened, "You know that filth is out there everywhere holding back the progression of a better Germany.  You know that they're the cause of what continues to bring down this country.  We can't delude ourselves by denying that they aren't out there in places beyond the German countryside too.  My father says that one of the main reasons for our humiliation in the war was the fact we were naive in understanding the countries, people, and terrain around us.  Rudolf agreed that if we could get more than just the German people to understand, it would be easier to rebuild central Europe with a better, stronger Germany at her helm."

A grin was forced into Edward's face and he opened the car door, "You're looking to get into someone's good books.  Have you thanked your dad yet for setting up the meeting with him?"

"Oh yeah!" Albrecht's enthusiasm had him leaning into the passenger's seat as Ed got out, "and Rudolf is in touch with the chairman himself - they've been making significant pushes for the title of Fuhrer.  My father said they're pretty good friends.  I'm hoping that I can get my ideas to someone right up at the top.  I really want to see my country in a time where we prosper again.  All I've seen so far is everyone suffering through war."

"Yeah, war's everywhere, it seems."  Ed paused, drumming his fingers on the roof of the car, "Well, thanks Hoffie, I'll see you in the halls sometime." 

"Don't call me tha—"

Ed shut the car door heavily and walked away, his expression darkening with each step as he replayed Albrecht's speech in his head.

 


 

Al's recollection of the first few days after his rebirth was a hazy memory of Rose, Izumi, and what he discovered was a real live homunculus named Wrath.  By the time they'd made it all the way back to Resembool, his recollection of events was somewhat clearer.  

He could remember Granny Pinako bringing him soup as he lay in bed.  The memory of his toes and fingertips tingling like they were asleep stuck out in his mind.  At some point that day or the next Al had gone up to Winry's room where Rose had spent the night and found her baby sleeping in an old crib.  Clear in his memories was how he stood over that crib, gently helping it sway, with his teacher's arms wrapped tightly around him.  They stood in the silence of each other's company for the longest time.  Izumi didn't say anything when she left the room later either.

At some point in the thinning fog, Al asked his teacher where his brother was and received a regrettable white lie: Ed was in Central.  If Al thought back about the answer now, maybe his teacher was just waiting for confirmation – no one had gone back to investigate for sure.  Denial was still on the table at this point.   So was grief.  

Winry came home. 

She had gone to the station days before to see a friend off and ended up spending time in town at the request of a local mechanic in need of an extra hand.  She came home at Granny's request, not knowing anything.  

Al heard Winry come through the door and somehow it managed to lift the remaining fog.  Through the floorboards he could hear the familiar pitches of Winry and Pinako's voices, but couldn't make out their words.  The unmistakable sound of Winry pounding up the stairs announced her arrival.

It was that point when Al realized something was terribly wrong.

An ice cold chill flushed through Al's veins like a fast working toxin, turning him numb.  This wasn't the Winry he'd last seen in a straight pink sundress.  This was a woman who'd taken her face.  Her hair was long, her face was trimmed, she was taller than he'd last seen her, and she had curves that weren't there before.  

Winry dropped to her knees on the wooden bedroom floor.  She fumbled through her room to capture him, cling to him, and rock him in her arms as she cried.  Al was as emotive as a rag doll in Winry's care, unsure of her or anything else for that matter.  The people he'd been around so far all looked the same – like adults.  He had nothing to prepare him for what he was about to learn.  

The fog was replaced by an overwhelming sense of detachment and displacement.

Winry sat on her bed with Al, arms wrapped around his shoulders, clinging to him like a prized possession.  Al likened himself to a new gadget that had come in the mail – Winry kept checking to make sure all his limbs worked.  Did she think he was going to spontaneously fall apart?  Together, throughout that strange night, they discovered that Al's exceptional physical health came at the cost of five years worth of memories.  

Al's recollection of events regarding his mom ended in panic as he felt the transmutation deconstruct his body, and began anew when Rose woke him up in some large hall in the middle of a foreign place.  The loss of time didn't register for him.  As far as he was concerned, those years hadn't happened at all.  

The remains of the Elric family's burned house could be seen from the western facing windows.  An explanation – an incomprehensible story – was told like a folklore shared around the campfire.  Winry covered the overarching details.  Izumi and Rose added their own select summaries of what they came to know over the last five years.  At the onset it appeared to be more information than Al knew what to do with.  Al went so far as to laugh awkwardly at some of it initially, asking how his hot-headed brother would be able to affix a soul to a suit of armour, and how he wished he could be so absurdly tall again.  Once he started writing the details down and sorting it to a timeline, he started to see just how much of his lost life was retained only by his brother and the military associated with them.

No one under Pinako's roof wanted Al to seek out the military.  From the moment he breathed word of it, his family shut the option down.  Distaste for the institution wasn't a secret.  Izumi had never been afraid to voice her opinions of spineless men behaving like dogs, sniffing their masters' asses, and barking on command.  Pinako, who normally kept her cards close to her chest, found something in Izumi's fire that convinced her to lay her hand down and she began cursing an institution designed to rob people of their lives.  And then there was Rose and the circumstances that led to the birth of her fatherless son.  

The military was no place for a child.  No place for a good man.  

Winry brought up one exception: an officer named Maes Hughes.  A kind man who kept a better eye on them than Ed's own superior officer.  A family man who adored his wife Gracia and daughter Elysia.  A generous man who placed the children wandering around him under his wings.  A good man who died trying to protect all of them.

Didn't that prove the womens' point, though?  The good ones ended up dead.  Based on what he'd been told, Al didn't disagree with them.

So, why on earth was his brother involved with this organization?  Why wasn't the family cursing him for remaining enlisted while the government was turning itself inside out?  Why had no one dragged his backside home?

How would anyone tell Al that Ed died?

The writing was on the wall by this point, Al could see that in hindsight.  Rose's recount of the Underground City had made its way around to every ear that wasn't his.  The mood in the house changed when Al began to ask about his brother's whereabouts with more authority.  He was angry at the communication breakdown, though later he could see it was just a symptom of everyone else's grief. 

Edward never came home to see his reborn little brother.

Therefore, Alphonse was alive because Ed sacrificed himself.  

His brother was dead.

Useless information floated around Al's head in other people's voices.  Maybe his memory was gone because Ed had used it as leverage somehow.  There was something about a woman named Lyra and soul suppression and replacement and other things Al's ears tuned out.  The word 'Gate' got tossed around like Al was supposed to think it was important.  He didn't care.  Neither did Winry, she ran away in tears.

There was no Philosopher's Stone used for Al's return.  Alphonse Elric himself had used the horrific tool in his care to resurrect Ed after the homunculus killed him.  

In exchange, Edward Elric honoured the laws he refused to disavow and offered himself to the Gate for Al's safe return.  

A clean exchange.  

A life for a life.

Al wanted to be dead again.

His mother died of illness, his father was nowhere to be found, and his brother had died to keep him alive.  Only ten years old, Alphonse was all that remained of his family.  As much as the found family he loved tried, they didn't fill the loneliness.  The rawness of loss.  Al understood that everyone around him shouldered significant personal losses, but it was too early for him to see how any of them could relate to his.  No one around him could fill this gaping wound.  

As his teacher had taught him, life continued on whether he liked it or not.

Before winter was over Alphonse reopened his storybook in an effort to address the void.  The life he'd lived with his brother was still lost in pages other people held, but his family could add details to the known events on the timeline.  Thoughtful, intelligent details.  Like, what sort of transmutation was needed to attach his soul to the armour?  Where did Al's soul go when he used the Philosopher's Stone to resurrect his brother?  What transmutation did his brother perform to get all of him back?  

Izumi stopped the questions there.

There was a cycle of sorrow that needed to come to an end.  There had been too many sacrifices already and the path Al was gravitating towards would be filled with more.  It was time for him to come to terms with the reality he wasn't living in and grieve.

But how could Al grieve for someone who wasn't dead?

Al laid out a proposal to his teacher.  A hypothesis he was looking to prove.  If he couldn't, then his brother was lost.  But if he could, no sacrifice of any kind would be required to continue.

Izumi listened and reluctantly agreed to entertain him on three conditions.  One, the Philosopher's Stone and all its derivatives were out of the question.  Two, she would oversee him every step of the way.  Three, do not seek out military resources like Ed had done for any reason.

Alphonse agreed to his teacher's terms and conditions.  

In May 1916 Al's own solo journey began, meant to fill an insatiable loss created by an indelible sin.

An unexpected turn separated him from his teacher and trapped Al in a hospital.  Before he could claim he'd begun anything, the mission was in shambles.  His brother, and everyone else he knew to trust, were farther away than ever.

The unfamiliar faces of Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye entered the picture.  Military officers his brother had worked with, but his family despised on principle, were resources Al was told not to rely on.  

The military was no place for a good man.  

Even if it was obvious they could see through a simple lie that was never meant to be tested this way, he would remain no one more than Al Curtis to them.

Al's trust resided exclusively with the people he knew best.  With respect for his family's wishes, he distanced himself from the officers he had no emotional attachment to, no matter how much of his missing story they could fill.  

"I can't talk to you," was all he told them.

 


 

"This shit is so frustrating!" 

Ed slapped his left hand over his face.  With his heels on the desk, the defective right arm dangling uselessly over the back of the chair, and a list of unhelpful phone numbers at his feet, Ed let out a long, drawn out groan.

Hohenheim looked up from his work, adjusted his glasses, and let a slight chuckle escape, before returning to his grading. 

Ed fired his pupils over to his father.  "What?" he snarled.

"Nothing."  Hohenheim didn't look up.

"I don't need you laughing at me."  Ed took his feet off the desk and let his left heel thump off the wood floor, "I'd like to see you find someone in all these registries."

"I wouldn't dare," flipping the page of his work, Hohenheim feigned disinterest, "you've been doing just fine on your own."

Except Edward couldn't find who he was looking for.  All the university guestbooks he'd gotten his hands on had been searched, a handful of guest lists from scientific circles had been obtained, and even a couple passenger manifests had landed in Ed's possession, but not a single one of these documents got him any closer to the man he was on a mission to find: Hermann Oberth.  Ed's forehead dropped to the desk.  Doctor Oberth had said his son had been heading to Munich, and the younger Oberth had ties to the university – Ed couldn't let this opportunity fall through his fingertips.  How the hell was he going to find this man?

Hohenheim's lamp flickered as he made notes.  "Why don't you ask Albrecht and see if he can get his hands on any special invites?  His girlfriend works for the registrar, doesn't she?" 

Ed hunched forwards and his shoulders curled to his ears as he hissed, "Why don't you ask Professor Haushofer to ask his son to ask his girlfriend to do that?"

Hohenheim rolled his eyes up, stared at Ed over the top rim of his glasses, and replied with a silent 'no'.

Edward soured, he hated when his father gave him that look.  Loosening his dress shirt in the warm room, he flicked open the top button and got up from the desk.  Dragging his backaide to his father's cluttered oak desk, he stole one of the chocolates from a bowl, and tucked it into his cheek.  "Is there someone you can connect me with at the registrar?" 

The request lifted Hohenheim's brows.  He returned his dip pen into its holder and leaned back in his chair.  "I could, but the moment I inquire at the registrar's office it'll stir up gossip.  It's not a part of the school I have anything to do with."

Ed scowled.  Yeah, his old man had no business poking around there and Ed wanted to keep his circus low key.

Hohenheim offered his son an alternative, "Do you remember Angela who was always busy with something in filing?  Why not try her – she's doing bookkeeping and whatnot in the library now, she might know someone who can get you some contact lists."

His father was acknowledged with a nod, but the name Angela didn't exactly ring a bell.  Edward wasn't keeping track of people's names and faces in his head unless he absolutely had to.   

Ed turned his eyes up to the bookcases his father had filled with science – physics, chemistry, biology… the fourth science was missing and there was nothing in these other books that could help him.  This was just a wall of ornamental literature.  Not like his father was the one interested in getting home, anyways.

The lamps on both Edward and Hohenheim's desks flickered as a power spike fizzled in the wires.

Hohenheim offered one more option, "Why don't you go over to the graduate wing and ask about him?"

Edward nearly choked on the chocolate dissolving in his mouth.  "You've got to be kidding, I am not their favourite person, and from what I've heard Hermann Oberth isn't either.  I doubt he'd go there."  Ed dumped himself in his desk chair.

Rising from his seat, Hohenheim tugged his vest straight and drifted towards his son.  "Are you going to show him the Goddard report?" 

"Rumour is he's looking for it.  It's a pain in the ass to find here, and I can translate it for him."  The thick envelope that Ed touted like a bible was visible in his mess of papers.  "There are some really excellent theories in here that Mr. Oberth hasn't gotten to yet.  It'll help him with his research.  I'd like to know what his opinions are on a lot of Goddard's work, too.  Speed calculations, fuel requirements, stratosphere pressures, oxygen requirements, combustion rates... all sorts of shit."

Peering over Edward's shoulder, a grin crept across Hohenheim's face.  A thick hand landed atop his son's head and he ruffled his hair, "You'll do alright."

"Hey!" Edward smacked the hand away, "Dammit all, don't do that."  Ed reached back and yanked the tie out of his hair.  "Now I have to fucking redo it." 

Hohenheim chuckled and headed towards the door.  Glancing over his shoulder before stepping out he caught the struggle Ed was faced with attempting to retie his hair.  His eyes tightened in their lenses, "Is your shoulder bothering you again?"

Ed couldn't get the damn thing high enough or operate his fingers.  "It's fine," he snapped.

His old man didn't heed the lie.  Hohenheim returned to his own desk, opened the bottom drawer on the right hand side, and pulled out a small leather case.  Ed cringed hearing him approach.

"Here—"

Ed spun out of his chair before his father arrived, hair gathered in his good hand at the back of his head.  "Screw off," he ordered, "go get your coffee or whatever it was you were going to get." 

Hohenheim grabbed Edward by his shoulders, turned him around, and firmly replanted his stubborn son's backside in the wooden chair.  The leather case landed atop Ed's research with a weighty clunk.

"I don't need you to do this," dropping his hair, Ed tried to remove his old man's hand from his shoulder.

"Hold your hair back." 

The firm, authoritative, and nonnegotiable tone brought the hand back to his hair.  

Edward's pride slipped through his grasp all over again.  Sweeping his hair over his good shoulder, he opened the leather case and selected a screwdriver.  He thrust it into his father's hand and forfeited his coveted independence.  "Fine, do something about it."

He couldn't dredge it up like he used to anymore – all that explosive rage he'd weaponized in London years ago, when his biggest challenge was simply getting up and down the stairs.  The fits Edward threw in response to Hohenheim's attempts to look after him had been whittled down to barks of exasperation or displeasure; like he'd reverted to a child intent on spitting out the pill he'd been told to swallow.  The malice that fuelled his behaviour didn't burn with the same fire lately, but the routine was so well practised that it was habit now.  Both the unwanted father and miserable son dutifully played their roles.

Ed tossed his hair tie carelessly onto the desk, grumping childishly in his seat.  He unbuttoned his vest, then the top few of his shirt, so his father could access his shoulder.

"How long has it been like this?" It wasn't a question Hohenheim asked, so much as it was scolding for letting the right arm become so cumbersome.

"I had other things I needed to—GEH." 

Hohenheim brought the uncomfortable device to shoulder's height and watched his son cringe.  "Don't bite your tongue."

Ed's functional left arm dug into his pocket, balled up his handkerchief, and shoved it in his mouth.

Placing a flat palm between Edward's shoulder blades, Hohenheim hinged his son's upper body forwards and onto the desk.  Holding him there, feeling him tense when he recognized the screwdriver sitting in the head of a bolt, Hohenheim did his best to be merciful and get it over with as quickly as possible.  

The handkerchief tumbled out of Ed's slack jaw after his father confirmed he was done.  The side of his head lay flat on the table, mumbling to himself through the breaths he caught, Hohenheim manually returned Ed's right arm to his side.  At some point this pain would face and Ed could test this arm, but until then he'd focus on not drooling on the table.

Hohenheim had other plans for him.  Putting the screwdriver back where it came from, he collected Ed by his shoulders, sat him up in the chair, and straightened his shirt collar for him.  "Better?"

Ed stared at the envelope wrapping Goddard's coveted work that he hoped pointed him towards a ticket out of this hell.  "No, I feel worse." 

His father's hand landed on his left shoulder.  Edward stiffened.  The hand weighed heavily over Ed's better side, waiting to see if it would be thrown away.  Rigid in the chair, indecisive over what should play out next, Ed reluctantly eased his posture.  He locked his eyes on the paperwork spread out in front of him and offered no contest.

"Did you want me to bring you some tea?" Hohenheim ran a comb through his son's hair.

"No," Ed answered.

Strands of golden blonde hair were gathered and tied with an elastic on the back of his head.  "Coffee?"

"No," Ed repeated.

Adjusting the tied ponytail, Hohenheim gave Edward a light pat on his good shoulder as he departed for the door.  "No cream, three sugar?"

"No."

Hohenheim stepped out of the room, "I'll be right back."

Ed reached back with his good hand and ran the length of his ponytail between his thumb and index finger, the strands falling lightly over his back as they escaped his grasp.

 


 

Two notable things didn't happen the next morning: Maria and Denny didn't show up, and Izumi didn't either.  The former was easier to shrug off, because Al was already focussed on his options for finding his teacher.  The only thing that did happen was a fat bouquet of flowers had been delivered and left on the table in front of the window.  He searched the drawers, but they were all empty.  He'd asked for a pen and paper, and was disappointed when he didn't get it.  Maybe he'd have better luck asking for crayons and a colouring book.  What else did he have available to get down from the third floor?  If he had nothing to write with, how long would his sheets be if he tied them all together? 

Where would he even go once he was out?  Al didn't know the first thing about Central City, let alone where to start looking for his teacher.  Hearing how she'd turned a government building inside out to dig out Wrath last year, Al left his faith in his teacher's hands to retrieve him if she had the chance too.

That meant she hadn't had a chance to find him yet.  Or the option wasn't available to her… why?  Hmm.  

This was so much harder to do on his own.  

It wasn't difficult to imagine his brother marching head-long into any situation believing he could accomplish it all on his own.  Figure it out along the way, or something impulsive like that.  Of course he'd need help in the end, everyone said so.  But good grief the scale of what Al was faced with was daunting.  How could he channel his brother's fearless nature and just jump out the window without considering what came next?

Escape plans were quickly shelved by a clatter of noisy footfalls and overlapping voices in the hall.  Al parked himself in the centre of the bed and waited.  They grew louder, more chaotic, and mysteriously went silent in the moments before his hospital room was thrown open.

In the doorway a moderately built, slightly out of shape, grey haired father-figure of a man stood with a triumphant smile splashed across his face.  Finding his target in the room, which was apparently Al, the man's brows settled firmly over his eyes to look him over.

"You're a bit older than I thought a boy your age would be."

Al responded to the surprise visitor with a wary gaze.

"Al Curtis, was it?" the intruding man drew closer, "bravo, you're looking healthier than I was led to believe, too!"

A field of questions sprouted in Al's mind, but he hesitated on traversing it once he saw how frazzled Roy Mustang looked behind the entourage in the hallway.  Why was he here again?  Izumi was going to kick Al's butt all the way back to Resembool for this.  A security detail was fighting to hold its ground, separating the out-of-uniform officer from the jolly man in the room.

Al's wary gaze received a dash of confusion.

"Ah!  No, don't worry, I'm not a doctor or a mind reader or anything like that," the older man wiggled his fingers playfully at Al, a well-meant attempt at easing the tension, "the government doesn't actually take children and feed them to the chimeras, despite what some publications might want you to believe.  I promise."

Now Al was just thoroughly lost.

"Now young man, that Colonel Mu-"

"Brigadier General, Sir," Mustang barked over a broad shoulder blocking him.

"That Brigadier General Mustard ov-"

"Must-ANG"

The new visitor winked playfully at Al.

He couldn't help but giggle.  

Sharing the laugh, the older gentleman dressed in a fine grey suit and burgundy tie invited himself all the way in, sitting down on the bed next to Al.  "I heard through the grapevine that you're a very lucky boy to crawl out of the rubble with only scrapes and bruises.  But, unlike the young lady you arrived with, I've also heard that your mother hasn't shared your same luck.  I understand she's missing."

Al wasn't keen about holding this conversation with anyone.  But unlike Mustang, who he didn't visually recognize at all, Al couldn't shake the feeling he'd actually seen this older man somewhere before.

"Don't worry yourself, son.  I want you to rest assured that we're giving it our best efforts to find her," the elder man continued on unbothered by Al's silence, "my wife and I want you to know we understand how hard this has been on you and everyone else."

Al honestly had no idea where the man was going with this, but the longer he stared at him the more certain he was familiar.  "I'm sorry, who are you?"

Pride swelled in the visitor's face and he teased Al with a playful snap of his fingers.  "I am a man who knows everything that goes on in this country and I have the resources at my fingertips to get it all done.  A cry for help nearly got lost in all the pain yesterday, but I want you to know it didn't fall on deaf ears.  When my wife heard your harrowing story of survival it was brought to my attention.  We talked about it and we think we are in a position to offer you some support."

Al's brow started to knot while he picked the words apart, trying to find substance around all the preamble and fluff.

"Just like you, my wife is a survivor of horrific circumstances.  She is tenacious; a fighter and battler.  She's always found that the individual kindness of the people in our nation has helped her pull through her darkest hours.  And I want you to know that even in these trying times, we believe that still holds true.  Now, it is our intention to extend that national kindness to you and invite you to stay at our home until your mother is found."

What!?  Al stared blankly at a gentleman who appeared out of nowhere with a generous invite.  Getting tucked away in a random house somewhere in Central would make the job of reconnecting with his teacher and getting down to Dublith just that much harder. 

Mustang interrupted the predicament Al was caught up in, shoving through the human blockade.  "Bodies are still being counted in the streets as we speak.  Does the government not have anything better to do with its time than attempt posturing at the expense of a child's loss?  Out of hospital care has already been arranged for Al."

The jovial disposition of the elder man vanished in a flash.  Like he could switch one mood off and in favour of another, a hardened, non-nonsense persona was stapled to his face.  Al's guest stood up and turned around to face his challenger.  "I will remind you again, Mr. Mustang, that the military no longer carries the type of authority it once did.  Your bark and bite don't garner you the same favours you once enjoyed."

"Yes, I acknowledge that," Mustang stood at the end of his shortening leash, taking a wide stance without his cane to hide any hint of weakness, "which is why no commissioned officer was asked to be involved with Al post-discharge.  We reached out to an experienced mother with ample time and space for him." 

"Be that as it may, that is not how things will proceed."  With unwavering authority, Al's visitor overruled Mustang and shut the discussion down.  "The supervision and care you've provided this young man so far has been appreciated, but the military's resources are needed elsewhere.  Like working in those streets rescuing children and recovering bodies.  As an off-duty officer on injury leave you've overstepped your bounds.  General Hakuro will ensure the officers Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong assigned to Al's care return to their regular duties and no more military resources are wasted on this matter.  Is that clear, Mr. Mustang?"

Mustang bit his tongue, lifted his hand for a formal salute, and was as lucky he could not light anything on fire with his eyes.  "Yes, Prime Minister."

But he set Al's memory ablaze – that's where he'd seen this man's face before!  His picture had been on the front page of every newspaper in the country several months ago.  The tension in Al's face came undone and his brow rode high.  This man was the first democratically elected leader Amestris ever put in power.

"I am a politician.  I am not a soldier.  Therefore, I have the luxury of taking the more human and individual aspects of national issues under my wing to address them."  Coming out of his political persona, the man smoothed out the creases in his suit jacket and re-dressed himself in the whimsical bravado he'd arrived with.  "Al Curtis, my name is Sebastian Mitchell.  When you're discharged from the hospital tomorrow do you have any objections to staying with my wife and I?"

Al was expected to say yes to this whirlwind.  The influence of the man compounded by the tone of Mustang's argument left Al feeling like he wasn't in a position to say no.  Unless he ran away one of these two people would get their way with him, and it was clear which one was winning.  Al was losing control over his situation – where was he supposed to go?  If he still had the memories from the suit of armour, he'd be so much more capable of handling himself in a situation like this.  The most influential man in the country was asking Al to stay with him.  What good would running away do?  How could he get to Dublith or Resembool on his own without any money?  Al just wanted to find his brother, how come it was turning out like this!?

Mitchell grinned at Al with every expectation of success.  Mustang conceded, shifting his gaze to the window.  Alphonse's jaw came loose. 

"If… that's not a bother to anyone," he reluctantly accepted the hospitality, "I suppose I can stay with you."

"It's no bother at all!  Very good then!  Very good." Mitchell leaned down to give Al a firm pat on the back, shouldering no reservations at all, "I'll be back tomorrow to pick you up!  Make sure you're rested and ready to go."

The arrangement was agreed upon.  

That was suddenly that.

At Prime Minister Mitchell's insistence, Brigadier General Mustang accompanied him into the hall, as if he didn't trust him to leave matters alone without supervision, and the door to Al's room swung shut behind the unfriendly duo.

The quiet anxiety left behind in their wake was palpable.

Al tumbled out of his bed and dragged himself over to the window table.  The chair legs scratched the floor as he pulled it out and plunked his backside down.  He stared empty headed at the flowers.  A glass vase full of rich green stems and day old water shimmered with the distorted colours of rooftops and blue skies beyond the window.  Al picked his eyes up and sat tall to peer over the flowers at the freedom of the greener pastures.  

There was a card perched at the crest of the flowers.

On a clear plastic fork, a small floral greeting card was embedded in the gift.  Al hadn't taken the time to look at the flowers, he was too busy pouting over everything else.  Why would a random bouquet have a card?  He plucked it out and flipped it open to find a handwritten sentiment inside.

Dear Al, 
We hope these brighten your day. 
Best wishes on your recovery. 
Gracia & Elysia Hughes

And a phone number.

 


 

Edward watched the pendulum clock tick the seconds of his night away.  It was late, getting later, and the more lollygagging he did the worse that would get.  The keys sitting on Hohenheim's desk were tempting him; he could just call this night a loss and start fresh again tomorrow with more sleep in him.

A noise that shouldn't be there this time of night took Ed's attention over to the office door.

"Just because there's light under the door, it doesn't mean anyone is in there," a male voice argued.

"Why would someone waste electricity like that?  Of course he's in there."

Edward's eyebrows lifted at the second voice – a woman's voice.  Where the hell'd he know that voice from?  Crap, he didn't really talk to the young women in his father's classes, and he wasn't chatty with the handful in clerical either.  Why was it ringing a bell?

"Woman, it's ten thirty at night!  We can come back in the morning.  It's not that important."

"It's important to me.  It'll be quick."

"Just leave people in peace this time of night, my God!"

"You can bugger off to bed then and miss out."

"I will do just that.  Good night, little girl."  

The footsteps of the man walking away could be heard through the door.

"Good night, you useless spoil-sport of a man."

What the heck was going on in the hallway!?  Ed stared at the door.  This was a hundred year old building, did these two not know that the entire floor could hear them bicker?  The footsteps of the exiting male voice became inaudible as they moved down the hall.  There was no one else other than custodial staff in at this time of night, so Edward slinked over to the door and waited for the owner of the female voice to knock on the door.  

It never came.

The persistent ticking of the wall clock moving time along echoed in the room.

Curiosity and impatience got the better of Edward and he popped the door open to take a peek.

The woman practically tumbled through the door.  "Oh my God!"  

"Jesus Christ!"  Edward staggered backwards as she screamed.

"You scared the daylights out of me!" the woman's cry filled the entire floor.

Ed threw the door wide open, "What do you think—" his eyes rounded, "you."

The woman swept her bouncing brown curls from her face, "You!"

Ed wrinkled his nose, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Mathilde, the chatty woman from the train station days earlier, stepped through the doorway and put herself nose to nose with Ed.  "What are you doing here?"

"I work here!" Ed leaned back.

Mathilde's eyes narrowed, "You said your father works here."

"He does," Ed announced, "this is his office."

She took another firm step towards him, "But, this is Professor Elric's office."

Ed backed up, not a fan of his personal space being encroached on.  "Yeah, he's my father."

"Is he!?"  Mathilde lit up brighter than the lamps in the room.  Though she'd been too nervous to knock on the door, she had no problem trampling all over Ed and she barged into the room, "It's so pretty, just like I thought it would be.  Oh!  Someday my husband will work out of an office like this, I'm sure of it."

Edward wheeled around and tried to stop her invasion.  "Hang on, who invited you in?  What do you think you're doing?"

"If memory serves me right, you didn't come off as someone polite enough to invite a lady in," she folded her arms, "what a shame, it seems Professor Elric isn't here to tour me."

"What were you expecting for ten thirty at night?" Ed scowled at her.

Mathilde dressed herself up in a delightful grin and completely ignored the question, "Will he be in tomorrow?"

"I'm not his secretary," Edward growled and grabbed her by the upper arm, "you can leave, I'm busy."

"That's all the courtesy you've got in you?" she yanked her arm out of his grasp, "this is no way to treat a lady."

"Get out," Edward barked, in no mood to play her game.

"Would a please or a thank you hurt you?" displeasure finally overtook the whimsy in Mathilde's demeanour, "your father came off as quite the gentleman when I saw him last, how did he manage to raise someone like you?"

Before Edward could erupt, a scalding voice beat him to it.

"Mathilde!"

Both Edward and Mathilde turned to the man's call at the door.  

The frame of the door presented a fine dressed man in brown slacks, white shirt and tie, and perfectly trimmed overcoat.  His dark hair was neatly slicked back, his square jaw was locked in anger, though his burly brows didn't hide the embarrassment in his eyes.  

"What on God's green earth are you doing!?  The whole building can hear you!"

Oh shit.  Right, Ed knew that.

"You didn't leave?" she rolled her eyes.

"I heard you scream and came back upstairs, and had to listen to you act like some spoiled little girl my entire way here.  Where is your shame?" the man stood firmly in the hall chastizing her, "were you going to behave like this in front of Professor Elric?"

The exuberant Mathilde brushed off his concerns with the wave of her hand, "Of course not.  Don't be silly," without giving the new company a chance to respond, she switched topics.  "This is Edward Elric, by the way."

Ed's eyes widened at his unexpected introduction.

Annoyance vanished from the face in the hall.  "Oh, you're Edward Elric?  I've heard of you."  Finally stepping into the room, he extended a hand for Ed to shake, "I heard you made a few senior graduates look like a bunch of fools last year without a day of classroom education."

"Not the first time I've done that," Edward chuckled, unable to find a polite way to turn down a handshake he was unable to give.  "It was their own fault.  They heard I'd tried it in London and dared me to take the post-grad exam with them.  Not my fault I got the highest mark."

"Well good for you, because there were some far too inflated egos there," he gave a hesitant laugh, withdrawing his hand a little puzzled.

Ed looked from the man he was addressing to the woman who apparently accompanied him, "Your name was Mathilde, right?"

"Yes," she offered a sassy grin, "but you can call me Tilly."

Edward's eyes narrowed.

"My apologies for the rude introduction, Mr. Elric," the man offered a bow of his head, "this is my insufferable wife, Tilly Hummel.  I'm—"

"Oberth!" Edward's wide-eyed reaction finished the sentence with victorious delight.

 


 

To Be Continued…

 


Notes:

Revised: 2023-09-14

Chapter 4: In Honour of a Memory

Summary:

Ed gets better acquainted with Hermann Oberth and makes a rare appearance with his father at the Thule Hall. Al musters up the courage to get in touch with Gracia Hughes.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

I never expected to find him there, not after what I'd thought had happened.  I came to the hospital as a government representative and what I saw was indescribable: the carnage on display after the German attack. Luck or fate or destiny had me pass through the ward where Edward lay.  I don't know what about him caught my attention, but he did.  I stood at the foot of the bed and stared at him struggling to believe it; his bangs were stuck to his damp forehead, his breathing wasn't right, and he was a bloodied, bandaged mess.  I finally sat down on a stool I put near the head of the bed.  Nurses changed his bandages, but were too overwhelmed to put time towards washing all the dried blood away.  I can't remember how long I sat like that, doing nothing.  I put my hand on his cheek from time to time, constantly alarmed at the fever he was running.  The staff were too busy to address it.  There were people with better odds than him that they would focus on.  One of the younger nurses was kind enough to leave me a washbasin and hand cloth and I cleaned him up.  I'd refold a cool cloth over his forehead from time to time and wondered if or when he'd wake up again. 

 


 

Midday sun played in the tips of Alphonse's hair, painting the strands gold.  Light flooded in from the window he sat beneath, washing the beige carpet in the kind of bright, warm light any cat would have basked in.  The sunlight had all the space in the world to play inside a room with so little else in it.

An oversized bed with grey-blue covers was the most notable item in the guest room the prime minister had set up for Al.  Matching curtains framed the window, an oak dresser stood adjacent to an open closet, the night stand was at the bedside, a reading lamp had been placed on it, and all the things of interest ended there.  There was more wood needed to cover the depth and breadth of the room than materials used anywhere else.  Al's donated hoodie was the only disturbance in the sterile room, and he had carelessly tossed it like a rebel on the bed rather than hang it all alone in the yawning closet.

Everything felt so empty.  

Was this how he used to feel every day when he was actually hollow?  Al pressed his back against the wall a little harder, internalizing the sensation.

Three days had been spent in the hospital before these new accommodations became his.  Al had wanted to say goodbye to Clause, but by the time officials came to collect him, her father had already taken her away.

Izumi never came for him.  

Al was alone, but at least his current caretakers had no problem sharing what they knew.  The restaurant Izumi was waiting at hadn't come under direct attack.  But, as a 'mother', the authorities were concerned she'd run into the madness and become lost under the rubble, which explained to them why she hadn't come to claim him.  Al tried not to get caught up in their outlook.  Another answer was out there, he was sure of that, yet sometimes it was hard to tune everyone else out.  

And now there was this.

Al pulled out the floral card from the pocket of a pair of hand-me-down new jeans he'd been given.  His stubby thumb pried it open again.  

Gracia and Elysia Hughes.

The presence of the card in his hand made Al anxious.  Winry spoke highly of Gracia Hughes and even called her occasionally, every time she tried making a pie that didn't quite turn out.  She told a story about Elysia being born on Ed's twelfth birthday, attending the little girl's fourth, and later staying with the family for a short time after Mr. Hughes' passing.   

Al was torn; he wanted to talk to her, but what would his family think about that?  It wasn't like he was going to walk up to the door and go 'Surprise!  I'm Alphonse Elric, betcha've never seen me like this before!'.  No, he was plain old Al Curtis and didn't really know her.  But someone, and Al could take a guess as to who, had made her aware of him…

"Al?"

He bounced like a spooked kitten and nearly landed in the window.

"What are you doing sitting on the floor?" Prime Minister Mitchell let himself into the room, "I'll get the staff to bring you a table and chair.  Did you want to have lunch?  My kitchen crew put together some sandwiches."

"Sure."  Al hid Gracia's message in the palm of his hand and got to his feet.

Empty halls with bright white drapes anchored to south facing windows echoed loudly with footsteps.  Al let his stride crash off the walls, giving the sterile building some sense of life.  Plain house staff and drab government employees rushing here and there offered whispers of colour and interest to the otherwise desolate interior.  

"You asked earlier if there was a telephone you could use."  Mitchell escorted Al down a winding staircase on route to the first floor kitchen, "there's still no answer at the contact number you gave us for Dublith, I don't want you to get down on yourself if your luck is no better."

Al scuffed the tread of his shoe off the polished floor and dipped his hands into his pockets.  "It's not that.  A nice lady sent some really nice flowers to cheer me up while I was in the hospital.  She gave me her phone number so I could reach out and let her know when I was feeling better."  His heart thundered in his ears; the prospect of contacting Gracia Hughes was equally as nerve wracking as it was exciting, "I thought I could call her and let her know how I'm doing."

"Absolutely!  If that's something you're comfortable doing, by all means I think that's an excellent idea."  Offering nothing but encouragement, Mitchell threw his hand open and gestured down the hall, "There's a sitting room just around the corner with a telephone in it you can use.  You make yourself at home in there and see about getting connected.  I'll pick up our sandwiches and join you there for lunch, how's that sound?"

Just like that?  Al didn't have a chance to fluster in surprise before they had turned left, ventured down a short hall, and burst through a pair of glass doors.  Mitchell deposited Al in a small room with four decorative, cushioned chairs that circled a stout round table, and left to fetch their food.

Al looked around.  There it was, a telephone he could use.  Just sitting harmlessly on a side table between the curling arms of two chairs dressed in gaudy floral fabric.  The black handset looked so weighty.  Al swung a foot forwards and sauntered over to it.  The chime the cradle made when he picked the receiver up clanged off the walls.  The dial tone screamed.  Al's nerves fell out of the whirlwind he was caught up in and rained down around him while he spun the dial from memory. 

The phone rang.  And rang.  And continued to ring.  Disappointment vanquished the stew of emotions plaguing Al by the fifteenth ring.  The receiver started drifting away from his ear.

"Hi!"

Al glued the earpiece to the side of his head, "Hello!?"

"Hi!" a squeaky little voice greeted him again.

"Hi, uh…" Al didn't know why it never dawned on him that there was a fifty-fifty chance he'd be talking to a little girl, "are you Elysia?"

"Yep!  Who are you?"

"My name is Al."

"Okay!  Hi Al."

"Hi Elysia," the somewhat awkward conversation made Al want to laugh, "is your mom home?" 

"Yep!  Mommy's in the yard."

Al coaxed the conversation along, "Can I talk to your mommy?"

"Yep!  Okay."

Al's ear was treated to the messy sound of the receiver falling off whatever surface Elysia put it on and landing on the floor.  The jarring noise dissipated, replaced with the faint cries of 'Mommy' fading from earshot.  Nervous energy in Al's heart filled in for the silence.  Licking his lips nervously, Al sucked in his next breath through his teeth and tried to distract himself by imagining what the family on the other end of the phone might look like…

"Hello?"

"Hi!" Al's voice pitched so high it cracked.

"Al?"

His name was a single syllable that was spoken with no anticipation or excitement, just calm warmth and comfort.

"Yeah, Al.… Curtis, Ma'am.  I, uhm, got the card you left me."

"Oh, this is wonderful.  Thank you so much for calling me.  How are you feeling?"

Kind words were spoken with no hesitation, no pause, no hint of doubt, and no concern to be found within the voice, and something about all that dissolved the nervous weight bearing down on Al's shoulders.  "I'm okay."

 


 

"Sorry, I'm not interested in it."

Edward's expression collapsed, "You're serious?"

Hermann Oberth picked up the bottle of Rheingau Riesling from the table and topped up Edward's glass once again.  "Absolutely serious."

Utter confusion had Ed at a complete loss.  "Why not?" he took a sip from his glass, "I thought the Goddard report was something you were looking for."

Taking the stem of his wine glass in his fingers, Oberth nestled into the sofa cushions of the lounge.  "If I even acknowledge I was in the presence of that envelope, all my credibility is shot out the window."  The pale orange lights flickered around them as someone's cigar smoke drifted by.  "Every scientist in Europe and abroad would accuse me of stealing information – information I didn't even realize was in this country until twenty minutes ago."

Ed scratched his head feverishly, "Where'd I get the idea you wanted it?"

"Oh, I do want it!  This is simply bad timing," Oberth could only laugh at the unfortunate circumstances, "when my own thesis is ready, then I'll request a copy from Goddard himself.  If I suddenly have your copy the Americans will jump on the Anti-German bandwagon and they won't hesitate to label me a fraud."  He took a sharp sip of the wine and grinned with a content thought, "Thanks for making me feel proud that I had a chance to 'cheat' and turned it down.  I'll come out of this a better man when all is said and done."

Edward slumped back on the lounge sofa and tossed his gaze to the ceiling, "Guess it goes back in the desk."

"No one knows you have that thing, right?" Oberth asked.

Ed swirled the wine around in his glass, "Just my dad." 

"Great," Oberth sat forwards and pointed a sharp finger at the envelope between them, "hide it, bury it, lose it in your drawers – don't burn it, it's good stuff, but for heaven's sake make it disappear.  If you want to have anything to do with me, I want nothing to do with that." 

"Yeah, gotcha," Ed conceded with a sideways grin, "I'll do something with it."

"Good man."  Oberth placed the wine glass down on the table, crossed one leg over the other, and settled back in the cushions again, "Now that's settled, you have to tell me: what the hell did you do to yourself?"

Edward raised an eyebrow, "Huh?"

"Oh come on, you haven't had that much to drink," Oberth nearly laughed, "you said you weren't a soldier, what the hell did you do to lose your arm and leg?"

"Oh that," Ed raised his mechanical arm and answered slyly, "I tried to resurrect my mom with alchemy, the procedure backfired, and I lost my arm and leg."

A long, silent pause bubbled up between the two men in a buzzing late-night lounge.

"Mister Elric," Oberth picked up a coaster and whipped it at Ed, "if I had a gun I'd shoot you between the eyes for that," he laughed.

Blocking it with the metal arm, Ed chuckled at the honesty nobody believed and gave Oberth the lie everyone accepted.  "I lost them back when I lived in London, almost five years ago at this point.  There was an air raid and I didn't come out unscathed." 

"Ah, that explains why your German is off sometimes – you're English."  Oberth picked up his wine glass and took another sip.  "So, you and your dad concocted that crazy device?"

Edward nodded, took the final swallow of his wine, and put the glass down.  "Yeah, we had a medical graduate out here give us some help initially with the design for the arm before he passed.  The bastard laughed at us when I said I was going to lift it on my own, something about it would be too difficult to get the arm to read the contractions of the flexors and extenders properly.  Guess I'm the one laughing now."  The crude prosthetic, a poor-man's AutoMail, was a technological marvel by everyone's standards except Ed's own.

Submerged in the hum of indistinct chatter filling the post-midnight lounge, Oberth bobbed his head and continued swirling his glass of white wine while he stirred his thoughts.  Discarding his manners, Oberth gulped down everything he had left and plunked his glass down next to Ed's.  "That's just incredible," he grabbed the bottle and re-filled their glasses, "I'm building a list of associates in my head who'd want a chance at dissecting you, but I want the first go."

Ed swallowed uncomfortably, far more concerned with the state of his wine glass than the promise of dissection which he ignored.  "You're going to make me sick with that."

"Nonsense.  From what you've said you don't drink often enough for your body to know what to do with alcohol.  Besides," Oberth picked up his glass and held it high in the air, "you'll sleep like a rock when you get to bed."

Despite not being convinced of that, Edward collected his glass anyway.  "I'll wake up and be sick after."

Oberth smirked as he swirled his drink, "Did you have any milk earlier today?"

Edward dug his chin into his chest.  "No."

"Good, you won't get sick," Oberth offered a wink and a toast to Ed's continued participation.

 


 

"Is this it?" Mitchell peered out the rear window of their vehicle to get an eye-full of where they'd arrived.  "The address seems right.  Does it match the description?"

Al squinted, "I think so."  

What was he doing here!?  Al felt like a basket case.

This was an unfamiliar two-story house nestled in an urban district of Central City that Al had a description of, but had never been to before.  Not like this, anyways.  What stories could these walls tell him of memories he'd been robbed of.  He momentarily lost himself in the prospects.

Was that why he'd said yes when Mrs. Hughes invited him for tea?  What was he thinking!? 

Al jumped when the driver popped open his door.  

Michell gave Al a reassuring pat on the shoulder as they stepped out into the sun, "Chin up – no need to be so shy."

Right, what was he so nervous about?  Al straightened himself up.  He was Al Curtis and he was just coming by to say hello and put a face to the woman who'd sent pretty flowers to his room.  The same woman Winry spoke so highly about, but nobody needed to know that.  The same woman who could tell him more about who he'd once been, but that was knowledge Al wasn't supposed to pursue.  

Right now Al just had to focus on playing this lie to its fullest before he had to move on with his journey.  That was it.

Squealing hinges directed visitor attention to the house's front fence.  The crashing sound of a wooden gate thrown open widened eyes before the youthful squeal of Elysia Hughes struck them with authority.

"You came!" frizzy blonde pigtails bounced at the side of a pudgy round face grinning ear to ear.

"Elysia!" Gracia's call snapped up everyone's attention and soured her daughter's face, "I told you not to leave the yard without asking me!"

The troublesome little imp locked her feet at the very precipice of the gate line and commanded Al's attention with a boisterous, "HI!"

It was possible the entire block had heard her.  Al chuckled at the energy and knelt down in front of her at the property's edge.  Catching his lower lip in his teeth, Al put air into his lungs and gave his voice some power, "Hi Elysia, my name is Al.  And you know what, I'm no expert, but I think your mom wants you to go a little more inside the yard than this."

In a snap Elysia had hold of Al's right hand and she complied with everyone's wishes, dragging her guest along behind her.  "You need to come into the yard too!"

The width of her triumphant grin was awe inspiring and Al couldn't hold his giggles, letting her drag him along the brick path into the yard without protest.  Prime Minister Mitchell, whose status meant nothing to a child, kept his amusement under wraps and took up the rear of the procession marching to Gracia Hughes at her front door.

If he wasn't meant to learn about himself on this visit, at the very least Al could finally put faces to two storied people lost in his history.  Al looked ahead to Gracia on her porch as they arrived, standing with her hands clasped neatly at her stomach, dressed modestly in a long earth-green skirt and summer yellow blouse.  Mother and daughter shared the same hair colour and complexion, but while Elysia's was bountiful and danced around her ears, Gracia's was cut no longer than her chin and settled lightly on her head.  Elysia's green eyes radiated untapped energy ready to be released at a moments notice, the same green hue in Gracia's shone the confidence and wisdom to take her daughter on.  Gracia presented herself with all the maturity, poise, and composure of a confident mother and… she reminded Al of his.

Al dropped his gaze to the cracks in the brick path, unprepared to miss his mom in the middle of this.

Waiting until the procession had nearly reached her, Gracia came to life.  "Al!  You're looking so well.  From what I'd heard I was afraid you were a bit more bangled up than this."  Her sandals clapped off the walkway when she swooped down from her perch, liberating Al from her daughter and wrapping him in a warm, welcoming hug.  "Thank you so much for coming."

Caught off guard by the forward greeting, Al froze, awkwardly hugging her back.  The tension and nerves that had been threatening to strangle him loosened when Gracia leaned back and moved her hands to his cheeks to hold his face.

"Let me have a look at you."

Like the countless times his mother had hunched over him to wipe his mouth, clean his nose, or tidy his hair, Al stood compliant with Gracia's request.  He let the wonder in this woman's eyes walk all over the mountain of lies he dutifully toted around.

"Prime Minister Mitchell, thank you for taking the time to come all the way out here," Gracia patted Al's cheek and straightened up, "you really didn't have to take the time out of your schedule for this."

"Nonsense, I couldn't let this young man run off into the city unsupervised again, could I?" he laughed off Gracia's concerns and extended a right hand that she shook.  "I don't want to be too aloof and out of reach as the nation's first elected leader.  The People's Man was what they lauded me as in the campaign.  Family first and all that… but I'm being perfectly honest, it's nice to just do something simple that lets me step away from all that."

"Public life can be quite exhausting, from what I've heard."  Gracia settled a hand lightly on Al's shoulder. 

Mitchell offered a knowing grin, "Far more than anyone will ever admit to." 

"Mommy, mommy, mommy!" Elysia tugged on her mother's skirt and poked her nose into the adults' business, "can we have the tea now?  Can I serve tea now?"

Gracia sighed through her smile, "Elysia's been waiting, somewhat patiently, to serve tea.  Please come inside and sit down."

A hearty laugh reverberated inside Mitchell as the procession moved itself indoors, "That's a bundle of energy you have on your hands there, Mrs. Hughes."

"Every morning she wakes up with her father's spirit." Gracia put a hand to the side of her head, "at least she had a nap earlier."

Mitchell ushered Al in ahead of himself, "She's beautiful, Mrs. Hughes." 

"Thank you."

Al crossed the threshold of the house, breathing in the lingering taste of floral incense that had been extinguished.  Elysia popped out of her shoes like springs in her heels had freed them and ran into the daylit kitchen glowing beyond the core of the house.  A reflection of her father's spirit, huh?  Al stepped out of his shoes and placed them neatly on the entry mat, then collected Elysia's and put them next to his.  It was a mystery to him if he reflected his father in any way.

"Al," Gracia interrupted his thoughts, "this is the main family room, you can have a seat anywhere you wish.  The kitchen is around the corner, plus the back door into the yard if you want some fresh air.  The stairs on your left go to the second floor rooms.  We have a little washroom on the main floor, but the nice one is upstairs if you need to use it.  Take your time, have a look around, and make yourself at home."

"Come along," Mitchell thumped his open palm down on Al's back to motivate him forwards, "let's see if the young lady in the kitchen needs a hand."

Venturing deeper into a building with so many stories it could tell, Al looked back for Gracia and caught her looking out the front door.  Unease, concern, and nervousness seeped into her expression, rippling the softness of her features and adding discomfort to her eyes.

Al hardly knew her, but knew he didn't like that burdened look on her.  "Mrs. Hughes?"

The insecurities vanished with the shake of her head, and a smile freely splashed across Gracia's face.  Excusing the moment as she stepped back inside, she pushed the door quietly shut behind them and locked it.

 


 

A carefully arranged display of hefty candles illuminated an underground gathering hall.  Men who'd become used to the sort of smell that trapped water brought to a sealed room wandered in the echoes.  Traces of mould filled the cracks of imperfect stone walls that reached up from the earth, merging at the apex to form a dark dome overhead.  At the heart of a building once home to a different religion, an oversized 'transmutation circle' was etched into the ice cold stone floor as the structure's centre piece.  

Edward stood, his toes on its permanently carved ridges, acutely aware of the embarrassing circle's complete and total dysfunction.  The first of three fundamental rules in alchemy was 'understanding', but in this world understanding came last, if it even happened at all.  The piss-poor excuse of a transmutation circle proudly carved into the earth was a testament to that.  Ed folded his arms beneath the black robe someone had draped over his shoulders and let his thoughts toil in the art of actual architecture overhead, rather than roll his eyes at the sham at his feet.  

He wished he could leave.

"Edward."

The call of his name turned his head, "Professor Haushofer."

The director of the Munich Institute of Geopolitics, Karl Haushofer, put a hand on Edward's shoulder, "Your father told me to expect to see you tonight, I'm glad you made it."

"I was told this was something I had to attend," Ed said coldly. 

Emotion wasn't something Edward could bring with him down into the confines of this underground sect.  This ghastly place and the men who frequented it were special.  

This Thule Society.

The world beyond the Gate had a knack of reframing how Ed viewed and appreciated the home he longed for.  There, despite the wars, there was still an essence of compassion amongst mankind on a whole.  Sure, there were more than enough bad apples, and society was not above horrific injustices, but Amestris also had one person who preyed on the weaknesses and faults of mankind, manipulating them into conflict for personal gain.  

There was no single manipulative authority acting in the shadows of this world.  War happened because the collective authorities of nations wanted bragging rights and glory, and people en masse bought into the mindset and flocked to the killing.  Ed could sit in a smoky lounge and overhear men gloat about how many French soldiers they'd once killed, like it was a contest.  Ed could stand in this cold room with a handful of Germany's brightest professors, philosophers, and politicians – men of incredible insight and intelligence – and listen to them casually discuss how many Jewish men and women needed to be killed off to improve their way of life. 

Sure the All-is-One wasn't something anyone here learned, the value of life didn't have that fundamental importance in anyone's eye… but, still.  How could these people put so little value into human life? 

The fallout since the end of the war had done nothing but worsen the mindset.  Ed had a front row seat to the impending collapse of the German way of life by the merciless hands of the victorious Allies.  Germany became the plaything of global wrath.  After experiencing life on the other side of the coin, Ed couldn't see anything about who the victors were that justified the extent of the punishment and suffering they'd inflicted on the German people.  Born from the pain, poverty, and loss inflicted on them, Ed and his father watched a new breed of man rise from the ashes – a wounded, angry, vicious kind that sought redemption.  The citizens turned their mounting misery and aggression against the government and the world, and targeted groups of people to take their compounding frustrations out on.  

The depression of mankind beyond the Gate provided Ed with an answer he hadn't expected to find.  There was a reason alchemy didn't work in this world.  Creating the Philosopher's Stone in a miserable place of death like this would be too easy.  Civilizations would destroy each other in a heartbeat.  Alchemy didn't work here because, if it did, there'd be no one left to use it.

Professor Haushofer, who carried himself with a warm fatherly aura that did not reflect the callus nature of his affiliations, smiled at Edward, "Your father, Albrecht, Dietrich, and myself are over there, and you're welcome to join us."

Knowing better than to turn down an invention offered in this room, Edward nodded and dutifully followed.

"Edward!" Albrecht's voice rang out excitedly.

Ed managed to not roll his eyes, "Hey Hoffie."

"Hoffie?" a rotund man standing next to Hohenheim laughed and gave Albrecht a firm slap on the back, "I might use that someday."

As the young Haushofer pleaded for that to never happen, the balding, middle-aged man at Hohenheim's side let his belly jiggle with another heartily laugh at Albrecht's expense, then promptly terminated the jolly mood.  Like a switch had been flipped, he firmed up his aura and addressed a new target, "I don't think we've been formally introduced."

Edward dearly hoped no one could see the displeasure manifesting in his eyes, "No, we haven't."  Though he'd been unwilling to shake Oberth's hand when they first met, he knew his father had made Dietrich Eckart aware of his right arm.  Ed offered his left hand for a handshake.

"Young man, every time I see you pass by, I think you look more like your father."  The outspoken Eckart grabbed Edward by his chin instead of his hand and egged him on with a playful voice, "Can't you smile, boy?"

"Don't mind him," Hohenheim chuckled, offering his son's scowl a saving grace, "he's hung over."

"Hey!" Edward snapped, still wickedly embarrassed he'd been found passed out at the front door that morning, his keys in the doorknob.

"Hohenheim, you mean to tell me your son actually left your house in his spare time and had a little fun?" Eckart gave Ed's cheek a playful slap, "I hope you enjoyed yourself, boy.  Next time someone manages to extract you from the house, drink something for me – I can't drink enough to regret it anymore."

Edward scowled at the circle of men having a laugh at his expense.

Wielding the aura of conversation like an authoritarian commander, the topic of discussion changed in the blink of an eye.  The chill of Eckart's gaze was attempted to make the stone walls quiver.  "People are getting impatient," he growled, "where is that boy?"

"He said he was doing something special for the announcements tonight," Albrecht kept his tone light in spite of the mood, recalling a few of the details he had been given.

"I know what Rudolf is up to, Adolf told me," Eckart nipped at Albrecht's attempt to address his rhetorical question.  Casting his narrow gaze out into the congregation socializing by candlelight, he studied the mulling crowd, "I just wish he wouldn't keep us waiting.  He might not get to host another night if he makes the wrong people upset."

Professor Haushofer turned a hesitant eye over to his usual drinking partner.

Hohenheim could only offer a light shrug.  "Rudolf's your student," he said.

Haushofer rolled his eyes, "I suppose I'll have to fail him next time for making me look bad."

The reply left Hohenheim grinning, but the jovial expression fell off his face when he met the eyes of his son wearing an unmistakable 'are we done yet?' look.

An echo of a female cry filtered into everyone's ears and sank the room into a perplexed hush.  A wooden door to an adjacent passageway swung open and the charismatic voice of Rudolf Hess echoed off the stone walls. 

"Gentlemen!  My apologies for my tardiness, I was on a journey." 

The room dimmed as a few candles were inadvertently blown out on his arrival.  Like all the others around him, Edward curiously, nervously trained his eyes on Hess' entrance, squinting to see what he could make out of the man standing behind the shield of the doorway's darkness.  The light scent of candle smoke in the air found his nostrils while the faint cries that had captured everyone's attention moments before had gone silent.  Edward took a cautious step forward, both wanting and not wanting a clearer view of what was going on.  His approach was stopped by a firm hand grabbing his constructed right shoulder.  Ed turned and stared into the cruel, unforgiving eyes of Dietrich Eckart. 

"Make sure you pay attention, boy," Eckart whispered, his lips curling with wicked delight, "this is the main event." 

 


 

"And this is what my mommy bought me for my birthday!" 

The joyous declaration vaulted through the front window of the house when Elysia presented her fifth birthday present: a little pink bicycle, its tinsel talons fluttering in the breeze for her grand reveal.

"Mommy says that I can take the training wheels off when my feet touch the ground."  Climbing onto the seat, Elysia pointed her feet as hard as she could, her tiptoes skimming the short cut grass.  

The comical effort gave Al the giggles.  Crossing his legs in the grass, Al leaned back on his elbows, "Don't worry, you have lots of time to grow up.  You'll get there!"

Elysia wiggled herself off the bicycle and toddled over to Al, plunking herself down in his lap.

Al flicked one of her pigtails, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Nothing," Elysia gave a vigorous shake to her head, "nothing!"

The pair started to laugh.

Gracia released the sheer white curtain she was holding aside, leaving the children to their own devices once more that afternoon.  Her remaining houseguest, Sebastian Mitchell, remained inside sipping her daughter's strawberry tea.  Gracia resumed her role as hostess. 

"Would you care for some more, Mr. Mitchell?"

"Certainly," Mitchell slid his cup and saucer into the middle of the table and let Gracia handle the pot, "you know, this seems to be exactly what Al needed.  I couldn't tell if the boy was glum or under the weather or simply a reserved young man by nature."

"Children cope with trauma in different ways than you or I do," Gracia heated the cooling tea cup, "and he still has some dark scabs on his face…"

"Yes, he does.  And I have to admit I had some apprehensions about coming out today, but the little lady seems to have cheered him right up."  Mitchell paused to take in the aroma of the cup under his nose.  "This was the right decision.  I hope he warms up to my daughters this amicably when he meets them."

Taking her saucer in one hand, and cup in the other, Gracia perched them on one of her knees, "I understand that you and your wife have chosen to adopt."

"Indeed we have.  There's a children's crisis going on in this country with all the war and corruption that's plagued us.  Too many little ones have lost parents."

Gracia ran the tip of her thumb along the outer rim of her teacup.  "I agree."

Filling his belly with a swallow of air, then sinking into the seat cushions with his sigh, Mitchell continued, "I wish I could admit that had been our intention from the start, but shortly after we were married my wife's illness cripled her ability to have children.  Adoption gave us new opportunities though, and our baby girl is everything I could have hoped for.  And, if the stars stay in alignment for us, she'll have a big sister soon to help her learn to crawl."

"Your wife's return to the hospital must make the responsibilities of fatherhood that much more daunting to manage," Gracia swept her fingernails quietly over the pattern etched on the teacup, "the newspapers were reporting her health took an unpleasant turn again.  I hope everything's been going well for her lately."

"In spite of her failing health, my wife is still quite spry!" Mitchell laughed away the concerns and sipped his afternoon tea, "she insists I focus on work while she handles the adoption process for our second.  I wish she wouldn't worry so much about me and my job."

"I'm certain she means well," Gracia placed her untouched tea back down on the table.  Getting up, she drifted back over to the window to peer out into the yard again, "I can understand needing to keep occupied when things in your life don't go how you imagined them to."

Mitchell's expression fell and he gave the back of his neck a scratch, "She's been finding ways to cope with this ugly disease for some time.  There's medicine that helps, and I do trust her judgement of her health, but some days I'm quite worried for her."  Rising from his seat, Mitchell moved through the room and joined Gracia at the window.  "It ate the flesh off her left forearm before I met her and she needed it amputated above the elbow.  Some days the doctors run the idea of amputating her leg in order to relieve the pain down there, but she wants nothing to do with that," he could only shake his head, "she craves her independence and mobility.  She's convinced she can recover from it.  I think so too, she's a strong woman… we just need to figure out what the hell it is that's killing her."

Gracia left the curtain draped over her shoulder, lost in the scene of two children playing with the chalk on the walkway.  "I do hope everything works out for you two."

"Thank you…" his voice trailing off, Mitchell followed Gracia's eyeline to a distraction forming outside.  "Well, I'll be damned."

"We should go take a look," Gracia dipped away from the window.

"Agreed," Mitchell followed her.

Emerging in the afternoon sun, Gracia guided Prime Minister Mitchell out of her house and onto the brick path in her yard.  Curious green eyes drawn to the motions of a confident hand finishing off an emblem etched in chalk on the centre of the path.

"There, that's good," Al sat back on his knees.

Elysia's eyes widened, her hands excitedly strangling a bundle of flowers, "What is it?!"

"It's called a Transmutation Circle," confidence oozed from Al's grin, "it's a charm that makes wishes come true." 

"Ooo."

"Put your flowers in the middle of it."

Elysia flashed her hands and scattered the bouquet over the circle.

"Well, well, well," Mitchell trumpetted, settling his hands on his belt, "I didn't know you studied alchemy."

Al rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "I've read some books about it.  I'd like to learn more some day, though."

Squatting down to join the children, Mitchell took hold of Al's shoulder with authority, "When we get back to the house, I'll take you to the family library.  My wife and I have combined our resources and we boast quite the collection of alchemy texts.  I suspect it's enough to make even the best scholars weep.  They're yours to look through at your leisure."

"Really!?"  Al's jaw dropped to the delight of everyone on the pathway treated to his astonished reaction.  "Thank you so much!  I didn't know you were an alchemist."

"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to take a title like 'alchemist', but when I was younger I did dabble from time to time.  I grew up and learned I was better at politics than I could ever get at alchemy.  But, I'm not inept."  Clicking his tongue in thought, Mitchell snapped his shirt sleeves straight and undid the cuff buttons.  Rolling them up to his elbows, he settled on his knees and dipped his head playfully for Elysia, "Would you be so kind as to let this old man have a go at making something out of these flowers for you, little miss?"

Elysia threw her hands skyward, "Can you make me a princess?!"

Mitchell choked on his laugh, "Will a crown suffice?"

"Yes!" it was good enough for her.

 


 

"Here, bran muffins are good for you."

Edward picked his head up from his research, "Thanks."

Tilly squatted in front of the table he sat at.  She folded her arms at the edge and rested her chin there, "Did you have any dinner at all yesterday?"

Popping the top off the muffin, Edward bit into the bottom, "No, I didn't eat last night.  I wasn't feeling good."

"And you haven't had a wink of sleep either, I take it.  You look like a wreck!"  Tilly startled Ed by shooting up tall, "Hermann!  You drink like a sailor, I warned you that you would make him sick."

Oberth's eye found his wife, but before he could argue any points, Edward spoke up.

"I wasn't sick.  Hermann had nothing to do with last night," he frowned uncomfortably and didn't put up any further argument when Tilly huffed his statement away. 

He didn't want a fight or an argument or anything – the only thing Ed wanted to do today was focus on the formulas laid out on the table.  At first the plan had been to get Oberth to help him understand Goddard's theories better, but things weren't working out that way.  In spite of everything, Ed paused to wish he could simply clap his hands and toy with the little bits he did understand.  When was the last time he screwed around with any science for the hell of it? 

The alchemist ever present in his mind modified the proposed methods of aircraft propulsion.  He could create and manipulate the transmutation of air around himself and, complimenting that, he now understood how he could disrupt the airflow of the rest of the room with so much force that it would lift the ceiling off an enclosed building.  The way in which alchemy could be used to make the task of launching a rocket into space was simple and as clear as day to him.  A theory formed concisely in his head and it clearly spelled out how he could propel a man to the moon, if he could only work a transmutation into the equation.  

But alchemy was not part of the equation.  And because it wasn't, Edward had to admit its absence made the evolution of chemistry and physics much more significant and impressive here.  The logic behind the scientific processes he was mentally manipulating with alchemy hadn't evolved back home.  Striving for the stars wasn't on anyone's mind in Amestris.  A laugh escaped him – Ed couldn't help but imagine what the look on Al's face would be if he put his hands together and sent a simple home-made canister rocket to the moon for fun.

"What's so funny?" Tilly asked.

"Nothing," Ed shook his head – she wouldn't understand.  No one would. 

Diving back into the pages of loose notes, Edward let his mind sink into the potential of all the information laid out around him.  Potential bottled up in theories.  Theories took time, sometimes decades to prove, master, fund, and finish.  This work was daunting; he'd be in his 50's by the time he got off the ground.  The thought of putting up with thirty more years of tinkering, testing, trying, and theorizing was nothing short of agonizing.  And that was just the science of propulsion, it didn't cover building the damn rocket. 

There wasn't a molecule in Ed's body that wanted to spend another minute here.  The drive to return home had been given fresh fuel and that kept him up all night studying Oberth's notes in the sanctuary of the university's dormitory study hall.  There had to be some way Edward could apply this knowledge now, he just hadn't found it yet.

Could breaking the sound or light barrier help him?  The last thing he wanted to do was pick Einstein's brain, the guy was a hack.  Could the fuel be used to propel him forward rather than launch him upward?  Or both?  

Ed slammed his good hand on the table, crumpled up a page of notes, and threw it across the room.  "This shit's impossible."

Oberth lifted himself from his work and swung a chair around next to Edward who'd curled forward to put his face in his hands.  "What are you stuck on?" Oberth asked, trying to reorganize the mess of papers his companion had laid out.

"Nothing," Ed grumbled, "it's just too much theory and not enough practical work."

Oberth chuckled at the impatience his younger associate was showing, "Of course, that's how it always goes.  Methodologies, theories, terminologies – all of it needs approval before anyone will hand out funding.  Do you have any idea how much money it would cost to get even a fraction of what I'm proposing assembled, let alone tested?" he playfully batted Edward upside the head, "don't be impatient – mistakes happen when we rush and you and I have a ton of years left ahead of us."

Ed was too tired and exasperated with this life to hear that.  "If only I could transmute something into a rocket ship…" 

The crumpled up piece of paper Edward had tossed sailed towards the table and bounced off his nose.  

"Even I know alchemy is witchcraft."  Tilly crossed her arms as she sauntered back to their desk, "you'll disillusion yourself if you start relying on fiction instead of fact."

Oberth took off his reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "From what I've been gathering, a thing called 'radioactivity' is as close as we'll ever get to alchemy.  It has something to do with spontaneous transmutations.  I heard about it from some chemistry students a while back."

Already disillusioned with the entire world, Ed scoffed, "Alchemy, as it should be, is nothing like what's attainable here.  A scientist needs fundamental understanding of an object's scientific makeup and its relationship to the world at large around it, then mental control over the decomposition, and reconstruction of that matter.  Radioactivity skips understanding and heads straight to decomposition and attempts spontaneous reconstruction.  The process is complete bullshit and extremely dangerous.  True alchemical understanding is way beyond the mental capacity of anyone here."

Oberth raised a suspicious eyebrow, "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."

Tilly reached across the desk and bopped Ed again with the piece of crumpled paper.  "You're going to be hunted down and be burned at the stake if you're not careful," she warned.

Edward chuckled at the threat and he swatted the paper ball into the corner of the room, "Alchemy's not possible anyways, so what does it matter?"

"That's right," Oberth stood up and put himself back down in a chair across from Edward, "what matters right now is making sure these theories are free of inconsistencies and flaws.  Make sure you respect the laws of physics or it will bite you in the ass."

No one needed to remind Edward what the consequences were of not respecting the laws of any given science.  "So, what happens if I want to fly into space right now?" he asked.

Oberth smirked, "You go to bed and dream about doing so.  I'll re-evaluate your mental state in the morning."

"Or you stop drinking coffee," Tilly snatched the coffee cup off his desk, "that'll bring you back down to earth."

 


 

Try as he might, and as hard as Elysia coached, an acceptable crown of flowers was well out of Prime Minister Mitchell's reach.  The pair were forced to switch to dandelions to avoid stripping the garden completely.  

At risk of laughing at whatever Mitchell's next transmutation turned out to be, Al followed Gracia into the house to save himself from the spectacle.  The hasty retreat landed him in the kitchen; he sat at the dinner table, listening to the water run over the controlled clatter of kitchenware being washed.  It was the perfect opportunity – just the two of them in the room together, but what was he supposed to say?  Currently silence was doing all the talking.  What should Al Curtis talk to her about?  He wasn't sure.  What did Alphonse Elric want to talk about?  That was too many things that Al Curtis had no business even knowing.  

Al sat at the table, his hands locked in his lap, and toiled with nothing.  

Walk your own path.  He repeated his family's plea in his head.  That path was supposed to lead him to his brother, but the one he was currently on was taking him here, there, and everywhere else.  Well, he had no hope of getting back on track if all he did was sit around.  Popping to his feet, Al walked up to the sink next to Mrs. Hughes.  The smile she welcomed him with sent a nervous tingle dancing down his spine.  "I can help," he offered.

The drying cloth from the counter was given to him.  "Only if you want."

He wrapped his hands in the cloth.  "I don't mind."

Gracia washed and Al dried.  Once upon a time, it had been Al's job to help his mother like this.  He hadn't forgotten how he relished the role at his mother's side, and used it as fodder to tease his brother with.  He dropped far fewer dishes than Ed did.  As diligently as he had for Trisha, Al followed Gracia's instructions to a tee, expertly putting away each cup, dish, bowel, and utensil back in its rightful place.  Little was said until Gracia accidentally asked 'can you reach that?' for a spot in the corner of her eye that Elysia was too short for.  Al answered with a confident 'you bet' and the innocent slip drew out a round of giggles.

And Al promptly nicked his index finger on the next knife he was given to negate all the confidence he'd earned.  He popped the finger in his mouth like he could hide it.

"Don't do that."  Gracia plucked Al's finger out and snatched up a napkin from the counter to wrap the wound with.  "You have enough cuts and scrapes as it is.  Let's go upstairs, I'll get a bandage for it."

Not given an opportunity to protest, Al was hand-held up to the second floor.  Gracia left him in the hallway while she fished around in the medicine cabinet for a bandage.  Curiosity dulled the pain of an inconsequential wound and drove Al's visual investigation of the upper floor. 

His focus wandered down the hall.  Taking a step back, he could see Elysia's room.  Her toy-cluttered floor was littered in fractured light patterns created by glass ornaments hanging in the window.  The door to Gracia's room had to be the one that was closed, because the other door at the end of the hall was a study.  Al took half a step to the side, attempting to get a better glimpse of a busy office desk – not covered in papers, but in framed photos.  And if he leaned just a little bit further, peered a little harder, and made his heart race a little faster, Al could see the fringes of an Amestris-blue military cap sitting on a table tucked into the near corner.  The tips of Alphonse's fingers tingled.

"Did you want to have a look?"

Al nearly jumped out of his socks.  Before he could give a response one way or another, Gracia had Al's bleeding finger wrapped in a bandage like she'd done it a hundred times before.  Then she took him gently by that wounded hand and walked him into her memories.

The curtains were closed, but Gracia sat down at the desk and tugged the cord of the writing lamp to offer light.  

Al waded through the room, arriving next to Gracia and wrapping a hand around the knob on the high chair back.  His eyes devoured the entirety of this tiny space.  The desk centred one wall, and opposite that was a bookcase stuffed with albums, trinkets, books of course, and small boxes of who knows what filling the spaces inbetween.  A photography camera was perched on its own at the top, positioned like it was meant to capture every memory that entered the room.  In the corner, the table the hat sat on shared the same space as a black trench coat hanging off a hook on the wall.  A thin layer of grey dust painted its higher ridges.  A pair of black army boots were tucked away in the corner.  Next to the hat, a pair of glasses sat neatly on the tiny table, and a tiny velvet green box occupied the remaining empty space.  It took Al far too long to figure out that a box as nice as that probably had a wedding ring inside.

"His name was Maes and he was my husband."

I know.  

Al didn't respond.  

Gracia's movement at the desk brought Al's attention to the heart and soul of the room.  Photographs were everywhere, and the ones Gracia had chosen to put on display were all ones that included him.  Al met the kind of character Maes Hughes was for the second time.

"It's been just over a year now since he passed away and there's a lot about him I miss."

'Just over a year' ago Al's mother had passed away too, at least according to how he saw history.  Fresh grief was something he and Gracia had in common.  Except his mother hadn't gotten a nice room to commemorate her life, all that was left to honour her was the burned out plot of their family home… and Al.

Gracia began fingering through the photographic options on display.  "He passed away doing his job.  It's a shame so many of the things he wanted to see happen in his lifetime will probably never happen.  Or he won't get to see them happen."  A selection was made and a framed image was placed in Al's hands.

The foolish grin of Maes Hughes would have made Al laugh if the other man in the photo hadn't been Roy Mustang.  Of course they knew each other, they were friends – Al knew that much.  That grumpy Mustang looked different though… he had both eyes.  Between the moment this photo had been taken and today, one man had died and the other seriously wounded.

Al lifted his attention from the image in his hand to the ones scattered around.  Family photos, personal photos, candid photos, social photos, and work photos.  Al couldn't help but let his eyes widen, his racing heart flushing his cheeks knowing he recognized faces from the hospital in the display.  All these people who'd taken the time to care for him had been connected.

"Maes took photographs of everything."  Gracia reached up into the myriad of albums displayed like prized books atop the desk hutch.  She selected an album and brought it down to an empty space on the table and opened it, inviting her young guest further into the story.

Al couldn't resist.

"These were taken just after Elysia was born," Gracia slowly ran her finger over a four image spread of her late husband and newborn daughter.  

"He looks really happy," Al said quietly as he leaned against the side of the chair, memorizing the foolish grin.

"He was," Gracia's left fingernails picked through the edges of a few pages back and she flipped the album into the past.  "And these were taken a few days earlier at Edward's twelfth birthday party."

Al's world came to a stop.  

The ambience of the room vanished, silenced by the vibrancy in the images.  

Granny Pinako had no pictures of Ed and Al after they had attempted to transmute their mother.  Alphonse had never seen this life before – he had never seen himself in this form before.  It was equally as wondrous as it was frightening to finally obtain.  Al sank into the story of the four photographs Gracia offered him.  

Al understood what everyone told him his brother had done, but how was this oversized armour actually him?  He'd seen it in the house before, but it was lifeless.  Inanimate.  The visual confirmation of his life as that suit of armour next to his lively brother felt disorienting and the only word Al found to describe it was 'bizarre'.  The Hughes' photographs were real, so full of life, and Al wished he could touch them and absorb their experiences.  He looked into the eyes of his older brother, a year older than he last remembered, his hair long, pulled back, braided, and his clothes hid any sign of his AutoMail.  Al had some questions about his brother's fashion sense, but at least Ed looked like Ed.

"I remember Edward mentioned that he'd get to be a year older than his little brother again, because now he would be twelve and his Alphonse would still be eleven for nearly the rest of the year."  The back of Gracia's hand came up and landed softly on Al's warm cheek, "Maes took these photographs five years ago when Alphonse was eleven, the same age as you when you came through the door today."

With the chair as his crutch, Al slowly lowered himself down to his knees.  He put his chin on the desk, keeping the photo display at eye-level. 

"Al," Gracia asked for his attention and slowly received it.  "Are you okay living in the story you're writing?  The story where Izumi's your mother, the story you used to help you through the trauma of last week, and the story you're making with me today?" 

No.  But what else was he supposed to do?  This wasn't supposed to be how things were going.  Al slumped off his knees and landed on his backside atop the floor.  He was supposed to be in Dublith looking for a way to get his brother back, but all he was doing was dancing around the edges of a nightmare he couldn't remember.  A growing mountain of lies weighed down his tongue.

When Al finally tried to pull his knees in and curl up, Gracia stepped in and stopped him.  She left the chair, took him by the wrists, and brought him back to his feet.  While Al steadied his balance, Gracia slipped one of the photos out of the album and wrapped it in an envelope from the desk drawer.

"When you're ready, when you feel you can, and when you want to stop doing this all alone, I want you to come back here and tell me the other story of you."

Al's eyes rounded as he received the promise of an ear that would listen to him.

"Tell me the story of today's eleven-year-old Alphonse Elric and not the other Curtis boy.  In return, I'll tell you the story of this picture and anything from any other picture you want to know about."  Gracia placed the wrapped photograph in Al's hands.  "Maes said you boys had a philosophy of 'Equivalent Exchange'.  I hope this qualifies."

 


 

The gentle clink of Hohenheim's tea cup settling in its saucer was drowned out by the crackle of a fading fireplace in the front room.  Two in the morning was woefully announced by the chime of the pendulum clock.  Hohenheim twisted his head over his shoulder, trying to relieve a day of stiffness from his neck, but stopped when a noise that sounded suspiciously like the latch on the front door rose above all other sounds.

Two feet on the hallway floor confirmed it.

Pushing away from his desk, Hohenheim promptly emerged from his study.  "Edward." 

Ed hung up his coat in the hallway closet and didn't acknowledge him.

"Where have you been?" Hohenheim demanded, uncertain if he had a right to be angry at his son for this stunt. 

Ed ignored him, radiating a silent warning.

Angry or not, Hohenheim was worried.  "Edward," he approached.

With his shoes already set aside, Ed shoved his hands in his pockets and stormed directly towards the stairs.

Moving faster, Hohenheim grabbed him under the arm before he managed to reach the first step.  "Edward!"

"Fuck off!"

Ed ripped his arm away and swung the clenched fist of his strong left hand past the tip of his nose.  Hohenheim lurched back as the base of Ed's hand thumped off the wall.

In the dying, flickering light emanating from another room, Hohenheim stared at the disgust and rage burning brightly in his son's eyes.  The clock announced every audible second that passed by.

Ed adjusted his shirt, changed directions, and marched past his father into the main room instead.  

Hohenheim swept a hand over the top of his tightly tied hair.  He didn't have a leg to stand on in defence of what happened.  He wasn't going to try.  He couldn't.  Guilt sagged Hohenheim's shoulders; things had been going well lately and he struggled to hide how disappointing the last few days had been for him.

The 'event' the Thule Society had held in the days prior had been hosted by Karl Haushofer's star pupil Rudolf Hess.  Hohenheim was well aware of Rudolf and Edward had spoken to him a few times, going so far as to admit he seemed impressed by the man's drive to end the deterioration of Germany and start her revitalization.  Hohenheim found those qualities commendable as well.  

Despite the positive impression, Hohenheim could only sigh when Edward refused to do much more than keep Rudolf more than two arms lengths away.  There was something his son distrusted about everyone and Ed stubbornly and willfully kept the entire world around him at a distance.  As Hohenheim understood it, Edward's rationale was that he could preserve his integrity by having nothing to do with the people of this world and remain detached from the mindsets that plagued it.

Two nights ago Rudolf Hess fired gunshots into the logic Edward protected himself with.

Standing before the congregation, the evening's events started with the execution of Rathenau's young Jewish secretary and her two children as they begged for their lives.

"God does not pity you," his cruel voice rang out.

The platform Hess and his comrades stood on to scream for Germany's glorious revival was composed of dead bodies.

They stood in the Thule Hall, drowning in man's cold blooded hate, listening to everyone around him cheer in approval.  They stood there as everyone roared in agreement of what had to be removed from society in order for Germany to prosper.  They stood there as everyone around him applauded the assassination of Matthias Erzberger over a week ago.  They stood there as everyone seemed to believe that what they wanted to accomplish within society was right.  They stood there and listened to the executioner preach the rise of an empire through the exploitation and extermination of their neighbours.

Father and son stood there and understood neither of them had the power to change this.

It became Hohenheim's job that night to stop Edward from leaving that night.  He'd placed his hand at the back of his son's neck and held him in place.  He forced him to watch.  It was too dangerous to let him turn around or react in any way.  If his body wanted to revolt, if his mind wanted to scream, if he wanted to act, this was the moment where he had to find a way to restrain himself.  There was no choice.  Occasionally the corner of Hohenheim's eye would tell him Ed was searching for his gaze, but the older man didn't have the courage to look back.

Two days later, when Edward finally came home, all Hohenheim got to look at was the ponytail on his son's head after he sat down on the back steps of their house.

"You're fucking disgusting piece of work," Edward snarled, "how the hell do you support people like that."

"Did I ever say I supported any of this?"  It wouldn't have mattered what Hohenhim had responded with, it would have fanned Ed's flames regardless.

"What do you do with these people?  Why do you listen to them?  Spend time with them?  Why do you involve ME?  Those people have nothing to do with me and what I need to accomplish," he yelled at the stars.

"I have my reasons," and right now was the worst time to entertain them, so Hohenheim didn't, "but even if I wanted to bow out, at this point I cannot.  It's the same reason I couldn't let you leave."

"What the hell is any of that supposed to mean?" Ed dipped his head forwards, his bangs shrouding his face.

Hohenheim stiffened his upper lip, "Edward, I didn't know.  I wouldn't have asked you to come if I'd known—"

"I want to go home."

The conversation came to an end. 

There had never been a point where Hohenheim could convince Edward to exist properly in this world, and his son's relentless desire to escape left the old man feeling helpless.

"I hate being here.  I hate living in fear of my own morals.  I hate how the type of person I socialize with makes me friend or foe.  I hate pretending I hate something just so I can survive."  Facing the night, Ed rose to his feet and slowly lifted his arms at his sides, feverishly willing his frustrating right arm to comply.  

Hohenheim stood with his back to the closed door and clenched his hands in his pockets.

Edward turned his palms forward and clapped his hands together in front of his chest in honour of a memory.  "I hate how tasteless everything is here.  I hate how I'm never full after I eat, how all the colours look washed out, how I don't dream at night, how I…" his arms dropped limp at his sides, "I want those damn stars to get brighter when I finally get closer to them."

Hohenheim extracted a fist from a pocket and opened the back door to step inside.  In the dead of night, a world that exuded death showed little sign of life when he came back out.  Shaking out Edward's coat, Hohenheim startled him by draping it over his son's shoulders.

"It's cold out," he said quietly.

"I'm not cold," Ed's shoulders loosened as he pulled the jacket around himself.

"Don't let that change.  Come inside and get some sleep."

Edward turned and Hohenheim caught a glimpse of the weight exhaustion had put in his son's eyes.  At any given moment Hohenheim could script Ed's words to him, but the energy needed to order him out of the doorway didn't surface.  Ed said nothing to him and that chilled Hohenheim more than the overnight air.  Concern moved the old man's arm, caution guided his thick, warm hand onto his son's frozen cheek.  Edward's refusal of the compassionate act struggled to surface.  Taking a step that frightened Hohenhim far more than anything in the evening before, his arms reached around and pulled in his sleepless son.  For a terrifying moment, Edward yielded.  In the lifeless silence of the Munich night, Hohenheim wondered how long he'd be allowed to hold him.

"I need to get out of here," Ed told his father's shoulder, "I hate how this place makes me feel."

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


 

Notes:

When I’d started writing this, Hohenheim wasn’t ‘Van Hohenheim’ yet, so the general consensus was that he was Hohenheim Elric based on the letters Ed and Al had sent out searching for him when Trisha was ill. So, that’s where the naming convention is coming from.

Hohenheim joined the Thule Society prior 1921, which is why he feels trapped. I doubt he would have gotten involved with it at the point it was at in 1921. For this story he's been in the Thule Society since about mid 1919 - before Hess joined.

A few references:

A 1921 bottle of Rheingau Riesling will cost you $10,000 dollars now.

Rudolph Hess was the 16th member of the Thule Society (June 1920)

NSDAP – National Socialist German Worker Party.

Matthias Erzberger – former German Finance Minister during WWI murdered by members of the Freikorps (August 26, 1921.)

Walter Rathenau – German Minister of Reconstruction (1921)

 

Revised 2023-09-24

Chapter 5: Media of Suspicion

Summary:

A telegram piques Mustang's interest and sends him searching for more answers. Thanks to acquaintances of Oberth's, Ed tries tracking down a film with a bizarre reference that he hadn't expected to encounter.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"My head went blank the first time I saw her.  Her hair was so thick and long.  And her eyes, her face, her body – it was Winry, but it wasn't.  It couldn't be.  It sounded like her, but her voice was missing the inflection that made her the same age as me.  I thought I was dreaming or I'd landed in the imagined life beyond the mirror.  She hugged me and cried.  I should have cried with her, but I was having trouble believing it was real.  She smelled real.  She had the same warmth, but it felt strange to hug her at that size.  We sat on her bed for the rest of the afternoon and she kept fluffing my hair.  She talked to me about stuff I couldn't even imagine.  I didn't understand.  Too much to get into.  With every word she said to me over the next few weeks, it felt like the distance between the Winry I knew and the Winry I'd get to know grew larger and larger.  At first, it felt as though I'd lost a best friend.  I felt alienated from her.  Sensei finally asked me what was wrong and I told her it was awkward.  She told me that I shouldn't think about it like I'd lost a friend, but like I'd gained an older sister."

 


 

Al was comfortable like this.  No, maybe not comfortable, but definitely content.  So much so that he didn't pay any attention to the faint echo of footsteps approaching in the quiet room.

"You're going to get a cramp in your neck if you stay like that, young man," Mitchell said.  With as much care as he could, he put an arm behind Al's back, the other at his legs, and slowly lifted Al off the floor and onto the sofa.  The effort went in vain when Al stirred.  Mitchell apologized for his failed effort and released his young guest to the seat cushions.

Bleary eyed, Al looked around the room and tried to regain his bearings.  "What time is it?" his voice cracked.

Mitchell glanced at his watch, "Quarter to eleven.  Have you been here all morning?"

"I came in at six when the staff changed shifts, and I saw the clock at eight-thirty when someone brought me breakfast."  Al brushed his hands through his hair to tidy it and asked, "Is your wife okay?"

The question caught Mitchell off guard, "Yes.  She is, why do you ask?"

Al rubbed the sleep from his eyes, "The staff were talking about it this morning.  They said you left in the middle of the night, because you were worried about her condition." 

Scanning the mountains of literature Al had amassed, but finding nowhere to sit, Mitchell pushed a stack away from the edge of the table and sat down.  A smile was forced into his lips, "There was a bit of a scare last night, but she's come through alright.  It's nothing to worry about.  Now, tell me, what on earth were you doing up so early in the morning?  The scuttlebutt didn't wake you, did it?"

Al gave a generic answer to cover all the gears spinning in his head, "I couldn't sleep."  

Mitchell tisked and flipped one of the books on the table into his hand, "I hope these will give you ample distraction from all your nighttime stresses."

Whatever tiredness lingered to plague Al was defeated by the literary menagerie he was surrounded by, "These books are incredible Mr. Mitchell!"  

This trove of alchemy tomes was everything he could have wanted and then some.  This was the fountain of knowledge that he wanted Izumi to help him find.  This was what Al wanted to devour for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next month.  Somewhere in these glorious shelves would be something to help him prove what became of his brother.  Not just prove, but the sophistication embedded in what he was reading might even save him.

"Where did you get books like this?" Al's eyes shone with wonder, "the encryptions on some of the texts are so complex it could take ages to figure out."

Al's youthful joy gave some life to the tired prime minister, "Fascinating, aren't they?  I am an avid collector of history, so most of my collection was acquired through private deals or auctions.  I've spent decades humming and hawing over my own treasures, but when I saw what my wife had her hands on… I don't even know where to begin!  Her collection came to her through family inheritance, and when we combined the two this library became the gold standard of written alchemy history."

Al looked around the room in awe of what he'd stumbled his way into.  "I could spend every day in here for the rest of my life and never know everything."

The library door opened, commanding attention through the sound.  A member of Mitchell's house staff intruded – an unremarkable, plain woman traversed deeper into the room with firm, authoritative footfalls.  The bun on the back of her head tied every strand of her medium brown hair up so tightly that it looked solid and unnatural.  Dressed smartly in a starched white uniform, the tips of her toes peeked out beneath the floor length dress at the apex of each stride.  An infant was cradled in her arms, locked securely against her chest, its tiny hands reaching up for a smile it wasn't getting.  

Something unspeakable about the nothingness of the woman unsettled Al.  Every step she took seemed to disturb the air in the room.

"Oh lovely, my baby girl is awake," Mitchell rose to his feet and collected his child from the woman's arms, "oh this smile makes my horrid night so much better."

Who was this lady?  The longer Al kept his eye on the woman who'd joined them, the more it felt like her presence was intent on making him shiver.  

"Alphonse," Mitchell interrupted the mystery by offering the baby to him, "would you like to hold Diana?"

There was a baby in Al's arms before he could say one way or the other.

"You hold her so well," Mitchell admired.

"I help a friend look after her baby at home.  He's older than your daughter though," Al looked down into the striking brown eyes of this infant reaching out for him, her toothless mouth wide open, smiling without a care. 

"Sir," the woman finally spoke, "your wife would like me to pass on that she requests you join her tomorrow at four in the afternoon.  The young miss you are welcoming has made a request to be at her bedside as she recovers."

"Has she?  What a lovely child," Mitchell's smile threatened to stretch beyond the confines of his cheeks.

Al brushed the thin bits of hair from Diana's forehead, "Someone's going to have a big sister soon, huh?" 

Mitchell's emotional pendulum swiftly swung in the other direction, "Wait, did you say four?  That's no good, I'm in parliament until five.  Can the time be changed?  How long will the girl be allowed to stay there with her?"

The woman clasped her hands in front of herself, "There are custody documents that require your signature.  I assume the child will remain until you arrive to do that."

"We have paperwork already!?" Mitchell gawked.

"Your wife is quite efficient when her health allows.  Yes, there is paperwork ready, though I wasn't made privy to the details.  You would have to discuss it further with her if you wanted to know more." 

Mitchell huffed a short chuckle and shook his head, "That amazing woman.  Of course."

"Now, if I might beg your pardon," the woman stepped up to Al and reached in to take Diana from his arms, "it's time for lunch."

It took all of Al's resources not to lurch away from the encroaching presence, reluctantly relinquishing the baby to her caretaker.  "I can take her to lunch, if it's alright?"

An empty smile was given, but Diana became secured in the woman's arms again.  "I am her nurse and I will look after her.  Please continue enjoying your time in the library."

Al examined the unburdened smile Mitchell wore as he wished them well on their way out of the room, as though he was completely oblivious to the emptiness of the woman's presence.

 


 

"This really isn't necessary," Hohenheim pushed through his front door.

"Nonsense!  You've been so good to us today, I'm certain you had a mountain of things to do other than entertain me."  Tilly followed him into the house with two paper grocery bags in her arms.  "The least we could do was help you with these."

"It's no trouble, honestly.  We wanted to stop by to see Edward anyway," Oberth stepped out of his shoes.  "Where do you want us to put these?"

"On the table in the kitchen is fine," Hohenheim told them and returned his keys to his jacket pocket.

Setting her bags down on the table, Tilly looked around in awe of his kitchen,  "What on earth… you have such a nice kitchen – it's so clean!  It's nice to know that there are men out there who know how to keep a kitchen.  I'd love a stove and a pantry organizer like that too… maybe someone will buy one for me someday."

Oberth's eye twitched and tossed the apple he was holding menacingly in the air.

A high pitched whistle erupted in the heart of the kitchen and caused everyone to jump.  The uppity teakettle rattling on the stove began spewing a steady flow of white steam from the spout, spitting out plumes around the edges of the fluttering lid.

"Shit!" 

A collection of heads swung skywards to Edward thundering through the upstairs and down the flight of stairs.  Skidding into the kitchen, Ed nearly tripped over his own two feet at the unexpected number of people he nearly crashed into.

"What the hell?" he blinked.

Hohenheim moved the kettle off the heat and turned sharply to face his son, "Do not leave the stove unattended."

"I was just putting something—"

"DO NOT," Hohenheim boomed his firm disapproval, "if something in this kitchen catches fire, this house will go up in an instant.  These walls are nothing but kindling."

With a deep breath, Edward grumbled a single "Sorry" in the presence of company.  Putting his good hand over his mouth as he coughed, Ed cleared his throat and changed topics, "What are you two doing here?"

"Did you just wake up?" Oberth grinned at Ed's sloppy attire.

Looking down at himself, Edward examined his washed out old slacks and plain knit top, "I'm not going anywh—" Ed swallowed the rest of his words and swung away when Tilly reached for his hair.  "What are you doing!?"

"Edward," her hands landed firmly on her hips, "only poor farm handlers braid their hair.  You look like you crawled out of a barn."

Absolutely perplexed by the proclamation, Ed pointed at his braid, "How do you have a problem with this?" he moved towards the kettle, "do you have any idea how hard it is to braid my hair with this arm?" Ed waggled his right arm and used the other one to snatch a teacup out of the cupboard.

Hohenheim quietly studied his son as he filled the cup with hot water, but made no effort to find any tea for it.

Leaving the cup to cool on the counter, Edward started poking through the groceries, "Again, what are you two doing here?"

"I received a telegram from an acquaintance in Austria," Oberth announced, "a gentleman I crossed from time to time during the war.  Our units were stationed relatively close by one at one point and we had drinks on occasion before he was injured.  He invited Tilly and myself out for dinner and told us to bring anyone additional that we'd like, so I told him you'd be coming."

"You told him what!?" Ed's eyes flew wide.  Putting his hand at his chest as he coughed again, Ed claimed his cup of hot water, "I'm in the middle of things.  Weren't we just out for dinner?"

Tilly laughed, "That was days ago Edward, and you two didn't think to bring me.  Now it's the three of us and Mr. Lang is bringing some uptown associates with him.  It'll be a social event."

"Well, I uh.  But I… um," Ed picked up his cup and blew the steam off the top of the water, "yeah, 'uptown associates' aren't really the sort of people I spend my time with.  And I don't have anything to wear.  Why couldn't you have asked me first?"

"Oh heavens, you'd have said no if we'd done that, wouldn't you?" Oberth laughed and waved his hand dismissively, "just wear what you wear to work, that's presentable enough."

Edward scowled as he carefully sipped the steaming water.

Tilly rolled her eyes at the uncooperative Elric, "You're just as bad as Hermann some days.  I know your type: The Scientific Bookworm – you sit there with your face in some book or notes all day long without any sunshine.  Someone has to grab you by the collar and haul you outside if you're going to unwind at all."

Narrowing his eyes, Edward took another slow sip from his cup, "You haven't known me long enough to say something like that…"

Knowing his son better than his new companions, Hohenheim decided it was time to organize the disorganized masses in his kitchen.  "Mathilde, Hermann, why don't you two have a seat in the family room until Edward is ready to join you.  I'm sure he has no objection to going upstairs, getting changed, and dressing appropriately for dinner tonight." 

At the prompting, the couple excused themselves from the kitchen and headed into the main room.  Skulking towards the stairs Edward carefully headed up to the second floor of the house, a cup of plain hot water in his hand.  Hohenheim trailed a few steps behind him, but stopped when Ed turned on the top step to confront the man creeping behind him.

"You can skip it.  I'm fine,"  Edward said bluntly.

Hohenheim played the game dutifully.  "Excuse me?"

"I know what's going to happen when I get to my room and so do you," Ed released a disgruntled sigh and took a gulp from the teacup that was still a little too hot.  He mocked his father's deep voice, "'Edward, are you feeling okay?'," he barked in his own crass tone, "'Yes, I'm always okay'."  The mockery resumed, "'You're not running a fever?' 'For the thousandth time, no.' 'You b—"

Hohenheim turned without a word and headed down the stairs.  Edward was made to wait on the top step for any sort of final remark his father would normally give, but today no further acknowledgement was given to his son's behaviour.  The top of Hohenheim's head drew Edward's perplexed gaze as far as it could chase him down their home's central hall.  Once he reached the point where Ed would have to physically move to pursue the mockery of his father's care and the man himself, Hohenheim stopped.

"It's just a frog in my throat," he told the empty stairwell.

No one acknowledged him. 

"I am fine."

Hohenheim smiled broadly for his guests who could see him from the family room.  He waited and listened for the floorboards overhead, curious to learn how long it would take Ed to withdraw to his room.  It took a few more ticks of the clock than it used to.

 


 

The door cracking open was the perfect excuse Havoc needed to take his eyes off his paperwork.

"Enjoying my chair, Lieutenant?" Mustang stepped into the room, wooden cane in hand to steady his stride.

"Your chair is the only thing I'm enjoying," Havoc's eyes rolled and popped the pen into his mouth like a cigarette, "you never stop getting some of the most boring crap to deal with.  I thought you said this job was interesting, so who'd you piss off?"

Dressed in a simple white collared shirt and dark grey slacks, Mustang sat himself down in one of the vacant chairs around a desolate meeting table in the middle of the room.  "The job perks were interesting, at one point."

"Your perks have become bureaucratic pen ink," Havoc gnawed on the pen.

Mustang smirked half heartedly, "And when I come back you can keep on wasting all that ink.  Lieutenant Havoc, you've done such an outstanding job in my place that I have no problem letting you continue doing what you're doing.  There are hundreds of other things I can oversee with all that liberated time while you maintain this excellent progress with the department's paperwork."

Havoc's eyebrow twitched at the offer, "I'm going to respectfully decline, Sir.  You've done quite enough already to get me this respected, substitute position."

"I will take your refusal under consideration," Mustang continued to smirk.  Relaxing as best he could into a hard chair, the sidelined brigadier general drilled his thoughts into the white wall across from him.  "Did you manage to look after that officer?"

Taking the pen out of his mouth, Havoc returned to leafing through the papers.  "Yeah, he was redeployed this morning."

"And his daughter?"

"Sent home." 

Mustang gave a slow nod of approval, "And their statements?"

"Near the bottom," Havoc pointed his nose at the stack of envelopes perched on the left corner of the desk, "but, you know, an order came down to deliver them to Investigations by EOD."

"Is that so?"  Trying not to rely on his cane too noticeably, Mustang slowly stood up.  Several glorious weeks were enjoyed without the wretched thing, but now his leg was acting up again and it was back in his hand.  Swallowing his discomfort, Mustang took a stroll around the room, timing his steps to every odd second that ticked off of the clock.  "Speaking of the Investigations Department, they caught something this morning."

Havoc didn't deviate from his work, "What'd they fish up?"

Mustang clicked his tongue and stopped at the coat rack.  He straightened a careless fold in Havoc's jacket collar.  "A telegram."

The pen found its way back into Havoc's teeth and he looked up.

"Lieutenant," Mustang pulled the cigarette package out of the chest pocket of Havoc's jacket and shook the last two into his hand, "I think you should take a trip to the convenience store and pick up another package," Mustang snapped the final pair, "you seem to be out."

The pen in Havoc's teeth fell on the desk.

Mustang theatrically spilled the cigarette remains into the garbage can by the door.  "While you're out, swing by the main Central Library branch and pick up something eye opening to read.  I recommend a biography – people are the best sorts to learn something from."

The agonised look on Havoc's face washed away and he stood up from the chair.  "You got 500cens to spot me, Boss?"

Mustang's free hand dipped into his pocket and came out with a fresh 500cens piece between two fingers.

That was enough motivation to speed up Havoc's departure from Mustang's desk and retrieve his jacket.  Mustang tossed the empty package into the garbage and reached for the door to see Havoc out, but the knob turned on its own.

The door swung inwards, sending the men scrambling back.

"Pardon me, Lieutenant," Hawkeye stood in the doorway, a briefcase dangling in her hand, "are you on your way out?"

Havoc hastily saluted the out-of-uniform officer and stepped past her, "Yes, Major.  Excuse me."

Havoc's departure lured Mustang back to a chaotic chair that was once his.  Gingerly settling down in the seat, a dissatisfied look crossed his face.  "That still sounds odd."

"What does?" Hawkeye questioned, shutting the door.

"We don't make much of a distinction between first and second lieutenant, and I spent far too many years getting comfortable with you and that title.  So, Major?" Mustang began nosing through Havoc's paperwork, "'Major Hawkeye' has an entirely different ring to it."

Hawkeye straightened her beige, buttoned jacket and sat herself down at the lifeless meeting table with a no-nonsense business look etched on her face.  "Wouldn't it be something if that ring didn't always sound suspiciously like 'housekeeper'." 

"Wouldn't that be something."  Mustang marvelled at the idea and started moving stacks of paper, "There is too much paperwork to get housework done with efficiency now.  So much keeps getting lost in this colossal mess known as bureaucracy."  He slipped the envelope of witness statements out from under the pile Havoc had gestured to, "It's such a shame how much ends up going missing."

Hawkeye tried to use the disapproval on her face to evoke some sense of guilt in the man, "You're putting Lieutenant Havoc in a tough spot, especially so soon after getting his third star." 

Unfazed by the comment, Mustang flipped the confiscated envelope over to the meeting table.  "If he gets me what I want from the library, I will bend over backwards to make sure all his problems disappear."

Hawkeye tucked the envelope into her briefcase and said nothing.

"Speaking of promotions," Mustang reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the folded telegram, "someone should look into promoting Sergeant Broche.  He's been convenient twice already – alerting us to Al and now this telegram." 

"Luck and good timing are not promotable skills," Hawkeye said.

"I'd like to think I have some mastery over the skill of luck," the corner or Mustang's mouth curled, "you're such a harsh major."

Hawkeye swept her hair behind her shoulders, "Someone around here has to be." 

Digging the tip of a shoe into the wood flooring, Mustang steered his chair around to face out his Central City office window.  In the dwindling hours of the afternoon, he opened the telegram and held it out with the daylight glowing behind it, like the light might illuminate some hidden message in the pulp.  He would have narrowed both eyes if he had them.  

"Riza, what the hell is going on here?" 

She didn't have an answer for him either. 

 


 

Without warning, Fritz thrust Edward's right arm into the air.  "This is amazing!  Your arm is a machine!"

Ed snatched his arm back and tried his damndest to stop himself from sounding rude.  "It's a prosthesis that I can control on my own."

"That's incredible, I've never seen anything like it."  The man everyone addressed as Fritz returned to chair at their round dining table.  He adjusted the monocle wedged in his left eye, "I don't suppose you'd want to take part in a feature with me, eh?"

Suppressing his displeasure, Edward popped his fork into his mouth, "No, thank you."

"Ah, a shame!  I could do so much with someone like you," the man leaned into the edge of the table and shovelled food into his mouth. 

At Fritz's right hand side a woman named Thea placed her elbows on the table and laced her fingers together playfully.  "So could I.  Can you imagine?  A world where man starts to become a machine.  It would be the start of the dehumanization of society!  Mankind could lose its identity," her imagination stretched her grin from ear to ear.

Edward found nothing entertaining about the implication his arm made him something 'dehumanized', nor did he like how they were turning him into some fantasy story.  Ed took a mental note to tell the Oberth couple to keep quiet about his physical situation from now on – the last thing he wanted was for word to get out and have some ass clown actually try to turn him into a science project. 

"Oh come now," a woman directly across from Ed waved her hand and wrapped a cloth napkin around her fingers.  She dabbed the corners of her mouth, "The entire lot of you are just being foolish.  Machine men, good Lord."

"Lya, it's just musings and fun," sitting next to Ed, Hermann straightened up in his seat, "I understood you had a more robust imaginative spirit than that."

Lya picked up her cutlery with neatly manicured fingernails and picked away at the remains of her meal.  The woman's eyes teased that she could have been the youngest one at the entire table, yet she wore a stunning black dress and fur shawl that begged the eye to believe otherwise.  She offered a laugh, "My apologies, it's been a hectic couple days for me and my spirit is wrung a little dry."

"You poor doll," Thea perfected her posture, her short blonde curls tightly bouncing exactly as every other woman's did.  When she wasn't fooling around with the man at her side, she exuded the most maturity out of everyone.  "When is your train to Berlin set to leave?" she asked.

Ed was grossly outclassed every which way he turned.  Tuning himself out from the conversation, his eyes wandered the dining hall and scanned the late night activities.  How on earth did he end up in a bustling restaurant frequented by some of the highest profile figures in Munich – men and women from theatre, literature, education, philanthropy, and a dash of politics and science thrown in there.  Some of the names were familiar to him, others he'd read about them in newspapers, but Hermann Oberth was the only one Ed gave a damn about.  What was he doing here screwing around here?  Ed didn't want to be rude, but he wanted to stay focused on getting home and being here was as far from that as he could get.

The sharp point of a pointed shoe digging into his shin twisted the corner of Ed's mouth.  He looked across the table and found Lya's sharp smile cutting across her face, her eyes needing no words to demand he 'pay attention'.  Dragging himself back to the table Ed straightened his tie and quietly reinserted himself in a conversation he had nothing to contribute to.

"Lya, tell me," Hermann adjusted the napkin in his collar, "how'd you get to know a creepy old man like Fritz here." 

"Old man, he calls me," Fritz burst with a hearty laugh that was swallowed by the buzz of the venue.

Calming her giggles, Lya answered, "I bumped into Mr. Lang at the train station and he recognized me from one of my stage performances.  We talked for a while and found out we both know Robert Reinert – the director of my last film."

Ed popped a bite of steak on his plate into his mouth and started counting the number of chews he was going to need to jaw through to break the meat down.

Hermann raised an eyebrow, "Reinert… I'm not familiar with the name."

Fritz waved a hand casually, "He's gone by Dinesen before.  I worked with him just after I got out of the hospital.  He helped me get my taste in the industry.  I assisted him in a serial – you must have seen it at some point.  It was called 'Homunculus'."

Edward's fist slammed into his chest before his fork had a chance to ring off the floor.

The entire table stood up in unison as Ed curled over in his chair, clawing his napkin over his mouth as he tried to cough up the dinner he'd just inhaled.  Hermann grabbed him by his shoulder but Ed pushed the hand away. 

"I'm fine," Ed announced, still fighting to clear his lungs, "sorry everyone."

"Chew your food more carefully next time," Tilly warned as she sat back down.

Still red in the face from breathing in his dinner, Ed looked to Fritz, "What was that thing you worked on?"

"Homunculus?" Fritz picked up the water jug in the middle of the table and poured Ed a glass.  "It was a six part serial I did some casual work on.  Big hit during the war."

Ed's golden gaze came alive, "I haven't seen it, what was it about?"

"Oh, jeez," Fritz put the jug down and hung his arm over the back of his chair, "it was about a scientist who creates the 'perfect creature' called Homunculus.  The thing discovers it has no soul and isn't really human.  Homunculus resents the fact society has rejected it and that it's not a real human.  It starts tyrannizing all the people in an act of vengeance.  Homunculus ends up becoming the dictator of some nation, then tries to destroy other nations and conquer the world."

Wholly captured by the story, Ed needed to know, "Where can I see this feature?"

"It's a multi-part serial, not a feature," Fritz looked up to the ceiling as he tried to come up with an answer, "I honestly don't think it's in any theatres anymore, it came out five years ago."

"Edward," Lya poked her nose into the conversation, "you said you work at the University of Munich, correct?  Why not check and see if the university has a copy.  I heard that some of the schools in Berlin store copies of popular reels, I don't see a reason why Munich's wouldn't as well."

That was something Ed wouldn't have thought of.  He nodded his thanks and knew exactly what he was going to do tomorrow.  Curiosity brought him back to Fritz one more time, "So what happens in the end?"

Fritz ran his hand through his hair, "The thing gets struck down by a bolt of lightning and dies."

It was the first time the whole evening Edward had cracked an honest smile, and it was more than a smile – he laughed.  Edward sat at the table and found the fate of the Homunculus something he couldn't resist having a laugh over, even if he was the only one who found it funny.

If only it was that easy.

 


 

The loudest voice Havoc ever heard in a library was directed at him, and he promptly took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and tucked it behind his ear.

A much nicer young lady, who quickly became a good reason for a return to the library later, pointed Havoc to the second floor of the expansive main branch of the Central Library.  He stuck out like a sore thumb already, showing up in uniform like this, and the aimless wandering up and down aisles didn't do him any favours.  Where did they put Biographies?  Why couldn't he find them?  He looked suspicious. 

Standing at the entry of the historical nonfiction area, Havoc's displeasure climbed at the prospect of another aimless aisle.

"I can't do that!"

Or not.  

The hissing voice that should have been kept a few notches lower gained Havoc's undivided attention.  He knew this voice from somewhere.  A few stutter-steps backwards tucked Havoc away behind a shelving unit and he opened his ears a little wider.  The muffled voices dipped below the hum of the air circulation system.  The officer had to move.  Creeping deeper into the wing, every heel he put on the floor was soft and controlled, producing no sound.  Vocal vibrations caught his ear again, more distinct this time.  He kept moving forward, keeping a close eye on his own shadow, ensuring it didn't emerge anywhere before he did…

"I just need you to find out who made that call!"

"I can't!  I'd get in so much trouble if I got caught.  The file hasn't even been forwarded to the department yet, I don't know who'd charge me first!"

"Sheska, you're in the investigations department, do some 'investigating'!  I don't need you to steal it – just look at it, find out who called Dublith, and put it in your head!"

"But, how's that supposed to help you find Al!?"

Havoc's brows perked.

"It doesn't, but it will let me know if they've seen him or not.  The newspapers haven't published his photo, so as long as it's only the police and politicians involved in the 'Al Curtis' recovery, it'll all blow over once the next political fiasco makes headlines.  But I need to know who made the calls to Dublith asking about Izumi."

"Winry, you're asking the wrong questions.  Even if they put Al's picture in the paper like some kind of poster child, nobody's going to recognize him – I don't even know what he looks like!  You need to be worried about where Izumi is.  There was a terrorist attack that she got caught up in and now she's gone.  Why'd she leave Al all by himself when you're trying so hard to keep his profile low?"

"I just… I can't imagine Izumi vanishing like that.  Something's not right."

"There is the possibility she got caught up in the attack."

"No… no.  No.  Nope.  Not her."

"Okay, fine.  But if it's the military you're worried about, if someone made the connection, wouldn't they have reached out to you in Resembool?"

"Are you kidding?  They haven't reached out to us for anything since they were all out there.  None of them.  Our regional MP officer was even removed from the post office after the election.  They're busy licking their wounds because the government neutered them and we don't exist anymore.  You know what, good.  I don't want any reason for them to look our way either."

Havoc cleared his throat.  

A chorus of muffled squeaks vanished into the pages of literary soundproofing.

With casual swagger, Havoc walked the length of the aisle towards the study table where two familiar young women sat.  He popped the cigarette back into his lips, if only so he could grind his teeth on it.  "Hey ladies, is this where everyone playing hooky comes now?"

"L-lieutenant Havoc!" Winry and Sheska chirped in unison.

Flying to her feet, Sheska's stress level threatened to strangle all of them, "I-I-I, ay-ya, I should be getting back to my work.  I wasn't supposed to be gone for so long."

"Woah woah woah, don't run off," grinning playfully, Havoc swung his arm out and helped Sheska find her seat again, "I'm not head of the disciplinary committee.  I'm here to screw around same as everybody.  And pick up a book, maybe.  Let's have a sit down, just us library rebels."

The nervous duo across from Havoc sat stiff as boards in their chairs.

Helping himself to a chair at the eight-person table, Havoc spun it around and sat down backwards on the seat.  "Winry, long time no see.  What brings you out this way?"

The corner of her tense smile quivered, "Oh, I was in Rush Valley for business and had to transfer here on my way home, so I thought Sheska and I could catch up."

Havoc took the cigarette out of his mouth and shimmied it between two fingers, "In a library?"

Winry gestured to Sheska.

Sheska smiled sheepishly.

"Yeah, okay," Havoc couldn't question that logic.

"What brings you to the library in the middle of the day?" Winry briskly shifted topics, "I heard you guys were up to your eyeballs in work after what happened last week."

"I've tried to keep my nose out of that," Havoc released a genuine sigh of displeasure, "all that bullshit did was give me more papers to read and sign."

Winry frowned, "They gave you a desk job?  I can't see you enjoying that."

Havoc scoffed, "Well, you know, they neutered us, so yeah, I got the desk job now."  The comment was left hanging, just so Havoc could watch them squirm.  "The brigadier general is going to absolutely hate it when he comes back."

"'Comes back'?" Winry repeated.

Havoc met her squarely in the eyes, "Boss got shot."

"He what?  When!?" Winry stopped herself from popping out of her seat and swung around to Sheska, "I thought you said he was injured!?"

"That is his injury!  You didn't ask for details," Sheska squeaked in her defence and nervously addressed Havoc, "How's his recovery going?  Is he still on injury leave?"

"Yeah, he's not in the office."  Havoc shifted his eyes from one sheepish young woman to the other who was utterly baffled.  "He's due back before the end of summer, though.  I get to warm the chair for him in the meantime."

"Oh," Winry wrung her hands and forced a smile, "I hope his recovery goes well."

Havoc's disposition facetiously brightened, "Why don't you girls come by the office.  I'm taking a cue from the boss's playbook and killing an afternoon's worth of paperwork.  Nobody's been out your way in ages to check up on things… we can catch up, have a few drinks?  I got a stash in the drawer, it'll be a good time," with the flick of his finger, Havoc pointed at Winry, "and I'm sure everyone is going to want to hear how you guys have been doing out in Resembool."

"Oh no, we can't," both girls cried out in chorus. 

"I shouldn't, I need to work."

"And I have to get going."

"Oh, come on," Havoc put Sheska directly in his crosshairs and blasted a hole in her defences, "if you turn up in my office, then I can vouch for your whereabouts if anyone asks where you got off to today."

Sheska's expression fell off her face when she identified the malicious glint in Havoc's eye, "This is how blackmail works, I think." 

Winry flew out of her seat, "Sorry, I can't.  I have errands I need to run before I get back on the train."  Panic fueled Winry's haste and she picked up her tool case, then reached for her travel bag, only to see Havoc snatch it away from her.

"Well hey, a compromise," he slung it over his shoulder, "I'll drive you around, how about that?  It'll save you a ton of time and give you the hours you need to get your errands done and come by the office for a chit chat."

Winry started to strangle the shoulder strap of her tool case in her hands, "I can't trouble you like that."

"No trouble if it's a voluntary taxi service," Havoc snapped his fingers and grinned, "come on, what better way to navigate a big city like Central than with someone you know?"

In the face of a losing battle of lies, Winry glanced at the defeat written all over Sheska and forced herself to crack a smile, "I don't have a good reason to turn you down, do I?" 

"Nope," throwing his arm towards the exit, Havoc guided the women in his custody out of Central Library, "the car's outside, ladies."

 


 

"'Homunculus', you say?" the older woman at the library desk scratched her chin, "the title is familiar, but if it's not in the back room I can't say for sure if it's something we acquired."

"Is there anywhere else it might be?" Ed asked.

"Let's see…" the woman lazily adjusted the bun on her head, like it was a step in her thought process, "if you head through those doors on your left, the door at the end of that hallway is the photo development lab.  If it's not in the main collection, sometimes dusty reels get put in their storage closet."

"Can I have the keys for the lab?" impatience was starting to get the better of Ed.

As if to aggravate the man at her mercy further the woman slowly began opening the drawers of the desk she was sitting at.  She sifted through the contents as if she were picking through the garbage. 

Ed's bit his tongue and stomached her lollygagging.

"Oh!  No, I'm sorry.  I forgot – there's someone in there right now," she smiled, "If you knock on the door, maybe she'll let you in."

Ed whirled around before he said something he'd regret and marched towards the left side doors.  His foul mood and growing impatience wasn't something that was really her fault – his father's continued silence was responsible for that.  Hohenheim had hardly said two words to him since yesterday and Ed didn't want to address why.  He'd rather focus on this and his ponytail danced angrily behind him as he strode down the hallway.

Marching up to the door he'd been directed to, Edward gave a firm knock.  No one answered.  He knocked again, drilled his hands in his pockets, and waited for someone to let him in.  No one turned up.  Either he'd been lied to or the person inside couldn't hear him.  Ed mulled his options; he understood the warnings about entering a photography room and the trouble it might cause.  The science behind how light would ruin film development was something he'd read about once upon a time, but when he pressed his ear to the door he heard no signs of life. 

Ed grabbed the door handle and jostled it, hoping to startle someone into paying attention.  To his surprise it easily popped open.

Following it with his nose as the door swung inwards, Edward peeked into an unoccupied room.  There was really no one here.  Sliding in and shutting the door behind himself, Ed turned the knob on a dim desk lamp on a table nearby and looked around the vacancy.

"Hello?" 

No answer.

Edward walked slowly around the room, drifting past stray photography equipment that hadn't been put away.  He eyed a personal camera on a central, large table – it wasn't labelled as university property, who the heck could afford personal photography equipment right now?  Someone was definitely here.  Completing a full canvas of the room Ed took note of the doors on all four walls.  It was a little ridiculous to have multiple entrances to a film lab, so he concluded each one provided some kind of purpose for the lab. 

Ed grabbed the handle of the nearest door, pulled it open, and immediately regretted it.  He was bombarded with light.  Squinting in the abrasive brightness, Ed stared blankly down this glowing corridor.  The visual assault was going to give him a headache and Ed had started to close the door, but didn't finish because he heard giggling.  Headache be damned, Ed had a target to obtain; he marched into the light to hunt down the voice.  The giggles grew louder and clearer the closer he came to the end of the hall.  Arriving at the single door at the end of the hall, Ed cracked the room open to look inside.

The giggles promptly transformed into screams.  

A sharp, high pitched, piercing shriek tore into his ears and Ed dearly hoped nobody would hear this and come running.

"I'm so sorry!  I'll put this all back I swear!  I was just curious!"

Ed peered inside a room with a camera reel mounted on a projector and images flashing on a white screen across the room.  A blonde girl with tight curls screwed to her head appeared at nose level in front of him.

"Curious about what?" Ed looked into the shaken blue eyes of a petrified child barely old enough to be called a young lady.  "Are you allowed in here?"

"Wow…" the girl lost her fear and gawked at Ed, her eyes growing wide with wonder, "your eyes are yellow."

"They're gold," Ed corrected and sharply adjusted his tie, "who are you and what are you doing here?  Are you old enough to be here?"

The girl began to fidget with the sides of her dress, "Um, my name is Brigitte and I am here to develop a roll of film, but I got distracted."

Ed eyed her suspiciously, "Distracted in a room that doesn't have any film development equipment."

"Yes," Brigitte nodded, "I'm terribly sorry, please don't tell the nuns.  I'll put everything back as I found it and leave."

"Nuns?  What nuns?" Ed scratched the back of his head, he hadn't seen any nuns on the way in.

It was Brigitte's turn to eye Ed suspiciously, "Do you work here, Sir?  You're dressed awfully fine not to."

"Yes, but not this department.  I'm here looking for a film reel," finally getting his thoughts together, Ed looked up at what was flashing on the screen, "what the heck are you watching?"

"It's an animated film!  Drawn pictures that move!  I've never seen one before, have you?" Brigitte scampered to the projector and turned it off, "I found the reel in the storage closet when I came in and I had to see it with my own eyes." 

Ed watched as this school-aged girl stood on an overturned box and expertly rewound the film reel through the machine, then disassembled the set up on the projector without a hint of hesitation.  Ed cocked a brow, "How old are you?"

"Thirteen, Sir," she carefully laid the reel back into its container and pushed the lid down over it.

Ed had joined the military at twelve, and Hermann Oberth had built a model rocket when he was fourteen, so accepting that a thirteen-year-old would know how to do something pedestrian like operate a projector or develop film wasn't exactly a stretch for him to accept.  "You came here to develop your pictures?" Ed asked.

Swiftly marching past him and into the bright corridor, Brigitte held the reel against her chest, "I had some photographs of my mother, Heidi, and old classmates on my camera that I wanted to develop.  It's too expensive to hop on a train to Berlin every weekend to see them, so I took pictures before I left.  And if I can develop the film myself, why pay someone to do it for me?"

There was no arguing with that logic.  A busy, thought-filled expression mulled around on Ed's face as he sealed the screening room behind them and followed her down the hall.  Caught up in his mental review of the last few minutes, Brigitte startled Ed by putting him face to face with a camera lens.  Brigitte snapped a photograph of his puzzled expression.

"There's enough light in the hall that this should turn out," Brigitte turned the clunky camera around in her hands, "I wish I could make colour photographs.  No one's going to believe me at school when I tell them I met a man with yellow eyes."

Ed extended his gloved hands, making a non-verbal request to examine the camera.

"It's an AG Stuttgart Piccolette!" she proudly announced, handing it over, "my family got it for me for my birthday!"

Ed figured they had either saved up for years for it or this girl's family was one of the lucky ones to still have a comfortable bank account balance.  He looked the device over, "The university is letting you use their equipment to develop your pictures?"

"One of the Sisters helped arrange it for me," Brigitte nodded as she bounded back into the dimmed light of the photography development room, "I guess she's taking responsibility if I damage anything.  And I'll get ten lashes if I do, so I'm keeping everything as perfect as I can."

Ah, that's why she'd asked him to keep quiet – Ed had caught her doing something far more troublesome than developing film, and it probably warranted more than ten lashes.  Ed put the camera down on the counter and swapped it for the film reel she'd taken.  "Which one of these doors do I put this behind?"

"The one on your right has the extra film reels."  Brigitte skittered over to join Edward and pulled open the closet for him, "You said you were looking for a film?  Which one?"

"It's called 'Homunculus'," Ed returned the reel to the only empty hole in the shelves.

"I've heard of that, but I don't think it's here," Brigitte put her hands on her petite hips, "I looked at all of the titles before I watched one.  I didn't see 'Homunculus' on any of them."

"It would have been a six volume set, so you wouldn't have missed it."  Ed gave a disappointed sigh and shut the door on the reels, mumbling to himself, "Maybe I should just go to the market instead.  I'm chasing ghosts."

"Mister?"

"Hm?" Ed looked at her.

"If you knew who made the features, you could ask around and maybe find the director or other folks involved," Brigitte hopped up and sat on the table, "someone's bound to have it."

Ed laughed at himself – maybe that's what had been missing from his life lately: simple, youthful logic.  So much he'd been doing lately had been egregiously complicated.  "Okay Brigitte, do you know who Robert Dinesen, or Reinert, or whatever his name is… is?" 

Brigitte blinked at him silently.

Edward focused his gaze a little more poignantly on his company, "What?"

Crossing her legs, Brigitte smoothed out the front of her dress draping over her knees.  She chewed on the inside of her cheeks, trying to fight off a grin that was eking into her face.

"… What?" Ed scowled at her teasing.

"Mr. Reinert is co-founder of Emelka here in Munich," Brigitte chirped proudly, "I shot a documentary with them last summer."

A few interesting pieces came together and Ed grinned along with her, "Where's the studio?"

"You see, it's on the other side of the city," Brigitte looked to the ceiling playfully, "and it's Saturday, so they're closed."

Ed's hand slapped over his face.

"However."

"Now what?" he looked at her through his fingers.

Brigitte clasped her hands over her top knee, unable to bobble her head hard enough to make the tight curls bounce, "The markets are busy on Saturdays, right?  Do you want to help me develop my film instead?"

 


 

From the comfort of his old chair for a job he somedays loathed, but constantly missed, Mustang watched Havoc's steady hand shut the office door.  One of his two most trusted officers cocked an eyebrow.  Mustang's hardened gaze asked the lieutenant more questions than his voice did.

"And?"

"There are two interesting ladies in the hall with Falman," Havoc said.

Mustang took in a slow, controlled breath; his quest for answers was showing signs of coming together.  "Can they both address my questions?"

Havoc nodded, "They sure can."

"What do I need to know before we start?" Mustang's good eye narrowed.

Whisking a wooden chair along the scratched floor, Havoc turned the seat to face his superior and sat down in front of him.  "I know the story Al stuck to was riddled with enough bullet holes to drive a truck through, but still… Winry's in town because that kid we saw in the hospital was Alphonse Elric."

Mustang tightened the screws of his jaw.

"What I overheard before the story started to change was that Winry came in from Resembool looking for him.  Even she doesn't know where Izumi Curtis buggered off to, but there is definitely some sort of effort being made on their end to keep us in the dark." 

Mustang extended a small olive branch to the parties from Resembool, "If the reclamation of Alphonse's body was a success, I can conjure up a few reasons why they'd want to keep his identity under wraps."

"Yeah, but that ship sank and this kid didn't recognize us," the look in Havoc's eyes was just as invested in the mystery as Mustang was, "we had to clue him in and the moment we did he shut us out.  We're still missing big pieces here."

"Where's Ed?"

Havoc adopted Mustang's stern gaze.

"The flesh and blood reincarnation of Alphonse Elric turns up in the rubble of a firestorm and it's the Rockbell girl who arrives in Central City looking for him?"  Straightening up in the seat, Mustang's frustration radiated off of him. "Where the hell is Ed?"  Questions that beget more questions fueled the flames in his mind, spreading like a wildfire and igniting all the suspicious loose ends.  "What motivation do these people have to shut us out?  No matter what I do they can't seem to understand that I am trying to help them."  

His parting with Ed had been amicable, there was no reason for this.  The last time they'd seen each other was one of the few occasions where Mustang felt he and Ed had understood one another on the same level.  Even if Ed's intention was to never cross paths with him again, this reaction tasted foul.  What toxin leaked into that understanding while he was bedridden?  

Mustang's good eye drifted over to the window, "I'm running out of patience for this circus, Havoc…"

The frustration welling in the room was disrupted by a knock on the door.

Sheska's head poked in.  Her eyes filled her glasses, her mouth opened, but her words were captured by the interrogative expression Mustang's scowled at her with.  

"Join us, Sheska," Havoc stood up, his invitation anything but welcoming.

"Uh, well, we were actually..." she nervously glanced back out into the hall, "going to go for coffee in the cafeteria, did you… uhm, want to join us?" 

"No," Mustang's answer was resolute, "I want you to take a seat in here."

"Okay."  Sheska's fingernails danced on the door's edges, her nerves overwhelmed by the intimidating presence of the men in the room.  She tossed her head back out into the hall, "Hey Winry, I'll be a sec.  Brigadier General Mustang wants to talk to me."

"SHESKA!" Havoc's fist slammed down onto the table as he flew to his feet.

Sheska jumped out of the way of an officer who rarely displayed his frustrations.  She staggered into the room when he raced past her and into the hallway.  Standing with her back to the heart of Mustang's office, she watched the door click shut in Havoc's wake.

"Take a seat." 

Mustang sat squarely at his desk, fingers laced, and his good eye firing bullets at his guest as she turned around.  He listened to her shoes echo on approach to the centre of the room, and said nothing more to her until she figured out she was expected to sit down in the same chair in front of him that Havoc had vacated.

"Can you guess why we're talking today?" Mustang controlled his tone.

"N-no, Sir."

"Bullshit." 

Sheska cringed at the echo.

Before Mustang could fire another verbal shot, the door opened again.  The confusion plaguing Falman was set aside when he needed to do a double take of the occupants in the room.  He threw his hand to his forehead, "SIR!"

Mustang shook his head to put him at ease.

"Pardon the intrusion, but," Falman watched Sheska attempt to shrink herself on the chair, "where did Winry run off to?"

Havoc nudged his way back into the room with a disappointed frown and shook his head.

Mustang's expression grew darker, "Warrant Officer Falman, I want Winry Rockbell arrested."

"Wh… what for?!" Sheska shrieked, scrambling to her feet.

"Hindering an investigation!" Mustang's bark sent Falman racing from the room, "this department still has the authority to bring suspects into custody in regards to the Central Market case and that's exactly what I will do."

"Wait a minute!" Sheska skittered away from Havoc when he confiscated the chair behind her, "Winry wasn't even in town when that happened!"

"Can't be too sure about that," Havoc tucked the chair away tightly into the table, stranding Sheska in the middle of the room, "you were there when Winry told me she'd been in Rush Valley, but before that I heard you ask her why no one contacted her in Resembool about the Al Curtis investigation."

Sheska's nervous swallow was audible.  She adjusted the glasses on her nose.

"Can't imagine why we'd have done that, right?  Everything's fine out there, isn't it?"  Havoc shook his head as he walked around the table, tucking all the chairs in as he went, "Resembool and Rush Valley are days apart and you have to cut through Central to go between them.  Can't be in two places at once, so I suppose until we can confirm her exact whereabouts for the last week, we don't know anything for sure." 

Growing more pale by the second, Sheska gawked at Havoc, "How much of our conversation did you hear?"

Havoc sat down on the table's edge, "Enough."

Clenching her fists, Sheska's shoulders tightened as she tried to subdue her nerves, "Can't you take a hint and leave this alone?  It doesn't involve you."

"You are wrong."  Slowly Mustang rose to his feet, unaided by his cane, "Months ago I came to an understanding with Ed, or so I thought.  I understood that at the conclusion of whatever he sought to achieve, he would disappear.  In respect of that, from the shackles of my bed I wagged my fingers to make sure the Resembool district would not be disturbed.  I had no intention of intruding on anyone's privacy, but Alphonse ventured out from his brother's security net and landed in mine."  Every syllable marched with precision off Mustang's tongue.  "Right now, in this situation, I do not believe I deserve to be treated as an obstacle.  I am concerned, yet nothing I can do, no gesture I extend seems to convince anyone that my agenda includes taking their well-being into consideration."

Sheska winced as she dropped her eyes to the floor, "Sir, I don't think you quite understand…"

"That is exactly my problem – I do not understand."  The unwanted interruption ignited a fire in Mustang's tirade, "I don't understand why I have to fight to get information on a boy that is somehow Alphonse Elric.  I don't understand why I just ordered a nonsensical arrest.  I do not understand why critical people insist on lying and creating barriers to keep me out."  With each sentence Mustang's tone ascended higher, his enunciation punching through every step.  "I do not understand the motivation behind Al's behaviour towards me, and I absolutely, unequivocally do not understand why Ed has been a complete non-factor this entire time.  I have a thousand more questions than I have answers, because the doors I left open have all slammed in my face," his fists thundered on the desk, "don't misunderstand how frustrated this has made me."

Standing silent, alone in the centre of the room, Sheska unbuttoned the top of her jacket and reached into the inside pocket of her coat.  An envelope torn open by her finger was produced.  Walking up to the desk, she placed it between herself and a man screaming for answers.  Keeping her head low, Sheska hid her eyes behind the light reflecting off her glasses and stepped back.

"Can I be excused?"

Mustang slid the envelope towards himself.  The return address caught his good eye and he pulled the two page letter out from the envelope.  He confiscated it, "You can go."

Sheska's hand darted across the desk, snatching back her empty envelope.  Shoving it carelessly into a pocket she stormed out of the room and let the door slam shut behind her.

Mustang folded the letter in his hand in half and tucked it away in the breast pocket of his dress shirt.  The time it took to put on his black coat and do up the buttons was enough to dispel his visual aggravation and mellow his expression.  Straightening his jacket with a sharp tug and taking a firm grip on his cane, the officer who was sick of being relegated to injury leave headed towards the door.  "My condolences Lieutenant Havoc, it's 4:30 and you still have a ton of paperwork left to do.  I hope you're not up too late tonight getting it done."

Havoc could only laugh as a foreboding chair was relinquished to him once again, "I didn't have anywhere to be tonight."

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


 

Notes:

Havoc didn't take over all of Roy's job, just a part of it. Roy's duties were distributed among his senior staff (IE: Hawkeye and Havoc).

This take on Fritz Lang was concocted long before the CoS one lol

Homunculus (6-part German silent film – 1916). Directed by Otto Rippert, written by Robert Dinesen (Reinert). Yes, it really exists.

 

Revised 2023-09-26

Chapter 6: Father's Christmas

Summary:

A look back to Edward's first Christmas after his arrival in London. Special Chapter.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The hinges of a car door creaked open, the bitter cold doing very little for the health of the imperfect vehicle, let alone its occupants.  Seated in the open door, Ed brought his right leg out out and let his boot vanished into the snow.  He pulled the wool hat down tighter over his head and looked around.  The amount of snow that had fallen over the last week was like nothing he'd ever seen.  

Hohenheim put his son in the corner of his eye.  Reaching across the seat, he handed Ed his wooden crutch.  "Are you going to be okay in the snow?"  

Using the side of the car for support, Ed pulled himself up onto his only leg.  "It's just the walkway," he grumbled like he'd cursed, tone colder than the air around them.  

Tucking the crutch under his left arm, Ed hopped away from the car.  Hohenheim emerged and shut the doors behind them.  Shivering in his weighted coat, Ed waited for his old man to lead the way and followed him up a snow covered path to the house they'd been invited to for the evening.  From what he'd seen of London thus far, this brick building seemed to be one of the more well-to-do ones.  He sank into the scarf wrapped around his neck and tried to keep the wind from stinging his cheeks.

Hohenheim knocked firmly on the door twice.  Before his hand was able to land for the third, it swung open.

"Aunty!  They're here!" the little girl opening the door called into the house before addressing her guests.  "Come inside!  The cold is bitter tonight."

"Thank you, Diana."  Hohenheim motioned for his son to follow. 

Ed moved as briskly as caution would allow with his crutch in the snow.  The last thing he wanted to do was fall over again, just the thought of the circus that would cause was exhausting.  

The brightness of the entryway to this oversized home was abrasive and hit Ed like a ton of bricks when he entered.  Despite his need to squint, the air inside the house was welcoming, providing a rare occasion where he was able to smell baking an oven and was aware of a fireplace roaring somewhere nearby.  Ed shook the snow from his shoulders and Hohenheim plucked the hat off his son's head.

An unknown woman rushed down the hall towards the arriving guests, brown spiral curls bouncing around her head.  "I'm so glad you came!  I was worried the weather's turn would keep you home."  The woman hiked up her poofy holiday dress so she could bend down and put aside the boots cluttering the hallway.  The weary expression of her newest guest caught her attention once she finished.  "Please Edward, have a seat on the stairs so you can unbundle yourself."

Awkwardly making his way across the hall, Ed manoeuvred to a staircase reaching into the upper floors.  He leaned the crutch up against the wall and gripped the railing with his left hand to ease himself down.  "Sorry, my boot's leaving tracks on your rug."

"Goodness don't worry about it," the lady of the house adjusted his crutch against the wall, "the little ones spilled juice on it earlier in the day.  Snow and soil are nothing."

Ed unwrapped the scarf from his neck as the woman reached around to help him with his coat.  Lifting his gaze to meet hers, the weighty circles under Ed's eyes tried to pull his head back down.  "I'm alright."

She smiled, "You're our guest, I'll help you with your coat."

Ed reluctantly accepted the assistance.  His coat was hung in the closet while he pulled his foot out of the step-in boot. 

Hohenheim collected his son's footwear added it to the others. 

Ed hoisted himself upright and glanced down to make sure the pin was still keeping his other pant leg rolled up.  Steadying himself against the wall for support, Ed reclaimed his crutch as a pair of young faces peered down the stairwell in wonder of their unique visitor.  Casting a blank, dull look up to the next floor, Ed stared at two little girls in matching green and red plaid dresses glued at the hip, their arms clutching wooden dolls.  

"Diana, come down here!"

The two-headed child monster staring at Ed split apart and the one who'd opened the door left her companion, trotted down the stairs, passed Ed, and arrived at the woman's feet.  "Yes Aunty?"

The woman addressed as 'Aunty' turned her attention to Ed.  She straightened his vest and refolded his collar before he had a chance to protest her fussing.  "Would you show these gentlemen to the sitting room, please?"

Hohenheim took the lead and Ed trudged behind.  Not more than twenty of his father's strides later, their little escort made a sharp turn and welcomed the pair through a set of white, brass-handled doors.  

"Hohenheim!" a rich voice greeted them, "you made it through the weather."  The man welcoming him placed a pipe down in a tray and rushed to shake hands.

Lingering at the fringes of the room, listening to the doors close behind him, Ed's eyes travelled the impressive, but utterly baffling room.  Endless oddities were presented to his eye and they all spun his head with questions.  The most obvious, captivating attraction was a huge, decorated pine tree set up at the window.  A mountain of tightly wrapped presents lay beneath the branches, and at its peak something that looked like an angel was mounted.  The presence of a tree indoors filled the air with the fresh scent of pine.  Ed had been warned about this custom, and as odd as it had sounded it was even stranger to see in person.  Swallowing uncomfortably, Ed scanned the next most notable thing – the crowd of perfectly groomed, finely dressed people sitting on fancy chairs and sofas encircling an elegant glass coffee table.  Oversized oil paintings in etched, gold-like frames hung on the walls.  Leafy decorations and child's papercraft were hung throughout the room.  An orange crackling fireplace lived happily behind a protective screen with a number of red stockings hung above it. 

"Edward, I'm glad you were feeling well enough to join us."

A bewildered look dominated Ed's expression and he stared at the man addressing him.  "I was told I had to come."  He shifted his weight against the crutch and finally noticed all the curious adult eyes gathered in the room were staring at him.

"Edward, this is Charles Wilson," Hohenheim introduced the man who'd greeted him.

With a smirk, the upright, trim gentleman sized up Ed and turned to his father, "Your boy's gotten a fair bit of his colour back in his complexion, I think.  That's good to see."

Hohenheim gave a nod and moved to sit down.  "It's good indeed.  And it's good to see you again Charles, you've been busy on duty the last couple months."

"Yes and let me tell you words cannot express how glad I am to have Christmas leave!"  The man with the surname Wilson passed a quick look back at Edward.  "Don't stand there young man, take a seat.  Julie, sit like a lady so Edward can have a spot on the chesterfield."

A quiet girl Ed hadn't noticed, the only person in the room not making him uncomfortable by staring, apologized and pulled her feet off the seat cushions.  She smoothed her extravagant green patterned dress over her knees and seated herself perfectly at the end of the sofa.

Moving over to the spot made available at the centre of things, Ed let his body drop into the cushions.  Laying his crutch on the ground, he glanced to a young man a few years his senior sitting on his right side.  He caught the look Ed gave and offered his new company a simple nod of welcome.  Returning the gesture, Ed moved his attention to the girl who'd melted out of her perfect position and opted to lean against the arm of the sofa.  The curls on her head matched the ones the lady at the door had, but unlike that lady this girl had an extravagant bow woven into the back of her hair.  She glanced his way momentarily, like she'd sensed he was looking, and Ed was sure he'd made eye contact, but she offered no acknowledgement of his presence. 

"Edward," Wilson commanded his attention, "your seatmates are Julie and Thomas Hyland."  He motioned to the two people flanking Ed, he then began to go around the circle of the men, women, and children enjoying the entrées and wine filling the centre table.  "This is their father, Mr. Hyland, their mother greeted you at the door.  This young man is Randolph, and I believe you met his older sister Diana already," he motioned to the two additional children now sharing a space on a facing seat.  "And this is their father and mother, Winston and Clementine Churchill."

Clementine's name and face rang a bell for Ed and it took him a second to remember why.  "I never got to thank you for the quilt."

"Oh goodness, you don't need to," her smile warmed the already toasty room, "I've put together countless quilts for so many children in the hospital before, the extra one was no problem.  I thought you'd like something a little more enjoyable than those dull white sheets."

"Since we left the hospital, it's become an ornament for my den," Hohenheim chuckled, "he sits on it if the floor's cold, he wraps himself up in it when he's reading the paper in the morning, the rest of the time he's sound asleep in it on my sofa."

Withering into his seat cushions, Ed glared a rifle load of bullets at Hohenheim. 

The adults in the room burst into a chorus of laughter at the display of disapproval.

"You embarrassed him, Hohenheim!  For shame."

It was a foregone conclusion that if Ed raised his voice he'd only make the scene worse, and it wasn't like he could leave.  Unimpressed with the lot of them, his pupils fell into the corners of his eyes and he watched Julie giggle.  She never sent an eye his way for Ed to scowl at, instead her amusement was locked on the beige sofa arm she leaned against and it never wandered.

Wilson ended the ruckus and redirected the thoughts in the room.  "Winston, I've been meaning to ask, how have your dealings with Lloyd been going?"

"Bah," Churchill lurched in his seat with hearty 'humph', "the man is tied, seems I have too many enemies in the Conservatives to do anything right now.  He promises to try and weave some magic for me once the new government is settled, I look forward to that when he does."

"The change of government is good, though," Hohenheim added to the conversation, "perhaps the change can bring an end to this war sooner."

"Cheers to that."

War, war, war... that's all Ed ever heard people chat about.  His attention returned to the corner of his eye.  Julie was still staring at the sofa arm and he couldn't figure out why.  Some force he couldn't identify got her to lift her head and Ed watched her scan the room not with her eyes, but with her… nose?  Ed's brow knotted.

"Julie, would you give me a hand in the kitchen please," her mother called.

"There's something on the floor Julie, watch your step," Thomas warned.

"I'll move it."  Ed reached for his crutch.

"No need, I'll be fine."  

For the first time since Ed had arrived, Julie came to life.  She swept her feet around the crutch and she stood up.  Intrigue had Ed watching her as she left the room, her fingers splayed like whiskers at her sides and her feet barely leaving the floor, like was trying to float.

"She's blind, if that's what you're wondering," Thomas explained to his puzzled guest watching his sister maneuver her way out of the room. 

Ed turned, "How?  Her eyes look fine."

"Oh sure they do, doesn't mean they work."  Thomas shrugged, "She blinks, she cries, she 'looks' around, but she doesn't see anything.  A few years ago she became sick, an infection spread, and she lost her sight.  But this is her house and she knows where everything is – she's really sharp that way."  

Ed put his eyes on the door Julie had exited through behind them.

Thomas flipped the tied sleeve hanging off Ed's right shoulder with the back of his hand, "Hey, Churchill's kids took off upstairs and politics bores me to tears.  Let's go in the kitchen and be taste testers for my mother's cooking.  Worst that can happen is she'll put us to work and we can sample the stuff as we go."

Staring at his empty sleeve that had been disturbed, then finding the crutch at his foot, Ed hesitated with the invite.  "I'll be in the way."

"No more in the way than Julie," Thomas grinned, "come on, before your father turns you into conversation fodder again."

That was enough motivation for Ed to get going and he followed as Thomas excused them both from the gathering.

 


 

Laughter filled a room with two large oak tables that had been pushed together.  All guests in attendance sat around the oversized dining table covered in a white embroidered cloth, accented with candles and wine glasses, used cutlery and dirty napkins.  What was left of Christmas dinner and all its trimmings covering the table was now generous helpings of leftovers to be sent home with guests and enjoyed over the coming days.  

Louise Hyland, dinner's matriarch, circled the chatty table collecting plates to be washed.  She stopped at Ed when he offered her his.  "Are you sure you're finished, dear?"

The half eaten plate of food was offered again with an affirmative nod.

She shifted her eyes from the plate to the table.  "Are you going to drink your wine?"

Ed shook his head, "No, ma'am."

"Okay."  She took his plate and slipped the untouched wine glass into her fingers.

A look of concern was passed from Hohenheim to Charles Wilson and the man excused himself from the table.

"Edward, come upstairs with me please," Wilson instructed.

Puzzled by the request, Ed looked around at the eyes pretending they weren't staring at him again.  Unhooking his crutch from the back of the tall dining chair, Ed rose and followed the man beckoning him out of the room, if only to save him self from all those eyes.  Arriving at the bottom of the Hyland's towering stairwell Ed watched Wilson effortlessly ascend to the second floor and cursed under his breath.  He propped himself up against the wall and picked his crutch up by its centre column.  

"Would you like me to carry you up?" Wilson asked.

Ed pitched his crutch up the stairwell.  "No."  He gripped the bannister and started hopping up the stairs.

Wilson picked up the crutch that hadn't made it all the way to the top and carried it the final few steps.

By the time Ed made it to the second floor, he was out of breath.  Every inhale and exhale bubbled and crackled uncomfortably in his lungs.  Ed dumped his weight over the crutch Wilson jammed under his left arm and tried to clear his throat of the disturbance.

"Now then, I think she said…" Wilson looked around, "ah, that's right.  We're going into the Hyland's study!  Come along."

Ed summoned the energy to follow Wilson down the dim hall.  The man disappeared into a room well ahead of him, and by the time Ed arrived all the lamps had been turned on.  He looked around at a compact study room full of stuffed bookshelves, a writing desk and chair by an elaborately dressed window, and a decorative lounging chaise with round pillows.  The closest thing to him was the chaise and Ed hobbled over to it.

Wilson shut the door as Ed sat down.  "You don't remember who I am, do you young man?"

Ed cautiously lay his crutch to the side, narrowing an eye in thought.  

Wilson filled the sealed room with his voice, "I visited you a few times around the end of September, and a wee bit in early October while you were in the hospital.  I wasn't sure if you'd remember that or not."

Ed shifted his gaze into the corners of the room and soured, "I saw a lot of people in that hospital, I can't remember everyone."

"No one expects you to, don't put on such a face," Wilson dismissed the absent memory and offered information to shed some light on what was going on.  "I was a physician at St. Mary's Medical School before the war started, I'm looking to go back when it's all over."

The gold in Ed's eyes saw red.  "Wait, did he put you up to this?"  Every barbed wire fence and barricade around Ed rose in the presence of this unfamiliar man.  Frustration infected his voice and anger mutated his scowl.  "I'm sick of this.  I'm besieged by doctors everywhere I go."

Wilson laughed at the vicious life that corrupted him, "Yes, I can imagine you're pretty tired of seeing us by now."

"I'm fine," Ed barked, "what do you want me up here for?"

Wilson humphed and approached the writing desk.  He pulled a lengthy, robust black case and tote bag out from under it, then opened the bag.  "You've been adamant you've been feeling better the last few weeks I hear – has your cough cleared?"

"I don't know how many times I have to repeat myself to all of you!?  I'm feeling fine," Ed's sharp reply snapped off his tongue, "and I have been fine all month."

"Your father has expressed concerns regarding that," Wilson examined the inferno burning in Ed's eyes, "and he says you've started to make a scene whenever the doctors come to check up on you."

"Yeah cause I told that old man like I'm telling you, I don't need to see doctors any more, but you all keep showing up anyway!" Ed wrung his left hand tightly around the grip of his crutch, like he had every intention of somehow storming out of the room with it.  "I'm sick and tired of how that asshole thinks he knows what's best for me." 

"Thomas had a phase where he was a foul brat and I'd box his ears when he acted up."  Wilson's cross look and throaty grumble fearlessly challenged the foul creature glaring at him, "Mind you tongue, Edward.  Hohenheim might not discipline you properly, but I have no problem dealing with upstart young men."  The doctor pulled a stethoscope from his bag and snapped it around his neck.

Strangling his crutch, Ed tossed it to the floor in a fit of frustration and fell backward into the chaise, wincing when his head smacked off the wall behind him.

Pulling the wooden chair from the writing desk around the discarded aide, Wilson sat down in front of a cranky adversary acting too immature for his age.  "How do you sleep?"

"Just fine," Ed grumped.

"I doubt that," Wilson countered, "I meant do you sleep on your stomach, your side, or your back?"

Ed paused to consider his answer, then narrowed his eyes, "On my back." 

"Do you?"  The response popped Wilson's brows.  In a flash he'd grabbed Ed by his ankle and had swung his leg up onto the chaise.  

Falling back onto the cushions as he spun sideways, Ed tried to sit up, "What are you—" 

Wilson made his patient gasp when he grabbed Ed by his throat and pushed him down onto his back, then got up to walk away.  "Lay there for a few minutes." 

Left wide-eyed and staring at the ceiling, Ed's only hand washed lightly around his neck.  Anchoring Wilson in the corner of his eye, Ed covered his mouth to clear his throat while the doctor opened a notebook on the table and started to write.  Something in Ed's chest pinched and he turned his attention to the ceiling.  He poured his concentration into tracing the grooves of the wooden boards and tried to lose track of time.  He tried to think of nothing else but his study of the patterns overhead.  It wouldn't go away.  Ed could feel it crackling in the centre of his chest – the wheeze fluttering his breaths.  He hated laying flat on his back.

Wilson made Ed jump when he appeared in his sightlines and choked down his cough like he was trying not to vomit.  The doctor latched a finger in the knot of Ed's tie and completely unravelled it from around his neck.  Unable to drum up the energy to fight him, Ed made sure his disgruntled sigh was clearly heard before he undid the top three buttons of his dress shirt.

"You're a better sport than I thought you'd be," Wilson smirked and put the cold chestpiece of the stethoscope under his shirt. 

Ed rolled his head away and stared at the wall.

"So tell me Edward," Wilson pulled the headset away from his ears and offered it to him, "do you want to hear what I'm listening to or can you feel it?"

Ed's gaze tightened, his jaw locked, and he continued staring at the wall.

Wilson climbed to his feet, stood above an exhausted, miserable patient teetering on the edge of a tantrum, and hooked the stethoscope around his neck.  "I know it's been a slow process, slower than it should be, and I understand it's been aggravating for you, but you are getting better.  This will pass.  Help yourself to a few more pillows and elevate your upper body when you sleep – that should alleviate your cough.  Calm down; let yourself relax and it will do your body a wonder of good.  

The tension knotting Ed up loosened a bit with a sigh, though his eyes stayed glued to the wall.

Wilson returned to the writing table, "Drink plenty of water as well, as hot as you like.  The warmth is soothing.  If you're still having problems sleeping, take a shot of brandy, that'll knock you out."

Ed rolled his head, tucked his chin into his chest, and slowly sat up.  "You done with me?"

A dark piece of fabric flew across the room and landed in Ed's lap.  He picked it up and tried to lay it over his thighs to figure out what he'd been given.  In the middle of the puzzle, Wilson arrived seatside and slapped a firm, open hand into the centre of Ed's back.  Ed lurched; whatever he'd been handed turned into the material he used to  smother his face and bury his coughs.

Wilson shook his head at the sound, rubbed Ed's back as his body tried to rid itself of the mess harassing his lungs, then stepped away.  "Put those shorts on, I want to look at what's left of your leg."  En route to the door, Doctor Wilson picked up the crutch carelessly discarded to the floor, tucked it under his arm, and left the room with it.  "I'll be back shortly."

 


 

Doctor Wilson's re-emergence quieted the families in the sitting room and put tea cups back on their dishes.  Attention moved to Hohenheim, all parties in the room well aware of the concerns that had kept the man silent.  The oldest man there laced his fingers and met the doctor's eyes.

"That boy's biggest problem is he's exhausted," Wilson circled the congregation, "you can see it on him if it's not already evident with his poor behaviour.  He needs more rest, better rest and I'm confident when he gets it his disposition will brighten and his appetite will come back."  Sitting in an open chair, he faced Hohenheim, "The shift in weather is most likely what caused the flare up.  Give him a few extra pillows or cushions or whatnot and make sure he stays propped up while he sleeps."  Scanning the centre table for his pipe, Wilson snapped it up and tossed a match into it.  "Some folks struggle with lingering effects from pneumonia more than others and that's just the luck of the draw.  I can't prescribe much more than what's been done for him already.  You can take that look off your face now, it's ruining the evening."

The tension binding Hohenheim eased enough for him to exhale in relief.  "Thank you."

Mr. Hyland gave Hohenheim a firm pat on his shoulder, "I told you, you were worrying too much.  He'd be in dire straits if he'd come down with it again."

"Make sure he eats, he needs the energy," Wilson barked through a puff of smoke.  "Shove it down his throat if he's being stubborn about it.  He didn't finish everything at dinner and he looks thin.  It bothers me."  The doctor took a lengthy drag from his pipe, "He's a foul little bugger Hohenheim, how do you put up with his belligerence?  I can see why he's been frustrating you, but you should have strapped him ages ago for this behaviour."

Hohenheim shook his head at the comment, "That's not how I do things Charles."

"I must have met somebody else today, because the Edward I was introduced to was quite pleasant in the kitchen before dinner."  Louise Hyland caught the men's attention and re-crossed her legs to throw a wrench in their personality assessment, "He was well mannered and polite with me, helping Julie and myself out.  I needed the potatoes peeled, but Edward couldn't do it with just one hand and I'm not too comfortable allowing Julie to handle a knife, so they teamed up.  She sat on his lap and handled the potatoes instead while he peeled them.  I was a little hesitant, but he was very coordinated and good about the whole thing."

Searching for any signs of exaggeration in Louise, but finding nothing in her honest expression to give him doubts, Hohenheim exhaled and slumped in his chair, "That's… reassuring."

Wilson huffed and tapped his pipe into the ashtray, "Still, the boy needs a stern reminder of how sick he was in that hospital, Hohenheim.  He's lucky he isn't dead and he doesn't respect that."

"I'll find an appropriate time to talk to him, Charles," Hohenheim offered his assurance with no guarantee of how long Ed would listen to him.

"Well, I think I've given him long enough," Wilson put his pipe down on the table and stood up from his seat, "time to see how this goes." 

Anticipation, amusement, and a bit of wonder filtered into the eyes still seated in the room.  Hohenheim's face fell into his hands as a scattering of interested smiles shone their spotlights on him. 

 


 

As much as he wanted to, Ed couldn't fold his arms.  He'd done as he'd been told, he had the doctor's black cotton shorts on to go with this ironed dress shirt and a vest that came from somewhere, plus a braid in his hair that he couldn't weave for himself.  As far from any sense of familiarity with himself as he could get, there was no posture or position Ed could get into to project his displeasure.  He could only sour his expression when Doctor Wilson came back in.  

"Good lad," the doctor grinned and sat himself in the seat in front of Edward all over again.

"Where's my crutch?" Ed demanded.

"Patience," Wilson gave him an unwanted pat on the cheek before taking a look at what he'd come up there for.  "That's jolly good, this is healing quite nicely."  Wilson couldn't help but chuckle at the circumstances, "What on earth managed to sever your leg so cleanly?  Even a guillotine couldn't have accomplished this." 

Ed buried his eyes in the corner of the room and couldn't answer, but flinched when the doctor thumb inspected the prominent scar line cutting across the base of his left leg stump.

"Sorry, is it sensitive?" 

"Your hand is cold," he mumbled.

Wilson rose and returned to the clutter of things beneath the writing desk.  Stuffing his stethoscope into the tote bag and shuffling it aside, the far larger and weightier black case was moved from the floor to the desk.  Unbuckling a few latches, Wilson lifted the lid and nodded his approval of the contents inside.  "Yes, this looks more than acceptable."

Curiously peering across the room, Ed watched the doctor lift a wooden leg from the case.  The angry folds creasing his face smoothed away.  An inhale lifted Ed's chest, he perched himself on the edge of the chaise, and Wilson got his undivided attention.

"It should suffice for now, until you find something more to your liking or have a growth spurt."  Wilson walked up to Ed with the contraption presented in both hands and was treated to the interest clearly written on his patient's face.  "Prosthetics is not my specialty, but I had an old study buddy give me a hand in getting this.  I took your measurements a few months ago, so you better not have grown any."

Ed stared at the device being held between them.

"The ankle has a fairly good range of motion, the artificial tendons inside allow for the toes to push back, and that'll make it easier for you to learn to walk again.  The knee joint is quite durable from what I was told, but don't go pounding up and down the stairs, they don't make these out of metal."  Wilson sat down in the chair facing Ed, laid the wooden leg across his lap, and gave his patient a reason to end his silence.  "Do you want to try it on?" 

Ed swallowed, "I uh… I shouldn't."  No matter how much he wanted to stand square on two legs again, there was no way he could bring himself to ask the man downstairs.  "I can't afford something like this."

Grabbing Ed under his arm, Wilson pulled him off the seat and stood up with him.  Ed frantically gripped the man's shoulders, unable to conquer the imbalance on his own.  Hunching over and driving a shoulder into Ed's abdomen to help steady him, Wilson put the foot of the false leg on the floor and secured it beneath his patient.  Giving Ed a firm slap on his floating left hip, the doctor barked.

"Step down."

Ed shifted his weight and did as he was told.  What remained of his left thigh sank into a cool cup and his entire body stopped without toppling over.  For the first time since he'd woken up in this nightmare, Ed stood on two legs square to the world.

Wilson held him firmly under his arm, "It'll take some practice before you learn how to walk with it confidently, but I don't foresee you having a problem with that."

It seemed so crude from what he was used to, but Ed wasn't bothered by the downgrade.  The casing engulfed much of what remained of his thigh.  It needed buckles and a waist band to secure it.  Ed rolled through the motions of his knee, ankle, and toes, playing with his new limited range of motion.  It was clearly heavier than anything he'd used before, but it made Ed feel light.  Adjusting his posture, shifting the strain off his abused right hip, levelling his shoulders, and straightening his back, Ed breathed.

Wilson let him go, stepped away, and allowed his patient to get a sense of his new bearings.  "It's yours by the way." 

Ed's eyes rounded and he gawked at the doctor wordlessly.

"Your father wanted to give it to you, but he was concerned you'd reject it if it came from him."  Wilson added and examined how the information muddled Ed's brow and dropped his eyes.  Before his clenched fists and sharp breath could battle with words of protest, Wilson preempted the tirade, "It's the wrong time of year for you to act as though you're an ungrateful child, Edward."

"Everyone keeps calling me a child.  I keep telling you I'm not," Ed's words lacked their usual bite.

"Technically you are always someone's child, no matter how old you are or how far away they are.  I am twice your age, but I will always be my mother and father's child."  The doctor put a hand on Ed's shoulder as his defensive posture began to crumble, "And your father wishes you a Merry Christmas."

Ed shut his eyes and his shoulders fell.  He took a slow deep breath in through his nose and exhaled just as slowly, before opening his eyes again.  "I wish he wouldn't."

"I wish he'd say more to you than that."  Wilson narrowed an eye.  Finding the wooden chair near the chaise, Wilson sat down.  "Have a seat, Edward.  I want a word with you."  

Ed shook his head, "I don't have anything I want to talk about."

"Then sit down and listen for a change."

Engaging the stern resolution of the doctor's gaze, Ed cautiously lowered himself to the chaise behind his two knees and opened his ears.

 


 

In front of a crackling fireplace, Ed sat on the floor and deposited his gaze in the flames.  Propped up against the sofa, both his flesh leg and the wooden one he was strapped into were stretched out beneath the coffee table.  His head was drifting to the side, threatening to fall off his neck.  Untied golden blonde hair lay caught in the wide, unbuttoned collar of his dress shirt.

Hohenheim had put himself in the room, deliberately in his son's peripheral vision, and still received no acknowledgement.  On the one hand he was beyond relieved the gift had been received, but there was no hiding his concern that Ed hadn't said a word since getting home.  Everyone at the party was more excited about seeing Ed properly upright than he was about being that way, and Hoehnheim didn't know what to make of the subdued reaction.  The only time Ed voluntarily spoke to him was when he made a request to go home around nine o'clock, surprising his father with an admission of being tired.

Now occupying his usual place in the den, Ed sat on the floor as devoid of life as any rag doll.

Before it cooled any farther, Hohenheim placed a fresh teacup and saucer on the table in front of him and swapped it for the empty one Ed had finished.  "Hot water seems sort of plain, I thought you'd like tea instead."

Ed rolled his eyes up to the offering and maintained his silence.

"You surprised everyone tonight by how quickly you were able to adapt to the leg," Hohenheim stepped back from the table, "so don't sleep down here tonight.  I know you can walk yourself upstairs to bed."

"I don't want your charity, old man," Ed spoke with more air than volume in his words.

It wasn't the first time Hohenheim had been given that line and he doubted it would be the last.  There was a scripted reply he had ready for it, but the hollowness of Ed's voice dissuaded him from using it.  The interaction was let go.  Hohenheim turned and started towards the hallway.

"Hey."

Ed's call stopped his father and he waited in the silence of a late night for what would come next.

"Don't think that anything you'll ever do for me will make me forgive you."

He had figured it would be something like that.  Hohenheim let his head hang and slipped his free hand into his pocket.  "I don't expect you to."  

Twelve bright chimes of the clock intruded into the unwelcoming aura of the room, more than happy to trample the mood.  

Hohenheim put his eye on the swinging pendulum that had dragged them into Christmas Day, "Make sure you get to bed soon."

"Wait..."

Turning over his shoulder as the final midnight chime faded, Hohenhiem waited.

"Your friends are interesting people," Ed said, "Mrs. Hyland is a good cook, Mr. Churchill's stories were entertaining at dinner, I hope Julie is able to be successful."  He straightened his head over his shoulders.  "I couldn't remember who Mr. Wilson was, so he told me."

Hohenheim exhaled, "You weren't doing well last time he'd seen you."

"He told me a lot of shit," Ed added, "about the hospital."

"That…" a surge of concern lifted Hohenheim's brow and lured him towards the heart of the room.  "What did Charles tell you?"

To his father's total dismay, Ed forced him to wait for a response while the flames in the fireplace tossed their shadows around the walls.

"Edward?"

"Why are you doing this for me?" he breathed.

Hohenheim's forehead wrinkled above his tightening eyes, "Because it's the right thing to do."  Only a fight would ensue if he claimed to be a father.

Ed's chin swayed, lightly rocking his head, "I've been nothing but a problem for you."

Hohenheim put the teacup in his hand aside.  He pushed the coffee table out of the way, grabbed Ed under his one arm, hauled him to his feet.  Ed settled and Hohenheim straightened the shirt over his son's shoulders, then fixed his collar.  Taking the hair tie out of his own hair, he turned Ed around.  Manually straightening his son's failing posture, Hohenheim put Ed's head on straight atop his shoulders, and started pulling his hair up into a ponytail for him.  "You haven't been a problem."

Ed held still.  "Sorry."

Turning him to face forward again, Hohenheim's hands rested on Ed's shoulders.  Additional conversation could be saved for another day and time that wasn't past midnight.  "Make a mountain on your bed and get some sleep, you'll feel better in the morning."  

A heavy sigh and a glance beyond his father's shoulder was Ed's form of acceptance.

Hohenheim grinned, "If you sleep the night through, maybe Santa Claus will bring you a present."

"What for?" Ed's confusion over the foreign holiday finally got him to look his father in the eye, "I like the one I got."

The corners of the old man's grin tightened.  A weight came off his back and lifted his hands from his son's shoulders.

The bridge of Ed's nose wrinkled.  "That has to be the stupidest story I've ever heard.  Big fat man, chimneys, sack of gifts – isn't this a religious holiday?  Isn't there a Saint Nicholas involved too?  I don't get it."

"If I'm being honest," Hohenheim was more than happy to entertain this new conversation, "I don't understand the nuances of the holiday either.  And I haven't asked anyone and I don't think either of us should." 

Ed frowned, "We'd sound pretty stupid, wouldn't we?"

The thought of society's reaction to them widened Hohenheim's grin, "Most likely."

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


Notes:

Merry Christmas 1916 and 2004!

Though I try to have all the characters in Europe be based on a historical someone, the Hylands are entirely fictional.

 

Revised 2023-09-29

Chapter 7: Violation of Soul

Summary:

Winry and Alphonse are reunited while Ed chases a ghost in Munich.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"We told Al at first that Ed was in Central, but eventually we had to tell him what happened.  You know the story.  Al was really upset with us.  I would have been too.  I think we lived in denial that Ed would go that far and we didn't want to admit that to Al, since we couldn't accept it ourselves.  Admitting that Ed had died felt sort of like admitting Al wasn't human for all those years.  If Al believed Ed was alive somewhere, he somehow was, and things were better that way." 

 


 

An unusual knock at quarter after ten in the morning picked Hohenheim's eyes up from his grading.  Classes were in session and he hadn't pencilled any students in for appointments.  It was possible the knock was meant for another door, so he didn't respond.  

The second knock on his door was the cue to raise his voice.

"It's open."

Except the door didn't open.  

Hohenheim returned his dip pen to its holder and called out again.  

This time the creaky hinges of his door moved and a pair of blue eyes poked into his office.  "I think I have the wrong room," a squeaky voice and a fairly young lady stopped half way in the room.

Her pullover blue and green plaid dress with white blouse that screamed 'school uniform' told Hohenheim she most certainly did.  A little amused that a lost school girl had somehow found his office, Hohenhim clasped his hands on his desk, relaxed his shoulders, and asked, "Who were you looking for, young lady?  I can point you in the right direction."

Squeezing into the room a little farther, the visitor adjusted the oversized black shoulder bag weighing her left side down.  Her reply was tentative, "I'm looking for Edward Elric, sir.  I was told I could find him here."

Oh.  Hohenheim's brows rose.  What?  That was unexpected.  "Are you?  And who told you this?"

"He did himself, sir," her wide eyes ventured around the room.

Hohenheim muttered something under his breath about his son attempting to commandeer his office and leaving him in the dark about it.  "Unfortunately you won't find him here today.  Can I pass along a message?"

The offer seemed to go in one ear and out the other.  "And who might you be, sir?"

"I am Edward's father," he answered.

"You are!?" the girl's expression brightened and she strode happily to his desk.  "That's a relief, I was worried I'd ended up somewhere completely incorrect."

Hohenheim couldn't hide the confusion overtaking his expression when she walked right up to him and offered a hand to shake.   

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Elric.  My name's Brigitte Schittenhelm and I'm a friend of your son's."

The first two thoughts that struck Hohenheim were 'since when?' and 'shouldn't you be in school?'  Neither made their way to his lips and he shook the delicate hand.  "It's a pleasure to meet you too, Brigitte.  I'm sorry you came all the way out here to find my son wasn't around."

Ed's absence didn't seem to disappoint her.  Brigitte shrugged off the inconvenience and smiled.  "It's not a problem, I have a good idea where he is.  I was just hoping to catch him before he left, that's all."

"Really?"  After hardly saying a thing to each other since Friday night, Hohenheim had the perfect opportunity to find out what his son was up to.  "Where do you think you'll find him today?"

"Emelka," Brigitte answered with a nod, "he went looking for someone."

Hohenheim knew that name from somewhere, but didn't know why off the top of his head.  His hand came to his chin as he leaned into the side of his desk, "Who does he have business with there?"

Ever confident in her replies, Brigitte folded her arms, "One of the owners, Robert Reinert.  A good man, kind of an odd duck, but he's nice enough."

What had started off as a somewhat fun and playful encounter with a mysterious young lady who might shed some light on the secret life of Edward Elric for his father, turned into a meeting that unsettled Hohenheim's stomach.  He laced his fingers and lay his clasped hands atop the desk, retreating into his thoughts.  Robert Reinert.

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

Looking a little bothered by his shift in demeanour, Brigitte found something else to talk about.   "Are you mad at Edward?"

That was not a question Hohenheim had seen coming, "Why do you ask?"

"I think he thinks you are.  Well, actually, I know he thinks you are," clasping her hands behind her back she rocked on her toes, "he told me so."

"Good.  He can think that I'm mad at him all he likes, it'll be a nice change."  Hohenheim leaned back in his chair, thoroughly content to have Edward continue tip toeing around the house believing he was angry.  The deviousness of his reaction seemed to trouble his company though, and Hohenheim offered her some reassurance.  "Don't worry Brigitte, I know why he thinks I'm upset with him."

"You're not mad at him then?" she questioned.

"I'm unimpressed with him," Hohenheim left his feelings at that in favour of a very important question that he simply couldn't avoid asking any longer.  "How on earth do you know my son?"

Brigitte patted the hefty bag on her shoulders proudly, "He helped me develop my pictures!"

Hohenheim's glasses slid down his nose, "He knows how to develop pictures?"  

Brigitte nodded with enthusiasm, "He does now."

It wasn't even ten thirty yet on this Monday morning and Hohenheim already had too much on his mind.  What kind of trouble was Edward getting himself into?  "Very well," Hohenheim gave a light shake of his head, eyed this petite tornado in his office, and came up with another, more relevant question for her.  "Dear, shouldn't you be in school?"

"It's lunch hour," she smiled sweetly and remained entirely unfazed as the professor with a large clock in his office put a doubtful eye on the time.  "But lunch is over right away, so I should get going," she tacked on.

"That would be a good idea, Brigitte.  Thank you for stopping by.  I'll let Edward know you popped in."  

Hohenheim encouraged Brigitte to be on her way before she became 'late' for something more important than tracking down Edward Elric.

 


 

In the privacy of a ministerial vehicle's back seat, Al was left alone for a few minutes with Gracia's photograph on his knees.  Whenever he wasn't in the library, and even sometimes when he was, he would let himself get lost in the imaginary stories he made up for the five people in the picture. 

Ed's twelfth birthday.  It looked like everyone was having so much fun.  Carefully handling the glossy image by its safe white edges, Al memorized every detail of himself, his brother, Mr. and Mrs. Hughes, and a little girl he hadn't learned the name of yet.

Outside the car window, the grandiose building where parliament gathered loomed tall.  This had once been Central Headquarters, the home of military might.  Requisitioned by a political upheaval, it had been converted into what Al saw today.  It looked as alien to him as everything else did in Central, so Al preferred to look at Gracia's picture.  

His time alone with his thoughts came to an end.  Al tucked the photograph in its envelope and hid it away in the inside pocket of his hoodie when the prime minister came rushing out the door.

"I literally had to run away from those beasts," he gasped, rocking the vehicle as he fell into the back seat, "what time is it?"

"Quarter after five, sir," the driver answered.

The snap of Mitchell's fingers ordered the vehicle into motion, then slumped in his seat.  He yanked a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the frustration and exhaustion leaking down his brow.  Noticing Al's pensive gaze next to him, offered reassurance, "Alphonse, having stitches removed doesn't hurt.  Don't look so forlorn." 

Al offered a lopsided grin.  A doctor's visit for him was in his immediate future, but it was the farthest thing from his mind.  Somewhere after that was a promise of getting to meet Mrs. Mitchell, the ill-stricken matriarch of a blossoming family and the woman who'd contributed to half of the library Al had to be dragged out of last night.  He wanted to meet the woman who'd amassed so much incredible knowledge, maybe he could learn a thing or two from her that would help him on his quest to get his brother back.

"Thank you for your help setting up the second bedroom yesterday afternoon, by the way."  

Al's mid-afternoon break to keep him from going bonkers in literary heaven had been spent helping the Mitchell family set up a bedroom for their second adopted child.  

"Things weren't looking so good to start the day, but with all we accomplished our new addition will have someplace to call her own once she arrives."  The expectant father patted Al on his shoulder, "And I'm glad she'll get the chance to meet you this afternoon.  It will be good for her to have someone young around to talk to.  The atmosphere of a hospital and then a house full of busy adults plus a baby might be somewhat daunting for someone her age."

The situation their second child was walking into sounded a lot like Al's home life in Resembool as of late.  "I can understand that."

"But I don't think she'll sit there all day reading my alchemy books as intently as you do," Mitchell teased.

It was time for an honest to goodness sheepish grin.  He really had vanished into that trove for the last few days.  It was like an immense buffet and he had to try a little bit of everything to see which ones he liked the most.  It took forever.  Al wasn't even sure he was done.  A challenge far, far more daunting than he'd anticipated, the knowledge the Mitchell library offered him was staggering.  How in the world had two people managed to accumulate so many amazing books?

Al had another question for this archive: how could literature so in depth not even allude to an alchemy gate?  Al had accidentally found more references to the Philosopher's Stone and historical homunculi than he had that.  Alchemy scholars regularly encoded their work, so to a layman it wouldn't be noticeable, but at eleven years old Alphonse Elric knew more about alchemy than most scholars his senior did.  How come he couldn't find a single reference to the Gate?

"My wife is looking forward to meeting you." 

Al was looking forward to meeting her, too.

"She's very interested in learning all there is to know about you," Mitchell continued, "she's the whole reason you're staying with us until your mother is found." 

Izumi.  Al's stomach tangled up in knots.  The library was an indulgence that kept his mind off everything stressing him.  Where was she?  There was that feeling of loss bubbling up again.  Loss of people in his life and loss of direction in general. 

"It sounds like your wife is feeling better."  Al forced himself into conversation to spare his thoughts from spiralling out of control.

"Her spirits are better, yes," a sombre look sullied Mitchell's expression, "her body has been having complications this week, unfortunately."

"If she's still recovering, maybe I shouldn't be seeing her," Al hinted at relinquishing his invite, "I don't want to burden her condition."

"Oh no no.  Alphonse, you are no burden – she asked for you," the prime minister dispelled his misgivings.  "She wants to meet you and learn all about the young man that you are."

There was only a limited lie he could tell Mrs. Mitchell, or anyone for that matter, and it was starting to feel unfair.  Al was telling nothing but lies to people showing him kindness.  Sinking deeper into the rear seat of the car, he put his hand over his midsection and felt the photograph hiding within.  "Mr. Mitchell?"

"Yes?"

"I put something in my pocket when we were at the Hughes residence and didn't take it out before we left," Mrs. Mitchell wasn't the only one who wanted to learn more about who Al was, "would someone be able to take me back to return it and apologize?"

Mitchell's face rounded with his smile, "The first thing we do is tell my wife about the kind of good lad you are.  Of course.  If a window of opportunity comes tonight, we'll do it.  If not, there's an entire day tomorrow to make things right."

Al took a deep breath in preparation for what lay ahead, "Thank you." 

 


 

"I think he would have caused less of an uproar if he'd claimed to have been abducted by aliens!" the studio receptionist cackled.

Struggling to keep upright in the lobby chair, Ed cranked his eyebrows higher and feigned interest, "It was that bad, huh?"

Around a half an hour ago this much younger, more bubbly reception had arrived to relieve her daytime counterpart.  She was the first one who'd engaged Edward in conversation over the past few hours, but the problem was she didn't stop.

"Oh gracious, he had the priests suckered right into the whole thing.  They were afraid the devil himself would completely manifest in Reinert and we'd all be pulled into hell."

Ed debated coming back with 'you mean we aren't there already?', but that hadn't been going over well lately.  He shook his head, "The priests should have shown a little more caution before bringing up something like an exorcism."

The receptionist gave a wry grin, "I heard he told the priests some things he's refused to speak of ever again, because it scared them half to death," a pencil danced through her fingers, "it's all extremely fishy."

Ed bobbed his head lazily, "Definitely fishy."  If he was learning anything from this chatterbox, it was that the man he wanted to meet to had a history of being a few cards short of a full deck.  It seemed prudent to ask, "What'd he end up doing about it?  Does Reinert still see those priests to treat his demons?"

"It was so tragic!" the gossipy receptionist bounced in her chair, "when the flu came through around the end of the war, it wiped out that whole church!  The priests went to help in the hospitals and got sick themselves.  It's as if the demon itself got the last laugh in the end."

Yeah, no demon got those priests.  No matter how hard Ed tried he couldn't wrap his head around how much of the death in this world was the result of disease.  He'd never given it a second thought at home, but there were no nation-wide, grand scale illnesses that plagued Amestris.  Thousands upon thousands of people had never dropped dead from sickness.  Medical advancements – both medicinal and technological – were astonishingly more advanced than this world's and years later he still found it baffling.

A set of double doors that security had barred Ed from entering burst open and a flood of men and women engulfed in a cloud of chatter poured out.  Their end-of-day goodbyes dominated the conversation as the departing crowd dispersed.  

The receptionist got to her feet, sang her farewells to those on their way out, and delightedly waved both hands at a face in the crowd that she wove her way towards.  Collecting one of the men who'd emerged by his elbow, she changed his trajectory and escorted him right over to Edward.  "You wanted to speak to Robert Reinert, Mr. Elric?"  The woman presented the man at her side.

Edward scrambled to his feet.  A tall, heavier set man with sleek black hair and a curling moustache met his eyes.  "It's good to finally meet you, Mr. Reinert," Ed offered a slight bow as opposed to a hand shake.

Reinert gave a puzzled eye to the odd gesture.  "Mr. Elric, it was?  We've met somewhere before.  Whose apprentice are you again?"

Ed straightened his posture, "Apprentice?  No one's."

"No?" confusion entered Reinert's gruff tone, "you're a journalist, are you not?"

Ed shook his head, "I'm not."

"Radio hand?"

"No."

Folding his arms, an unimpressed look spread across Reinert's face, "Where do I know you from and what reason do you have to waste my time?"

Edward didn't have a damn clue why Reinert thought he recognized him, but hopefully his reply could appease the man.  "I'm a fan of your work!"

Though unimpressed by the motives that were interrupting him, Reinert's expression did ease, "Very well, what can I do for you?  I don't have much time before I need to start setting up for the evening."

"I've been trying to get my hands on a copy of the Homunculus feature you wrote," finally, Ed had been waiting all afternoon to get to this, "the premise is fascinating and I'd like to see it, but I'm having a hell of a time tracking it down—"

"Bugger off little man," Reinert grumbled and turned away.

"Little?" Ed's right eye twitched.

"I don't have time for this," Reinert attempted to dismiss Ed with the wave of his hand, "I don't need people like you dredging up my past for your mockery.  I have nothing to do with that film any longer."

"Hold on!  This is a serious request."  Edward tailed the man retreating to the sanctuary of his studio, "I'll pay for a copy!"

Darkness consumed Reinert's presence when he wheeled around to deter his pursuer, "I don't want money for that."

A dangerous look on the man's face backed Ed off, not sure what was warranting the hostility.  What did he want?  "Can I offer you something else then?"

"You think I'd accept a bribe in exchange for that mess?" Reinert barked.

"No!" Ed flashed his hands defensively, cringing at the excessive volume of his voice.  Unable to wrap his head around how this conversation was going so awry, Ed offered the first thing that came to mind, "Not a bribe, an equivalent exchange."

Reinert's gaze narrowed into slits, concealing the whites of his eyes.  His escape from the lobby stalled, "Excuse me?"

Ed winced, what was he supposed to follow that up with?  The philosophy had never been much good to him here, but he scrambled to use it anyway.  "I work at the University of Munich, is there something—"

"No, what did you just say?"

Unstable fear overtook Reinert's expression and encourage Ed to hasten an answer.  "I work at the University."

"Before that," Reinert demanded.

"I'm not bribing—"

"No!"

Confusion as much as unease caused Ed to flinch.  What was this guy's deal and what the hell had he said that was freaking him out?  Ed racked his brain, "Equivalent exchange?"

Reinert brought himself nose to nose with Ed, challenging his visitor to hold his ground as he imposed his presence.  When Ed dug his heels in and didn't back away, Reinert lowered his voice and hissed, "Perhaps I might see you outside later this evening.  Until then," his voice soared, succeeding in chasing his visitor from the building, "I'm calling security!"

 


 

There was no way this could be any more infuriating.

Winry leaned over the reception desk to argue with this lazy bastard sitting in the chair.  "Look, it's just a simple bit of information.  It can't hurt to just give me a 'yes' or 'no', because the jig is up, I know he was here." 

"And you can 'look' – for the hundredth and final time I will tell you that unless you have a police badge, a military uniform…" 

A military uniform, huh?  Winry wondered how much of Sheska's good will she'd used up.

"... or signed government documentation saying you are so and so…" 

"I am family!" 

"... and you have such and such authorization to this and that…"

Winry started calculating how far she could jam a wrench down his throat.

"…I cannot and will not disclose any patient information to you," the sassy man with curly blonde hair leaned into Winry's face, chasing her back from the desk.  He folded his arms on the counter to reclaim his territory, "Okay, honey?"

Snarling had already proven ineffective elsewhere, so Winry didn't try that again.  She had to manage this obstacle as a negotiator.  "I absolutely understand the importance of patient privacy, especially this patient.  My parents were doctors.  I'm an AutoMail mechanic.  I have my license to perform surgery.  I get it.  But I also get that there are times – important times – where it's important to recognize when the rules aren't in the client's best interest."

"Patient," the receptionist corrected dryly.

"Yes, patient.  I said 'patient'."

"You said 'client'."

"Forget what I said," Winry threw her hands in the air and wondered if she was still above begging, "I need you to cut me some slack.  Is there anything I can give you that's not paperwork that'll get you to give me information!?"

A sly smirk crossed the man's face and his hand reached out for the line of buttons down the front of Winry's shirt, "Actually…"

The rectangular bag of tools slung over her shoulder left a permanent impression on the side of his face.  Winry marched off into the depths of the hospital before anyone could question why there was a man twitching on the ground.

"Disgusting waste of space," Winry knotted her arms across her chest as she powered down a hall, "nobody touches this temple."

Storming around a corner, Winry marched down a cluttered hall that fed her into an adjacent wing of the hospital.  This place was a maze.  Doctors, nurses, and all manner of aides were so busily wrapped up in their own tasks nobody gave a second thought to the grumpy visitor stomping around completely lost.  How was she supposed to find that one person who was out of the loop just enough that they'd help a poor maiden in distress like herself.  Everyone she spoke with wanted her to contact the police and that was like putting bullseye on her forehead.  There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that her phone call with Sheska the other day didn't have at least two eavesdroppers.  

An arrest warrant.  Why were they so desperate?  Couldn't these military people just keep their noses to themselves!?  How the heck was she supposed to get out of this debacle?  Winry groaned at her plight.

Nevertheless, come hell or high water she wasn't leaving this blasted hospital until she got more information about Al and where they stashed him. 

Throwing her hands firmly out in front of herself, Winry burst through a pair of swinging double doors and stopped in her tracks.  The backs of two recognizable heads belonging to someone named Breda and someone else named Falman greeted her.  Why were they here?  Was this a coincidence?  Were they looking for her?  Their faces were engaged with a group of hospital security and never saw her.  It took far too many nerve wracking seconds for Winry's frozen brain to get in gear and back her away.  

Carefully keeping the clacking heels of her shoes off the floor, Winry reversed through the double doors.  

The moment they swung shut to conceal her presence, Winry spun on her toes and raced down the hall.  This hospital was a maze and if she could get lost in it, then that was precisely what she intended to do.  The blood pumping in her veins fired her around a corner and landed her flat on her backside when she charged headlong into a moving obstacle.

"What the hell are you doing running in a hospital!?" a doctor yelled from the floor.

Ow.  She rubbed the hip she'd landed on and winced.  "I am SO sorry, I didn't see you com—"

"Winry!" 

The familiar call of her name popped her up like a jack-in-the-box.   "Al!" 

Al sat on the floor with her, his hand on his head, eyes wide in shock.  "What?"

Winry gawked at him just sitting there within arms reach.  "What!?"

The doctor involved in the collision stood up while the pair stared baffled at each other, then ended the engagement by hauling Al to his feet.  

Scrambling up after him, Winry threw her arms around Alphonse and held on tight.  "Thank goodness I found you!"

Al aimlessly patted her back as she hugged him.  "I didn't know you were looking for me…"

The doctor took his keys out from his pocket and unlocked the nearest room in the hall.  "I'm set to examine this young man, who are you?"

"Sister."

"Cousin."

The doctor's head turned.

Winry squeezed Al a little tighter, "A cousin who's just like a big sister!"  She flashed the doctor her best smile to go with Al's goofy one.

The antics didn't do much to temper the doctor's unpleasant demeanour.  "Take a seat out in the waiting area, Miss."

"I'd rather stay with Al," the doctors would have to pull her cold dead body out of this hallway if they wanted her gone now.

"Are you comfortable having a relative in the room with you while I conduct your checkup?" the doctor begrudgingly asked his patient.

Al shrugged, "I don't mind."

Winry squeezed him.

The doctor stepped away from the room he'd opened, "I need to grab your file from my office, have a seat inside."

"You betcha," Winry saluted and whisked Al into the tiny, private room, hidden from the problem plaguing her, and pulled the door shut behind them.  She spun on her heels and could finally wail, "What the heck is going on with you Al!?"

"What are you doing here Winry!?" he sputtered.

"You have a million little scabs on your face, you really do look like you crawled out of an explosion!" Winry's voice quivered and she decided it was best to just hug him tightly one more time, "I was so worried you weren't okay."

Al put his nose on her shoulder and didn't protest the embrace.  "I'm alright, Winry.  But answer me, what are you doing here?"

"I came looking for you!  We got a call from Dublith and I got worried," Winry unwrapped Al and leaned back to brush his bangs from his face.  "Then the herald ran a story about what had happened in Central, so I got up and came to find you.  It's not like you called."

Al's shoulders sagged, "I'm sorry I made you worry.  I thought I could handle it or it would work out or something.  Sensei would show up if I was patient enough, but none of that happened."  Disappointment tossed his arms loosely around at his sides, "I didn't mean for things to turn out this way."

"Don't forget your family when things go wrong," Winry grabbed Al firmly by his shoulders, "we're here to help you.  Because we care.  I care about you!"

"Yeah, I know," Al sighed and rolled his head away, "you say that all the time." 

"Because it's true!  And you are supposed to let the people who care about you help and you're supposed to ask me for help when you're in trouble."  Winry wrangled the young Elric back to her arms.  "Ed used to try to cut out the people who worried about him, he thought he could carry the burden himself… take care of everything himself.  Please don't start doing that too."

"I'm not," Al whined and squirmed his way out of Winry's clutches again, "in fact, since I know exactly what I'm going to do later, did you want to come with me?"

There was something cryptic about the way Elrics made their intentions known that filled Winry with dread, "Come where?"

A confident grin slashed through Al's face, "I'll tell you after we leave the hospital."

Yup, nothing but dread.

 


 

The longer Ed sat outside in the studio's uneventful lot, the more seriously he questioned if this curiosity quest was worth it.  Seeing a familiarly titled horror story that reminded him of home was just a flight of fancy that caught his interest.  His own stubbornness and the hope of six reels landing in his arms were the only things keeping him around. 

A washed out sunset had dipped behind the western most row of housing ages ago.  A chilly light wind nipped at his cheeks, adding a bit of natural rouge.  Reaching into his pocket, Edward pulled out his silver watch and checked the time.  How much longer was he willing to look desperate by waiting for a man with such an unstable personality.

"Honestly…" 

A voice behind Ed swung his head around.

"I was hoping you weren't foolish enough to still be waiting out here," Reinert grumbled.

Ed frowned at the man who'd shown up empty handed.  "It interests me."

"And you interest me."  Reinert made his way down the steps to where Edward sat.  "You picked a godawful time to bring all that story up with so many people around," he snarled, "that thing and I were once every whisper of gossip that went on inside those walls.  People still debate if writing that story cost me my sanity.  I'd prefer it if you do not bring it up in a space with so many ears again.  The respect I've regained with my peers is held together by fragile threads."

"Sorry, I didn't realize that," Ed apologized.

Sitting down on the cement step next to his persistent guest, Reinert pulled a package of cigarettes from his pocket.  "One of my runners mentioned that you were sitting out here like a well trained mongrel, and I suppose I'm in need of a smoke break," he offered one to Ed.  It was turned down and Reinert took it as his own.  He struck a match, "Why on earth are you attracted to that, of all things?"

"It caught my attention, that's all."  The intensity of Reiner's gaze and the way it challenged even this simple answer set off caution sirens in Ed's head.  What was this crazy bastard's deal?  "I heard about it from an associate of yours and I've been looking for it without any luck."

"Which associate?" Reinert grilled him.

"Mr. Lang," Ed growled.

Reinert flicked the crown off his cigarette, "What's your reason for playing me as a fool like this?  Digging into the origins of that story will shed no light on the abuse of my sanity." 

"I don't have any questions about your sanity," but Ed was starting to think maybe he should.  The receptionist should have tacked on that the guy was an ass to go along with all his other gossipy accolades.  Teetering on the verge of saying 'fuck it' and just forgetting he'd ever heard of the blasted story, Reinert derailed him.

"You speak English, don't you?"

Of all of the questions he could have imagined Reinert asking, that wasn't one of them.  Ed didn't respond.

Reinert let him watch as he took a long, slow inhale of his cigarette, then released the smoke in a thin stream.  "You're very good at carrying a German accent, but I can tell it's not your first language."  He tossed his voice into the streets ahead, "Myself, I can understand English as clearly as if it were my first, but it's not.  My mouth has never voluntarily provided a word of English to anyone beyond 'hello' or 'goodbye'.  I've never attempted to learn the language.  I've never done an English production or used an English crew." 

The mysterious showmanship of a professional story writer snared Ed's curiosity in its clutches.  The tale was unexpected, but intriguing, and Ed had no idea what the point of it was, yet the need for answers became greater than his desire to leave.

"I received my knowledge of the English language through that frightening term you used to bribe me: 'Equivalent Exchange'."  

Ed's eyes rounded with the introduction of the familiar phrase.

Indulging in his cigarette again, Reinert lowered his voice, "You see, the only other time I've heard a transaction phrased that way was when the devil walked into my consciousness."  Tucking the cigarette package away in his pocket, the man stood up, "Let's go for a stroll, Mr. Elric.  You're familiar to me and I have a dreadful feeling as to why.  Since I have no copies of 'Homunculus' to give you, I'll tell you a horror story instead."

 


 

At some point a light went on in Al's head that made him realize Winry was stalling.  Be damned if he could figure out why.  She'd created every excuse under the sun to keep them in the checkup room – so much so that she angered both the doctor and him.  Al wasn't as damaged as she tried to convince people he was and dammit he had an amazing lady to go and meet.  What was all this fuss about?  Why was she so skittish after they left the room?  There was something Al wasn't being told again…

Since he was bringing her back to the Mitchell residence after they reconvened with the family, Al would find out eventually.

"He fed you, right?" a scowl marched across Winry's face while they walked down a hall.

"Of course he did," Al looked to the ceiling, already tired of every way Winry managed to re-word 'how have you been treated?'

"And you weren't locked away in your room or anything?" she folded her arms.

"I've been in their library most of the time," Al was growing weary of this.

Winry's eyes burst wide, "He locked you in his library!?"

"No, he didn't!" Al cried his answer, "he didn't lock me anywhere.  He treated me with nothing but kindness and generosity, Winry!  You're being dumb, stop trying to find a way to make him a monster."

Winry huffed and anchored her hands on her hips, the heels of her shoes deliberately clacking loudly as they entered a stairwell.  "Well, you'd think a man with all that money and power would have at least given you something nicer than jeans, shirt, and hoodie to wear.  You can get these clothes from a hand-me-down store."

It was a battle for Al to keep the annoyance off his face.  "That's not fair, Winry.  You haven't even met him."

"I'm just saying—"

Three doctors and two nurses threw open stairwell doors below the trio and rushed up the stairs past them, ending whatever Winry was saying.  The Resembool duo forgot their quarrel, concerning themselves with the urgency and alarm in the voices they had heard and how it had sent shivers dancing down their spines.  Nervous glances were exchanged and a wordless agreement to follow them up the stairs was put into motion.  

The chaotic sound of medical staff directing an emergency could be heard in the stairwell before they'd even opened the third floor doors.

Staff in white hospital gowns sailed through the halls, racing around a gathering of men and women in dark coloured coats.  Some doctors soared like the wind, some nurses rushed equipment with wordless urgency, and a handful of hospital staff stood around waiting for their orders to come down.  Too many of these bodies had faces soaked in tears.  

Saddling up to Winry's side, Al digested the frantic scene of hospital staff in a panic.  Men and women huddled in one and other's arms… distraught.  Forlorn.  Grieving.  Al's ears went on high alert.  His heart trembled at the sight of so many people succumbing to the reality of loss.  He knew this feeling.  He hated this feeling.  Terrified to face the truth of what sent this mass of people into such a state, not ready to process more grief, Al glued his back to the wall and found Winry's hand.

Rage sliced the misery in the air like a butcher's blade through bone.  Prime Minister Mitchell's voice overpowered the emotions of the hall, frightening tears into ending their march.  

The anguish in his words made Al feel sick. 

'How did this happen?'

Winry squeezed Al's hand. 

How had Mrs. Mitchell's heart stopped beating?

 


 

Reinert's left hand settled in his pocket while the right handled the cigarette.  "For a time I feared sleep.  I feared the devil toiled within me and if I fell asleep too deeply it would again request control of my existence, and I might not have the strength to resist.  I needed to remain awake so I could deny it.  I could hear it in the basement of my thoughts sometimes, chattering away in the darkness of my mind."  

The devil in his consciousness coined the phrase 'equivalent exchange'?  And provided knowledge of the English language?  It sounded insane and the concerns Reinert had about the perception of his sanity were valid, but only on the surface.  Nervousness churned in Ed's stomach.  Tiny pieces of this story carried an essence of familiarity and it made his skin crawl.

"The devil claimed it was not the devil, as one would expect it to, but introduced itself as the creature I'd written about for the Homunculus series, as if my mind had willed it into existence."

The thump of Ed's heart pounded like a heavy weight being repeatedly dropped against his chest wall.  What the hell was he listening to?  

"I never asked for anything from it, I refused to be indebted to it, yet I knew so much about it and the things it understood the moment it entered me.  That knowledge was part of the 'equivalent exchange' it attempted to force on me." 

The chill racing through Ed's veins threatened to make him visibly shiver.  "It forced the exchange?"

Reinert nodded, "It was a non-negotiable exchange wherein the devil provided me abstract knowledge I did not want nor ask for as compensation for showing up unannounced and sticking around."

Ed swallowed uncomfortably.  The relevance of equivalent exchange in this story shook him at his core.  There were no longer any gods or devils in this forsaken world, and there were no avenues for creating or exploiting a creature like what Reinert was describing either.  A homunculus as Ed understood one to be was not possible in this world.  Nothing inherent to this world could wield or weaponize a philosophy anchored to alchemy like that, not unless…

"I went to church and asked for help," Reinert continued, his slow strides landing out of sync to Ed's, "I was told I had to cleanse my body of Homunculus and I rid myself of all memorabilia surrounding it and nostalgia in my possession.  I drowned myself in faith and fortified my mental strength.  And it worked, I chased the devil away – I banished Homunculus from my mind."

"You banished it?" Edward's ponytail swayed with each step they continued to take, finding the solution to so much fantastical information a little hard to believe.  "Once you were able to detach yourself from the homunculus story, you freed yourself from it and the nightmares it was causing?" 

Reinert legs stopped carrying him forward.  "No, Mr. Elric, there were no nightmares.  To call it a 'possession' doesn't do it justice either.  It wanted use of my body and that experience was a violation of my soul."

The one thing a homunculus depicted in both worlds lacked – a soul.  Ed clenched his good hand anxiously.

"I can remember everything I felt, everything I saw, everything I experienced, everything the devil's existence provided to me as vividly as any memory of my own.  I cannot explain most of it, I understand even less, and when I try to put it into words I am laughed at with the vigour of a comedian's audience."

The night breeze picked up the tail ends of Edward's coat, "A crime against your soul isn't something to laugh at." 

"It certainly is not," Reinert huffed, smoothing a hand over his slick black hair.  "The devil controlled me through fear though, convincing me that what I perceived as sleep was actually my mental state slipping into gaps in my existence that were present due to a severe dissociation between my mind, body, and soul." 

The kind of alarm Edward hadn't heard in too many years screamed inside the echo chamber of his head.  The frenetic beat of his heart found a higher gear.  Piece after terrifying piece of information he hadn't known was out there to find was coming from Reinert's mouth and Ed could see how they wove together in a fashion only he and his father could fully understand.

"I was told these gaps were an 'ailment' everyone suffered from, yet mine was more prominent than others."  Reinert flicked the crown from his cigarette and let the remnants fizzle out at their feet.  "It was for this reason, as well as my recognition of homunculus' state of existence, that it chose me as its vessel."

Edward reinforced the ironclad control he maintained on his breathing.  His body stiffened, unlocking the gears in his head eager to turn faster.  "This isn't right."

"Your reaction isn't right, either."  Lurching into Ed's face, Reinert took him by the chin, "I don't know why I find you familiar.  If we've never crossed paths before, then the only conclusion I can draw is that the devil gave me knowledge of you."

"I've got nothing to do with any devil bullshit," Ed slapped his hand away and stepped back.

Reinert was less than keen on the response and he snarled, "You're only the second person I've ever discussed this with who hasn't laughed themselves out of their shoes or looked at me as though I warranted an exorcism."

"Second person?" Ed repeated, interest spinning his mental gears.

Reinert dropped the remains of his cigarette to the ground and put it out with the tip of his shoe.  "The other terrified me enough I thought perhaps I should return to Austria and raise cattle."

Ed's eyes lost the darkened landscape around them, seeing only this man popping another cigarette out under the moonlight.  "Who?"

"A man named Hohenheim came to see me at my home nearly two years ago, as unflappable as you have been."

For completely different reasons, the name sent a shiver coursing through the bodies of both men in conversation.

"Unlike you, the moment I laid eyes on him I knew who he was."  Reinert struck a match and lit his second cigarette.  "You see, Mr. Elric, the purpose of the devil's intrusion into my soul was because it was seeking a vessel to coexist with, one that would allow it the satisfaction of vengeance.  It made no secret that it was searching for 'Hohenheim'.  I suspect I will forever have the face of the man who evoked such vicious desires from the devil seared into my memories."

On any other day Ed might not have given a rat's ass about a story involving his old man, but this one grew more disturbing, and its implications more grave, with every word added.  

"I told that Hohenheim if he ever came back I'd shoot him on sight," Reinert huffed and opened his coat, "I want no part in their quarrel."

"There is no way…" Ed took another step back, putting distance between himself and Reinert, unaware of how pale he'd become.  Swallowing heavily and washing an open palm over the centre of his chest, Ed's eyes uselessly searched the darkened skies around them, "Where the hell did 'the devil' go once he was out?  Does he just float around in the air or what?  How does it work?"

"Our conversation is over." 

A startling click in the darkness orchestrated by Reinert's hand drew Ed's eye to the barrel of a gun.  "Woah!" his good hand flew skywards, the clunky right one managing only half way.

"I don't need this, not anymore."  His gaze unsteady, fear of the homunculus devil had Reinert snarling like a cornered animal, "You get the same warning as that Hohenheim.  I am no longer involved, do not drag me back into this nightmare."

"You ARE involved," Ed yelled, "you have insight.  Knowledge!  There has to be something you learned through that equivalent exchange that told you how—"

Reinert threw his arm skyward, pointed his weapon at the stars, and filled the air with the aggressive sound of a gunshot.  Lowering his weapon and realigning it with a frozen, silent target, Reinert made Ed's next course of action clear.  "I no longer know anything.  You have ten seconds to vanish from my sights Mr. Elric."

 


 

Pinned along the fringes of an unfolding disaster, Al took in the sight of doctors and nurses slowing their motions and resigning to fate.  People came together in silence to accept nothing could be done.  Another life had been lost.  Another loved one perished.  Walls couldn't contain Mr. Mitchell's grief.  It damaged the silence, wounded the air, and hurt the soul to listen to.  Al's imagination cruelly whipped up the scene: Mr. Mitchell sitting at his wife's bedside, running a gentle hand through her hair as he mourned.  An uncomfortable vice tightened around Al's chest and crushed his heart, because he'd only just…

An ice cold hand touched Al's shoulder.  It sparked like a frozen chill and nearly tossed him back into the stairwell.  Al bounced into Winry's side. 

The Mitchell family nurse stared vacantly at them both.  "Come," she instructed.

The nurse ushered the pair away from the wall and escorted them into the morose swarm of people.  They passed the opened door to a room besieged with grief that only gave Al's imagination confirmation and more fodder he hadn't wanted.  The woman guided them into a waiting room on the other side of the commotion.

"Take a drink from the water fountain and have a seat.  I ask that you remain here, excused from the events until someone is ready to take you back," and she promptly walked away.

Still holding Winry's hand, Al's wrist curled as he squeezed it.  The lady wasn't wrong, this was a family matter and it had nothing to do with him.  There was nothing he could do.  No acceptable condolence he could offer right now.  

The movement of Winry's hair in the corner of Al's eye turned his head and he found the weights of concern and sadness pulling her expression down.  Turning into the waiting room, Al canvassed the empty space abandoned by all but one solitary figure curled up on a chair along the wall.  A little girl was sequestered away in the room, neglected and ignored by masses wrapped up in devastation.  Her legs were drawn to her chest and she hugged them tightly.  Her face was buried in her knees and the long reaches of warm brown hair hung off her shoulders, reaching for the floor.

Letting go of Winry's hand, Al distanced himself from the misery in the hall and approached someone who shouldn't have been left alone at a time like this.  "Are you okay?" he asked softly, leaning down.

The little girl nuzzled her face into her knees.  

The misery in the air could be tasted.  Al would be the first to admit it was a little much for him to swallow, and if that was the case it couldn't be doing a small girl any good either.  Bending down a little lower, Al extended his hand, "Hey, my name is Alphonse.  Do you want to go get a drink from the fountain together?"

The girl lifted her head, found the golden bronze of Al's eyes, and took his hand to accept the invitation.  "Okay." 

This unknown child syphoned the colour out of Al's complexion and turned him into ice.  A generous forehead separated curling bangs from enchanting blue eyes.  Round baby cheeks and a downturned, pinched mouth were framed by the long locks of straight hair that fell around her face.  The petite thing unfolded her body and let her stubby legs dangle above the floor.  Al called into the drum of his empty head for help and heard nothing but his own echo. 

Gingerly, he helped a familiar face he'd never met before get to her feet.

A white dress with red buttons and collar fell around the girl's body as she straightened up, the hem settling at her knees.  Her petite hand fit neatly into Al's palm and the other tucked a matching red pendant behind the guard of her dress collar.  Hand in hand with Al she stood, gaze fallen to the ground, no longer looking up to see the profound impact she'd had on her escort.

Winry stepped up with two cups of water before either of them managed to go anywhere.  "Sweetie, are you okay here all by yourself?"

The child stared at the water being offered to her.

Winry swept the girl's hair behind her shoulders and spoke softly, "My name's Winry, let me help.  It's okay to be scared and upset, but I don't think this is the best place for you.  Where are your parents?  Do you know where they went?"

"Over there," the girl looked at Alphonse's hand holding hers, "Mrs. Mitchell said mean things to Mr. Mitchell that made him cry, so she died."

Winry and Al straightened their backs and exchanged uneasy glances.

A young girl was meant to be at Mrs. Mitchell's bedside until the evening, the one they were adopting.  Al swallowed his nerves and tightened the hold he had on her hand, "Are you the Mitchells new daughter?"  

The heel of her free hand rubbed a dry eye tiredly, a faint lisp in her words.  "Her body started shaking.  The doctor said she had things called seizures."  Numb words were handed directly to Al when the child picked her head up to deliver them straight to him.  "She cried about possession and God and evil and murder and she died.  I got scared and ran away."

"Oh my god," Winry swooped in to embrace her, breaking the tether she had with Al.

Al stared into his empty palm.  He felt short of breath.  Had he been forgetting to breathe this whole time?  

"That's horrible, you should have never seen something like that.  I'm so sorry."

As Winry apologized for someone else's neglect, the set of blue eyes perched on her shoulder latched onto Al and it made his heart thunder.  He looked over his shoulder and took a step back, "Um… I'm going to the washroom, I'll be right back."

"What?" Winry turned, "Al, wait!  Are you okay?"

Her call went unanswered.  Al stumbled out of the waiting room without looking back.  He bounced off doctors and nurses like a ping pong ball caught in a maze.  The gloom consuming the floor washed off of him; a great woman had passed and Al couldn't stir up any guilt for not being concerned about that anymore.  He stumbled into the first washroom he found.  A nub of chalk was ripped from his jeans' pocket and used to etch a transmutation circle on the door.  Al locked himself inside.

Propped up against the tile wall, the private space gave him a chance to find air.  Al slid down until his backside connected with the floor, lungs heaving and his heart pounding in his throat.  He collected himself in the ambient noise of his own breathing and the occasional footsteps beyond the door, then reached into his hoodie.  

Extracting the envelope protecting a coveted photograph, Al unsheathed the picture Mrs. Hughes had given him.  The unnamed little girl from the waiting room was in Al's hand again, taking part in his brother's twelfth birthday. 

 


 

Edward turned the lock on the front door, latched the chain, dumped his coat in the closet, and dragged his tired ass through the house.  Trudging into the living room, Ed grabbed a pack of matches from the mantel, pulled the fire screen aside, and tossed two into the fireplace to get it going again.  As two tiny flames found fuel in day-old kindling, Ed arrived at the central sofa, unbuckled his slacks, and dropped them to his ankles.  His undershorts fell right after and he unstrapped himself from the getup ensuring his left leg stayed on.  Shaking free of the wood and leather getup, letting it drop to the floor without care, Ed wiggled his undershorts back up over his hips and surrendered to the call of gravity.  He toppled into the seat cushions, exhausted from his walk all the way home.  Goddammit did he miss Rockbell engineering on days like today.

Ed buried his face in sofa pillows and let his sore stump of a leg breathe fresh air as the clock chimed for 11PM.  He should have gone back for the car, but Ed didn't want to gamble with a madman's resolve.  Now all he wanted to do was sleep.

Of course that wasn't going to happen; Ed picked his head up when he heard the front door handle come unlocked.  Sitting up low, behind the security of the sofa's backing, Ed heard the latched chain stop the intruder.  Searching the floor in the growing fire light, he fished his wooden leg off the floor and repositioned it on the seat cushions beneath him.  The chain rattled again, restraining a greater push than before.  There wasn't far Ed could go in a home invasion on one leg, but he could sure as hell put a hole in someone's head with the heel of this thing if he played his cards right.

Lifting his head and peering over the back ridge of the sofa, Ed watched the front door close.

The doorbell rang.

Ed popped up high on his one good knee.

It rang again, followed by a heavy fist pounding on the wood, "EDWARD!  Unlatch this door."

A medley of surprise and confusion dropped his jaw open, "Dad!?"  What the hell was his old man doing coming home at this hour and not upstairs already in bed?  "I'm coming, hold on!"  Ed looked around for his crutch, but the damn thing was in the front closet.  It took infinitely longer to get back into his leg than it did to get out of it, so utilizing the furniture and walls around him for support was what he'd have to do.  Ed got up on a sore right leg that had spent the last hour trying to take the strain off the other one and started hopping towards the door, cursing his father for putting him through this.

Edward fell into the closet after unlatching the door.

"What on earth possessed you to do the chain if I wasn't home?" Hohenheim asked before he was completely inside.

Pulling himself out of the closet, Ed yanked his crutch out from the back of it and snapped, "I don't go into your room, how the fuck was I supposed to know you weren't in bed on time?  You're never out this late.  What the hell are you doing out this late?  Don't scold me because you didn't come home before eleven like you constantly bitch at me to do," Ed didn't feel the need to mention he'd only gotten home a few minutes ago, "where the hell were you?"

Hohenheim let his displeasure of being locked out of his own house slide in favour of the far more curious circumstances of his son in his undershorts and using the crutch.  "What happened?"

"Nothing," Ed scowled, shifted his weight over the crutch, and started to make his way deeper into the house, "my leg got sore, that's all."

Hohenheim debated asking why, but had a feeling the question wouldn't go over well, so instead answered Ed's previous question, "I was with a few Thule members at the hall."

The strange answer mellowed Ed's tone, "This late?"

Sliding past his son and into the living room, Hohenheim eyed the discarded leg on his sofa and picked up Ed's slacks from the floor.  "Some interesting events were happening today, so I stayed behind.  I take it you had an interesting day too."  He laid the slacks over the back of the sofa and dropped a parental set of eyes on Edward.  "Why isn't my car outside?"

Ed stopped dead in his tracks, "Well…"

Hohenheim peered over the top rim of his glasses, "Will I get it back in time to drive myself to work tomorrow, or am I walking two days in a row?"

Ed swallowed uncomfortably, "You might need to walk," as fast as his limited mobility allowed, he turned, "I'm going to get something to drink from the—"

"What did Reinert have to say?" Hohenheim's question stopped Edward before he could wobble away. 

Peering over his shoulder, Ed's eyes voiced his 'how did you know that?' question.

"A young lady named Brigitte came to visit you at work today, but instead she visited with me," Hohenheim answered, allowing the displeasure in his tone to radiate clearly, "she told me what you'd gone off to do."

Ed's hand tightened his grip on the crutch and growled at the passive scolding, "How long have you known about Reinert and kept it from me?  What the hell made you think I shouldn't know something this important?"

"What sort of information would I have given you?"  Hohenheim let out a hefty sigh, "I was left in the dark by that man.  The only thing I knew for certain was that someone, or something he identified as Homunculus had made him aware of my presence here.  I had no concrete proof of anything, because it was impossible to deal with someone that would rather shoot me dead than give a few minutes of his time."

"That idiot," Ed cursed Reinert instead of his father and lumbered closer to the warmth of the living room.  "You've never breathed a word of this guy to me, when did you see him?"

"You were on the warpath to get the design of your arm working correctly, I wasn't going to distract you from it," Hohenheim shook his head at a nostalgic memory.  Drifting over to the fireplace he knelt down in front of it and adjusted the fire screen.  "Dietrich and Karl brought his story to my attention – it's not often that a tale of possession and exorcism maintains so much chatter.  Some of his quotes struck me the wrong way and I tracked him down.  He recognized me before I even knew who I was speaking to, and it all went downhill from there."

Ed moved his leg to the floor, placed his crutch aside, and sat down on the sofa.

Rising onto two feet, Hohenheim offered his morose expression to his son, "Most of what I learned was conjecture and rumour, Reinert himself said very little to me.  I had nothing concrete to share with you, no reason to spin your head like mine had been.  I have a feeling you know more than I do now."

Ed leaned against the arm of the sofa and looked up at his father with the firelight at his back.  "When I was first in London, my bonds had been severed, so my mind and soul had been attracted to the body of the Edward existing here.  My actual body remained behind at the Gate.  The second time, I offered myself whole and found all three pieces on this side.  If a homunculus attempts to cross the Gate, only two of those three pieces exist in the first place…"

"Only one piece exists."  Hohenheim's hands dropped his hands into his pockets.  "A homunculus' body is created through alchemy and is sustained by red stones.  Even if it looks, feels, and behaves as a human body should, it is not human.  The transmuted flesh is unsustainable once it crosses over, since the processes that manufactured and maintained it are governed by the Gate, and it would reclaim the manufactured flesh."

Ed's left hand came to his forehead.  His fingers slowly combed through his bangs as he ran Reinert's situation through his mind.  "If only a homunculus' mind crosses over, it wouldn't be attracted to anything, because it doesn't have a mirror existence on this side.  Without that relationship, how does it exist in this world?"

A man bearing the load of multiple lifetimes worth of sins reclassified a transgression of his own, "As a parasite."

"Looking for a vessel," Reinert's words filled Ed's mouth.  

That's what had been going on.  That's what Reinert had been fighting off – had fought off through mental fortitude as opposed to medicine.  A parasite so heinous it may as well be the devil.  But a weaker mind might be as lucky as Reinert.  Ed's compounding concerns searched his father's face, the corners of his lenses glowing with the reflection of the fire's light.  Ghosts followed his old man everywhere, and continued haunting him even in this existence beyond their graves.

"The 'parasite' invaded Reinert because of his understanding of 'homunculus' and due to a 'severe dissociation between his mind, body and soul'.  Coexistence was forced on him at first, but Reinert fought it off through mental fortitude and kicked him out."  Ed filled in the blanks for his father, drawing him around to the opposite side of the sofa.  The cushions shifted beneath him when Hohenheim sat down.  "Reinert said the devil wanted vengeance and you fueled that rage.  That's why he was afraid of you."  The fireplace swam in the gold of Ed's eyes.  "You went to see him two years ago, but Reinert's experiences happened nearly five years ago.  What's Envy been doing these last five years?"

Hohenheim followed his son's gaze into the fire.  "Learning."

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


Notes:

Ed doesn't remember he's responsible for telling Envy where to find Hohenheim. In the series, when Ed stood at the Gate when Envy went through he was crying, but when Ed wakes up with Rose and he's still crying, he asks "Why am I crying?". I've taken that to infer that Ed doesn't remember anything about what happened at the Gate, including sending Envy through with Hohenheim knowledge.

I liken Reinert to Marcoh, a man very much involved who does not want to be involved what so ever.

 

Revised: 2023-10-03

Chapter 8: Replacements

Summary:

Ed gets dragged into his father's political circles, Al attends Mrs. Mitchell's funeral, and Winry gets caught up in the Mitchell household.

Notes:

Please note: This chapter forwards is still presented in the original writing style.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"We never really talked about it… about how he got here.  We talked all about how I got here, well more like interrogated, but I never asked about his situation.  I could take a guess about who put him here, especially after what Sensei told me in Dante's mansion.  I never asked about the things that homunculus had said, I never asked about what Dante said, and I never asked why he left Dante, probably because I couldn't blame him.  I never asked why he abandoned the creature he created, maybe because I didn't want to know.  I wondered if he had known that mom was sick; the doctor said she'd been ill for a while, but I never really knew if it was in terms of years or months.  There are a lot of things I didn't ask about.  I still don’t.  The closest I came to asking was the day I got angry and shot back at him with some derogatory comment about his situation - I’d said something about us being a replacement for his original family.  I don’t remember what my exact words were, but I learned how fierce he could be that day.  I did ask him if he knew how Dante found out about us and what we had for a family and he said that he had no idea.  He volunteered that he knew Dante had been teaching a new student around the time he'd left us; seems after all those years he still kept track of her movements.  Probably a wise idea.  He suspected that the young lady, Izumi Curtis, had most likely been recruited as a pawn for her ongoing Philosopher's Stone projects.  It was his suspicion that Sensei most likely did not end up in Resembool for us to meet by accident, because everything Sensei knew, which was everything Dante had wanted her to know, was then passed down to us.  She had us under her thumb long before we ever showed up in Central.  Dad apologized for that."


 

Ed folded his arms at the end of the table and put his chin down atop them, feverously glaring at the latest problem gracing the table. His eyebrow twitched while considering his options. Eventually he picked his head up, looked over his shoulder, and leaned back to consult Oberth.

"If I took that one and moved it there," his voice came out in a low whisper, "will I have any chance of fixing this?"

Oberth gave a frustrated sigh and ground his teeth, "I don't know. Your chances are looking bleak no matter what you do with it."

"Edward," Tilly's cocky voice rang out, "I'm entirely unimpressed that your great brain is struggling here."

"Shut up," Ed snapped back at her, "stop belittling me when I'm thinking."

"Oh, he's embarrassed," the woman cast her gaze aside with a smirk, "nothing Hermann can say will fix this for you."

Folding his arms across his chest, Edward returned to glaring at the table once more. Leaning forward on his spot on the floor, Ed extended a cautious hand to the coffee table, "There…"

Brigitte bounced from her crossed legs to her knees and reached out to the table, "Yay!" her hand moved swiftly around the table, "king me!" she snatched up two of his three remaining red chips.

Oberth's face wrinkled, "Ouch…"

"Son of a…" Ed's hand slapped his face.

Tilly rolled her eyes, "That was pathetic," getting to her feet next to Brigitte, she strolled off, "I'm getting drinks, do the losers want anything?"

"Shut up," Ed grumbled.

Brigitte passed her glass to Oberth for a hand-off to Tilly, "More juice please, ma'am."

"Nothing for me," Oberth passed his wife the child's glass and proceeded to swat Edward upside the head, "you idiot, you keep giving her reasons to behave like that. Don’t get your knickers in a knot when she teases you and she’ll give up."

Ed simply shook his head and glared across the table to Brigitte, "I suppose you want me to move that one so you can claim it too?"

"Please," she flashed a bright, white smile.

Rolling his eyes, Edward gave up his last game piece to the giggling girl sitting on the floor across the coffee table from him, "I'm never playing checkers with you again."

"Why not?" Brigitte began to sweep her chips back into the game box.

Ed stood up just long enough to sit himself back down on the couch, "Because you won every game."

"… So?"

"Play with Hermann next time," Edward gestured to the man joining him on the couch.

Oberth abstained from the festivities as well, "If we ever play again, we're doing it when my wife's not here."

"You don’t want her to watch you lose again, too?" Brigitte tiled her head as she received a pair of unimpressed stares.

The interest of those gathered under the Elric’s roof shifted to the unlocking of the door. The moment Hohenheim stepped through the front entrance, everyone, with the exception of Edward, greeted him.

"Good afternoon, Professor."

The out of school address stopped Hohenheim before his shoes ever came off. A little dumbstruck by the crowd in his house, finally he simply laughed and hung up his coat, "My house is full for a Sunday afternoon. This is unusual."

Breezing out of the kitchen and cutting past Hohenheim with two drinks in her hands, Tilly called back, "Professor, perhaps you should enrol your son into some of these classes you and your colleagues teach. He seems to be losing his wits."

"How many times have I told you to shut that noisy hole of yours today?" Edward barked as she re-joined Brigitte on the floor.

"At least fifteen," the answer came with a sly smile.

"Edward, please, I have to go home with her later," Oberth's hands washed over his face.

Walking around his main room, Hohenheim moved to stand behind the couch where Oberth and his son sat, "Perhaps I'll enrol him in edict classes, so he can learn how to address women properly."

Tilly clapped her hands, "Splendid idea."

"What the hell is wrong with you? Don't encourage her!" Ed wailed, glaring over his shoulder at his father.

Hohenheim carried his entertained grin freely as he continued his circuit around the room until the journey led him into his study.

Tilly struggled to control her growing grin as the professor dipped out of sight, "I adore your father. He's so much fun."

"Says you," Edward rolled his eyes.

"I don't think he likes me very much," Brigitte nestled the lid back on the game box, "he looks at me like my mother does when she thinks my sister or I are fibbing."

Oberth laughed at the assessment, "Why would the Professor look at you that way?"

Brigitte shrugged, "I don't know."

At the snap of his fingers, Oberth turned his thoughts over to Ed, "Before I forget. Edward, I need you to pick up a few things before we get to work in the lab Tuesday. Most of the stuff is on your end of town, not mine, so that's the only reason I ask."

"No, that's fine. I'll leave my stuff at the University when I drop my dad off and then I can take the car."

Brigitte leaned her elbows on the table, "You got the car back?"

Ed's shoulders fell as he rolled his eyes to the ceiling, "Yes, I got it back."

"Got it back?" Tilly glanced from Brigitte to Ed, "it went missing?"

"No."

"Edward lost it."

"Do you ever want to come back to my house again?" Ed's eye twitched as he glared back at Brigitte's smiling feign of innocence.

A grin full of amusement teased Tilly’s lips, "Out with it, tell us the story."

Standing up sharply, Ed trained his annoyed gaze on the three guests to announce, "It's a very long and uninteresting story. Nobody needs to know what happened to the car, and if someone thinks she's going to tell the story later…" his eyes shot to Brigitte as she clasped her hands in her lap sweetly, "the kind Doctor Oberth here will stitch her lips shut."

Oberth blinked, "I certainly will not. I want to know this story, same as everyone."

Ed tossed his hands into the air in frustration, "There are some nuns out there who might end up finding out about someone's adventures in the University."

The adult's eyes all fell to Brigitte. The youngest guest within the house reached to the table and pulled her checkers box into her lap, "Don't look at me, I don't know anything."

 


 

"You can go out if you want, Winry. You don't need to stay in here and keep me company," Al said, watching her restlessly shift where she sat.

"No, I'd rather not," lying on her back Winry's eyes travelled around the upper portion of the prime minister's library as she put her feet up on the arm of the couch.

Alphonse shut his book and dropped it back down on the table, "You're making me uncomfortable in here."

"It makes me uncomfortable to be outside," Winry whined, "or anywhere else around here, for that matter."

Al couldn't argue with that, the house was a very uncomfortable place to be at the moment.

Flowers and well wishes adorned many of the tables in the house, and there was a fair bit of discussion about Mrs. Mitchell’s funeral that neither Al nor Winry felt they had any business being a part of. Although he’d been invited to attend, Al turned it down.

Winry was getting cabin fever though, and Al was going to start thinking up a way to kick her out if she didn’t find a way to motive herself, "You've been here with me for two days already. Go shopping! You said you had things to buy and I don't need a babysitter every minute of the day."  Al sat back in his seat and opened another book.

Winry shook her head with a frown, "I'm not babysitting you, Al."

"Then what are doing?" he asked, starting to sound annoyed. Instead of Winry chirping back at him, silence happened, and Al lifted his eyes from the book in his lap to look at her, "What?"

"After you guys all left, you and Izumi stayed an extra day at your layover, rather than travelling with Sig and Mason all the way into Dublith, right?"

"Yeah why?" Al rested the book in his lap, captured by the strange question, "how did you know that?"

"Because you weren’t supposed to be connecting in Central the day the market attacks happened," Winry finally spun herself to sit up straight, "so I called Dublith to ask them if anyone could help us figure out what was going on and Sig said you guys had stayed behind, because Izumi had wanted to investigate something. What was going on? Did someone delay you enough to make sure you’d be in Central during the attack?"

"Oh that," closing his book, Al placed it down on top of the pile on the table, "you’re thinking too much, Winry.  It’s not that sinister.  Most of our delays happened because we had problems with late trains, and then there was a rumour at our layover that caught Sensei's attention. She told Sig and Mason to go on ahead with me, but I told Sensei I wanted to go with her. We took a coach to the next town where the rumour was and found out all we’d done was waste our time. We hopped on the overnight train and got into Central by mid-day, that’s it."

"Rumour?" Winry leaned into a key word, "What sort of rumour?"

Al looked up in thought, "Um, it had something to do with an alchemist and dolls coming to life. Just the way they said it, it upset Sensei enough for her to investigate. Turns out that the rumour was really old, not entirely accurate, and the man involved was dead. Sensei was not happy," he laughed nervously at the memory of his annoyed teacher. His next sombre thought put an end to the amusement, "Maybe if we hadn't gone looking, we would all be in Dublith now."

Winry got up from her seat, moved over to the lounge chair Al had claimed, and sat down on the arm, "Don't talk like that, there's no way you could have known any of this was going to happen."

Al's lost voice crept up again, "I don't know anything about what happened to her. Yesterday I heard Mr. Mitchell get upset with someone on the phone because the witness statements went missing. It's such a big mess and nobody's getting anywhere with it," he trailed off as Winry wrapped her arms around his neck. "I just want to find my brother, why is this happening…"

"Al," she said, stopping him before he could discourage himself any further, "it'll turn out alright, I promise."

"Winry?"

She gave a hum as her reply.

Al lifted his voice, "I think I'm gonna go to Mrs. Mitchell's funeral tomorrow."

Straightening up on the arm of the chair, Winry looked at him questioningly, "I thought you didn't want to go."

Slowly Al nodded, "I didn't, but I've been asked a few times and I feel bad. Mr. Mitchell has been trying to fix things, big things… the whole country really, and his life's falling apart at the same time. His daughters aren't going – the older girl's been really withdrawn since she came to the house and is hiding in her room, and he doesn't want her at the funeral because it might upset her more. The nurse that looks after them is staying here to tend to the baby. I should at least go and show my support. He has done a lot for me."

"Do you really want to go to another funeral, though?" Winry eyed him with concern, knowing how well he remembered the last.

Simply shrugging, Al resumed nodding his head, not wanting to think about it too much about the previous one right now, "It's polite."

Sliding off the arm of the chair, Winry squeezed herself into the seat, squishing Al into the plush arm containing them.  Al popped out of a seat built for one, but Winry didn’t let him get far.  Reaching out, she wrapped her arms around his chest and pulled him back into her lap. Al stayed with her like that; silent, and leaning against her shoulder until his tension eased away, eventually choosing to rest in the comfort of her arms. Sometimes she wrapped Al up like this because he needed it, sometimes she did, and sometimes they both did. Winry’s hand brushed through his hair, a gesture she’d done with him since the hours they’d reunited, and Al sighed, closing his eyes. Winry hardly ever asked what was wrong, sometimes there wasn’t anything at all, but Al knew she cherished being the one who could hold him until one of them felt better.

"Al?"

He opened his eyes, "Hm?"

"You said that Ed might be stuck at the Gate, just like how we told you your body was, right?"

Al nodded slowly.

Winry tipped her head and rested a cheek on the top of Al's head, "I wonder if he's got people to keep him company there."

"I don't know," he gazed off across the room, "why?"

"I wonder who's keeping him in line if we're not there to make sure his head stays on straight."

 


 

As his hip slammed into the ground, the corner of Ed's eye found the bottle in midair. From his awkward position on the walkway, Edward reached out and caught the glass bottle in his strong left hand before it shattered. Frozen in a silent moment of victory, Ed's forehead came to rest on the ground in relief, "I didn't want to buy another one…"

"I beg your pardon, sir!  I am dreadfully sorry, this was entirely my fault.  I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking."

Turning over to face the man who had knocked him from his feet, Ed's angered voice lashed out, "Make sure you pay att—"

Ed bit his tongue, his eyes telling him to say nothing more when he identified the face of the man on the ground next to him.

"I know you," the man finally said cautiously, eyeing Edward as he tried to produce a name. Both men came to their knees and began repackaging the paper bag Ed had been carrying, "You're Hohenheim's son, aren't you? Edward Elric?"

"Yeah," he watched as the man got to his feet, and then extended a hand to help Ed up. Once on his feet, Edward straightened his vest and returned the paper bag to the place in his arm, "And you're Rudolf Hess." It was not a name or a face he could have easily forgotten.

"Well, at least we know each other's name, that's a good start," he gave a musing grin, brushing aside the sandy blonde curls in his hair, "you don't have classes in this block?"

Ed adjusted the bag, his response blunt and disinterested, "I'm not taking any classes."

Frowning with confusion, Hess gave Edward a curious eye; "I've seen you around campus this term, and last term. What are you doing around if you don't study?"

"I work at the university. I push papers for my dad and some other professors in the department," Ed shrugged, the back of his mind trying to understand why he was having a conversation with someone he could have lived the rest of his life out happily never meeting. Yet, much to his surprise, in contrast to the offensive showman he’d first met, the man's voice was not abrasive in any way, nor critical or cynical.  He simply curious and Ed didn't like how comfortable the conversation was.

"You're the professor's secretary, then?"

Ed scoffed at that, "No, he can get up and answer the telephone or the door himself. I'm not his servant."

"I suppose that's alright then," the abrasive response made Hess laugh and shake his head, "where are you headed to, Mr. Elric?"

Ed reached into his pocket to pull out the list Oberth had given him. Skimming over the lines, mentally checking off everything he'd picked up already. His eyes hit the last line and, after a second reading of his final instructions, Edward's expression fell unimpressed.

"What?"

"I'm going to the 'corner store' to get 'something chocolate' and 'something chocolate and caramel'," he slammed the list into his pocket, "that idiot."

Hess couldn't keep himself from laughing at Edward's exasperated tone, "Well, I have to pass the convenience stores on this block. I'll walk with you."

Not being in a position to gracefully escape the situation, Ed had no alternative other than to take the man up on his offer. He turned down the sidewalk, shopping bag cradled in his left arm and Hess at his cumbersome right side. The longer the two walked in silence, the more awkward Ed felt about the man's presence – he honestly had no idea what, if anything, he was expected to say to this man. Ed started to wish that a store would pop up on the block that he could duck into.

"I heard a very fascinating rumour," Hess' seemingly harmless voice finally broke the silence and their pace slowed, "your father doesn't talk about you much when we're together, but some of his closer associates, like Karl, have mentioned things about your right arm."

Ed blinked, rather surprised by the unexpected topic. Adjusting the bag in his left arm, he caught the right glove with a finger and slipped it off his mechanical hand, "You mean this?"

"Is that… a real mechanical hand?" Hess' words raved with wonder and his steps slowed to a halt. His eyes travelled from the hand up Edward's arm, "The rumour says that goes all the way to your shoulder."

In no mood to roll his sleeve up, Ed simply nodded, "My father and I had the blueprint drafted a long time before I ever had it put on. It wasn't until we came to Germany that I ended up completing it."

"You lived all those years in London without that prosthetic arm?"

His urge to correct everyone and describe the thing an AutoMail always seemed to make Ed's cheek twitch, "I managed. I had help," Ed dressed his words in a bitter tone to disguise humbling memories, "Munich University's renowned Professor Hohenheim did not let his one-armed son do too many things on his own."

Hess raised his brow at the statement, "I would assume that's because there weren't too many things you could do with a disability like that, like tying your shoe laces or your hair. Simply dressing yourself must have been quite the challenge."

"I have always been perfectly capable of taking care of myself," Ed hated being labelled disabled almost as much as he had hated being called short. At least the latter wasn't an issue anymore.

Being swift enough to catch on that Ed was not too happy with the topic, Hess moved on to something more to his own liking.

"Speaking of your father, I'm curious about something," he slid his hands into his pockets, "I find it really strange that your father is such an active member in Thule, but he is not involved with the political side of things. Is there any reason why?"

Edward wrinkled his nose at the question, "He doesn't want to carry political obligations. He did that in England and decided he'd had enough of that when we came to Germany. But even with that, Thule and the NSDAP are partnered, so he is technically involved even if his name's not on the sheet."

Hess gave a frown for how Ed defended his father, "If he were anyone else, if he weren't a senior Thule member, it would look extremely bad on his part. I just don't want anyone to get the wrong impression of your father, that’s all; he does have an outstanding mind."

Looking up into the mid-day sun, Ed narrowed his eyes, "Shouldn't it work both ways? The vast majority of higher-ups in the NSDAP are members of Thule, except the guy at the top."

From the corner of his eye, Ed caught Hess' visual displeasure for calling the man out.

"The reason no one questions your father is the same reason no one questions Adolf for not joining Thule. Both men are extremely well respected in their positions. No offence to your father, but Adolf is a far greater man and your father's motives would be questioned long before Adolf's ever will be. He will change this country for the better long before anything your father does has any impact," the imposing type of man Ed had expected Hess to be turned up, anger vivid in his eyes that anyone that gall to question Adolf Hitler, "it would be in his best interest if your father came out and cast ballots in the November vote and show his support."

Not wanting to hold onto any uneasy silence with a man like Hess, Ed answered, "I'll talk to my dad."

Hess's tone abruptly flipped back to his prior pleasant demeanour "And yourself? Why do you stay in your father's shadow in all this?"

"I am a scientist who's blissfully ignorant of politics."

Hess laughed again at Edward's statements, unwilling to accept the dismissive reply, "Well how about this: myself, Adolf, Albrecht, and Lord knows how many other people are going to a Bavarian League meeting tonight.  Afterwards we're going out for drinks and you're welcome to join us. I'll introduce you to the man who'll lead this country into the future and rid you of ignorance. I'm sure you'll like his poise."

Ed ran 'Bavarian League' meeting through his head, trying to figure out what the heck that was, "Hermann and Tilly might need me late." The thought of what Hess considered 'entertainment' suddenly came into consideration and Ed frantically tried to put together an excuse, but Hess stopped him.

Taking a card and pen from his pocket, Hess left a note on the card and tucked it into the pocket on Ed's vest, "It would be a wise move on your part to drop by, Mr. Elric."

Ed swallowed, sensing the non-negotiable implications of the invite that left him without an alternative.

 


 

Breezing down the stairs, Winry slammed her face into the windows at the side of the front doors, growing more distraught as she watched the last of the funeral attendees pull away from the front yard. She slumped against the window in dismay.

"Someone come back… I can't find it," peeling herself off the window, Winry sulked back up the stairs, "what a stupid big house. How do they keep track of anything in here?" Dragging her feet down the hall and back into the guest room, Winry looked around at a space she'd turned upside down and into an utter disaster. Sheets had been tossed, everything that had been in drawers was on the floor, and she'd even gone so far as to pull the bed away from the wall.

"This is so dumb!!" Winry screamed in frustration as she grabbed onto her hair. The disappearance of her clunky AutoMail tool bag was getting more frustrating by the minute. It was huge!  How did she lose it!?

Her aggravation was silenced by the emergence of a baby's cry. Oops, her own tantrum had gone too far. With an overly guilty conscience, Winry poked her head out into the hall.  Her eyes darted around the floor, wondering if anyone who had stayed behind was going to scold her for disturbing the baby.  There was no one in the halls.  Warning her room that she'd come back and deal with her lost things later, Winry slipped into the hall echoing with the baby's cry.

Winry made her way quickly down the hall, half expecting someone to pop out of a room to scold her for being too old to throw tantrums. Easily able to find the baby's room by following the sad sounds, a door decorated with a pastel sign reading 'Baby's Room' left Winry without a doubt she was in the right place. Turning the door handle, she crept in and was instantly overwhelmed by the baby's room. Though the childish decorations were lovely, and the early day's light filtered through the blinds was peaceful and pleasant, the room was absolutely massive.  Why on earth did the baby need a room this large?  The baby's crib was displayed as a trophy within the centre of the room. Tip toeing over to the polished wooden crib, Winry leaned against the rails and peered down at the crying infant.

"Hi baby, I'm so sorry I made you cry. Did I wake you from a good dream?" she cooed at the child, reaching a hand into the crib to stroke the child's soft cheek. To Winry's delight, the child calmed down with her presence, "Maybe it wasn't my fault.  Maybe you were just lonely, hm?" her lips curled up amused, wondering if she'd coerced into the room by a sly infant, "you heard me make all that noise and you cried so I'd come by? What a sneaky little girl you are!"

All this space really did make the room feel lonely, and there was no one around to give the baby what it craved most – company.  Someone to hold her.  Slipping her other arm into the crib, Winry moved to pick up the child.

"Don't do that."

Squeaky words from nowhere startled Winry so badly she nearly knocked the crib over.  Spinning around, her unnerved, wide eyes canvassed the room and discovered a wooden rocking chair in the far corner. Winry stared at the newest edition to the Mitchell family: the young girl with striking blue eyes and long brown hair nestled in the chair.  Her hair spilled over the stuffed animals she was embedded in and her arms were wrapped around one of the soft toys in her lap.

"The nurse didn't want Alphonse holding the baby either. She won't be happy if you pick her up without permission."

Winry's eyes narrowed in thought, not sure when Al had tried to hold the baby.  Winry forced a smile for the little girl, "If you were here with the baby the whole time, why didn't you try to help her?"

"I didn't make her cry." The child stated it like it was a fact, not accusing Winry of anything.  Slowly rocking her chair, the sunlight filtering through the blinds shimmered on the links of her necklace, "I shouldn't touch the baby either right now. She's tired."

Not entirely sure what to make of this girl, Winry wondered if she even had any idea how to deal with a baby in the first place. Sauntering across the wide open spaces of the baby's room, Winry crouch down in front of the rocking chair and smiled, "She's your baby sister now, right? That means that if she's crying, you're supposed to help her.  That's what big sisters do.  Your daddy and nurse should show you how to change her diaper and hold her bottle so she's okay. If she cries, you're supposed to worry about her, because she's important – just like you. "

With the tilt of her head, the child's blue eyes locked onto Winry, "Are you Alphonse's big sister?"

"Not exactly. I'd like to think we could be brother and sister… I don't know if I'm doing a good job or not. I'm pretty new to being an extra big sister too," Winry's voice faded with a thought, "I'm sure he'd be more comfortable with Ed than me… but I hope I'm doing okay."

"Ed?" the child's eyes widened.

Winry found herself nervously laughing at this child bringing up Ed's name, "Al's big brother. He went on a journey, so I get to be his older sibling until Ed gets back."

"You're just a replacement?"

Winry tried to tell herself that this girl was just a child and she didn't understand the weight of her words, but that didn’t lessen the impact. Her shoulders started to fall along with her expression, and it felt like someone's jagged fingernails were clawing around inside her chest. Lightly chewing on her lip, Winry could not bring herself to reply – she didn't want to hear her voice tell anyone she was only the second best thing.

"What are you doing here?"

Standing in the open bedroom door that Winry hadn't heard come open, the Mitchell family nurse frowned despondently at the intruder.

Snapping her head to the nurse in the door, Winry swallowed uneasily, "We were just talking about being big sisters." She hoped neither of them could hear how her voice was struggling.

"Young lady, no one in this room needs coaching from you. I am here, please leave."

Spooked by the empty, cold gaze this nurse was directing her way, Winry rose back up to her feet. She watched this woman approach the baby's crib, stare into it like she was looking into an empty box, and do nothing to acknowledge the infant.  Winry frowned, "If you're here to take care of these kids, why didn't you come when the baby cried? Isn't that part of your job?"

Her sentence had barely finished coming out of her mouth when the nurse appeared in front of Winry, materializing in the blink of an eye.  Winry squeaked, unable to figure out how that had happened.

"It is not your place to question me, nor is it your house to question the people within, and I do not want someone like you involved with these children."

Winry backed up, but her defensive spine kicked in, "I came in here to make sure the baby was okay, because you didn't. If you don't want people poking into your business, maybe do your job."

"Miss. Rockbell, was it?" the nurse reached into the crib and pulled out the infant child. Cradling it in her arms she turned to Winry, "are you aware an arrest warrant has been issued for you?"

Winry's eyes widened.

"It would be a shame for yours and Alphonse's sake if this low profile case initiated by the office of a Brigadier General Roy Mustang became—"

Winry spun on her heels, headed for the door, and stormed into the hallway. Before slamming the door, Winry paused and looked back into the room, eyeing the little girl who'd risen from her chair and now stood at the nurse's side. For completely different reasons, both of them made her feel uneasy.

"If any of you happen to find my tool bag, could you return it to me?  Please and thank you."

She slammed the door.

 


 

In the far corner of the room, Ed stood, arms folded, wearing a skeptical look on his face. Lurking from this position Ed visually canvassed the room once again, eyeing its ageing wooden stage, string drawn mauve curtains, and wooden chairs holding rows upon rows of properly dressed men. Having no urge to mingle, Ed simply stood in his place, watching the hall quickly fill. He'd wished that his father had been home earlier, maybe Hohenheim would have been able to tell him what on earth he was getting into.

"Are you not interested in socializing with us, Mr. Elric?"

Instantly recognizing the voice, Ed turned to see Hess approaching.

"Don't be so reserved. Mingle a little. We have seats down the middle aisle, come join us," Hess's hand landed on Edward's shoulder.

"I'm fine where I am, I'm just going to watch from back here."

Hess raised his eyebrows, not liking the vantage point, "You should sit down somewhere not so far back, especially dressed like that," he took a hold of Ed from under his arm and yanked him out of the corner, "you're going to be mistaken in that coat."

"What's wrong with my coat?" Ed staggered along after Hess, needing to push his way through the growing crowd.

With a hand sweeping across the landscape of the room, Hess spoke up again, "All of the men dressed in brown jackets are Sturmabteilung," Hess wrapped his hand firmly around Ed's upper arm, "In these dim lights, the only thing distinguishing you from some of them is the lack of an armband. You don’t want to get caught in the ruckus by mistake."

"Sturmabteilung? The Brown Coats?" Ed's voice tried to hide his concern – he'd heard of these men before. He had an idea what they were all about and none of it was good, "What are they doing at your meeting?"

"Our meeting?" Hess laughed at the misunderstanding, "This is not a party meeting, Mr. Elric," he started ushering Ed through a row of seated patrons and followed close behind, making sure his guest couldn't back out, "this is a Bavarian League meeting. The opposition."

Standing in front of his seat, Ed scanned the crowd that surrounded him, "Half these people are your people though." Concern started to rise.

"That's right," Hess concurred, sitting down at his seat, "how can your opponent voice himself over such strong opposition in the room?"

These people weren't here for a political meeting of minds, they were here to crash someone else's party and silence them.  Ed cautiously began to sit down, trying to find a way to get himself out of this mistake, only to be stopped by the uproar of voices by an entrance. He peered over people's heads to watch a dark haired man, not much taller than himself, breeze into the room, marching with a military stride down the aisle. Edward narrowed his eyes, spotting Albrecht Haushofer keeping stride behind him.

"Rudolf!" the dark haired man's voice called for him and Hess flagged him down. Before Edward knew what was happening, a man with a tuft of a moustache under his nose stood in front of him, and the two men stared questioningly at each other.

Hess reached around Ed and gestured to the empty seats at his side, "There are seats for you here."

Ed squeezed aside so the dark haired man commanding the attention of everyone around them could reach his seat, and the bundle of joy that followed him pounced.

"My Lord, Edward! Not in a million years did I think I'd see you here!" Albrecht claimed the empty seat next to Ed.

Forcing a smile, Ed wasn't in a position to shake off the young Haushofer's presence this time, "Good evening, Hoffie."

Nearly falling over, Albrecht barked, "Edward! Could you show me some courtesy in public and not call me that?"

"Edward," Hess smoothly collected his attention. Settling down and leaning back in his chair, Hess motioned to the man standing in front of an empty seat two spots away. His eyes were so deep and brown they appeared as black as his slicked hair and trench coat. He wasn't a towering man, nor did he carry a build that was anything but ordinary, yet Ed didn't mistake this man's conquering gaze when it looked down on him from the corner of his eyes, "I'd like you to meet Adolf Hitler."

At the snap of his fingers, Albrecht chimed in and hopped back to his feet, "He's our new Fuhrer, replacing that useless Harrer."

As he stood up, Edward watched the man's no-nonsense expression subside. Ed could tell from the aura he commanded that not only did every supporter in the room place him in high regard, Adolf himself proudly stood high on everyone else's shoulders. Locked in analysis of his prowess, Ed absently extended his hand across Hess' seat, "Pleasure to meet you."

"It's always good to have a man with strong eyes like yours stand alongside people like us," at that, Adolf took Ed's hand to shake.

Ed froze the moment he realized what he'd done and everyone watching caught the obvious look of confusion written on Adolf's face. Before Ed could stop him or Hess could speak, Adolf had grabbed Edward by his cold metal wrist and ripped the protective glove from his hand. The four men stood unmoving in their places, two of them engaged with each other and all other eyes watching the scene unfold.  Ed yanked on his arm twice before Adolf released the hold he had on his wrist.

"This is Hohenheim's son, Edward Elric," Hess finally said something to interrupt the tension.

Not letting his interest slide, Adolf ignored Hess and addressed the interesting specimen at hand, "Is there a reason behind your mechanical arm or do I get to remain in wonder?"

"Wonder all you like," Ed answered stubbornly, disliking how this man seemed to be trying to walk all over him.

"Edward's whole arm is like that. His left leg is artificial too!" Albrecht attempted to brighten the mood, "he's got a lot of strength to endure so well with a condition like this, don't you think?"

"Quite," was all Adolf answered with, before he lost interest in Ed and put his mind towards pressing issues.  He turned to Hess, "Rudolf, would you accompany me outside?"

"Of course," freshly arrived at their seats, Hess was a little surprised by the request, but obliged him, "Edward, will you keep our seats?"

Ed leaned back with a nod, letting them slide past and out into the aisle, returning the same interrogating gaze Adolf looked at him with when he glanced back into the seats as he sat down again.

The moment Adolf was out the door, the stage at the front of the room and the voices coming from it set the hall into an uproar.  Ed sat higher in his seat, attempting to see what was going on.

"What a pathetic little man," Albrecht spat at the finely dressed gentleman crossing the stage, "these cowards, they know we're back here and they waited for Adolf to step out before showing their faces. How can anyone follow someone who has no courage like that?"

Ed climbed back to his feet as the uproar of people in the hall – supporters and non-supporters alike – attempted to make their presence felt.  Surrounded by walls of people, Edward tried to identify the easiest way out, only to realize it was the same way he came in: the main doors.  The escape he was eyeing flew into an uproar as it became an entrance. The overflowing hall of people and those on stage got to watch as the hall doors were thrown wide open. Shoving his way through the congestion created by his own supporters, Adolf and an entourage of his own personal army's men, opened a path down the centre aisle and powered through it.

"This is ridiculous," Ed's disgusted voice was drowned out by the increasingly rowdy crowd, "I need to get out of here."

Deciding he'd rather try his luck at a side door, Edward was stopped by a sea of people when the deafening chants for Hitler to take the podium erupted. Trying to push past the crammed masses of people, Ed looked over to the stage and watched as Adolf commanded the uprising simply by existing in the room. Arms flew into the air in celebration. They started to chant. Startled by the display, Ed gripped his unbranded arm where Hess' hand had been earlier.

"I will not step aside."

The attention in the room shifted to the stage as the head of the opposition stood his ground.

"This is our meeting. We organized it, and we paid for the hall. Shut up or get out—"

The uproar of the crowd drowned the stage out. Adolf ploughed his way through the people crowding the centre path to the stage without provocation, defended by his supporters, protected by his entourage surrounding him.  A crush of people moved towards the stage.

Unable to get out of the suffocating crowd of bodies, Edward climbed onto a wooden chair.  He looked around and started picking out the amount of people who’d done the same.  He exchanged a look of concern with Albrecht standing above the crowd as well.  Hitler's thugs overpowered the Bavarian officers and it was Adolf himself who climbed uncontested to the stage to charge the speaker.

Standing frozen atop the chair, the moment Adolf's fist struck their speaker, the Bavarian League attendees sought retaliation against any unrecognizable face.  Any face that didn’t belong there.  Any face they hadn’t seen before.  Edward's eyes dilated and he frantically looked around the room, realizing he stood at the middle of anarchy crashing down upon the hall.

 


 

He’d been only given one opportunity to commit the building to memory and that was all he needed – Al couldn’t forget this place, "Can we stop the car?" he asked.

Slowly applying the brakes, the driver looked into the backseat, "Did you forget something?"

Al's eyes locked onto the ageless yellow brick house with its freshly painted fence and luscious green grass, "Yes, I think I did."

Pulling the car into an alley on the other side of the street, the driver turned the car around.

"No, wait. Stop." if it had not been for his heart anxiously pounding in his throat, Al would have been able to catch his breath. He stared out the car window at the house, trying to gather his nerves.

"Yes?"

Al looked at the driver, "I'm getting out here. Please let Mr. Mitchell know where I am."

Startled by the announcement, the driver immediately protested, "You can't do that. The instructions were that you head back to the residence once the reception was finished."

"Tell Mr. Mitchell that I had to return something to Mrs. Hughes. And tell him I'll call when I'm ready to be picked up again," Al announced firmly, tightening his face, "he knows I wanted to come here, but when his wife died I couldn't inconvenience him by asking. I'm here now, so I'll do this now."

The driver opened his mouth to protest and Al cut him off.

"Please, just tell him that," Al opened the car door.

"Does anyone know the number to contact you at, if this does not meet his approval?" the driver called.

Reaching back for the black suit jacket one of the house staff hand leant to him, Al gave an affirmative response, and shut the door. He turned around and squared off with this pleasant house across the street.  Clenching his fists, he let the driver watch him cut across the afternoon street and slip through the open yard gates. Facing forward, looking in the same direction he intended to go, Al nodded at the house and wondered how best to proceed.

Where was he supposed to start?  He could knock on the door, that was a good first step, but he suddenly felt nervous about doing that.  All of his worries vanished when Elysia ran around the corner of the house.

"Yay! It's Al!"

Al looked down and watched Elysia attach herself to his right hand.

"Did you come to play too!?"

The innocence she conveyed helped encourage his nerves to slip away, "We can play, I don't mind."

"You can be the…" Elysia brought a critical hand to her chin as she thought of an appropriate title for Al, "you'll be the detective!" she announced, tugging on his long-sleeved shirt, "cause you're dressed nice like one."

A trickle of sweat ran down Al's cheek as he giggled nervously, "That's not exactly why I'm dressed like this, but—"

A scream broke loose. 

Both children's attentions were stolen by the high-pitched, shrill scream coming from the other side of the house. Al stepped forward in concern, but was stopped by Elysia who stood steadfast with a grin on her face like there was absolutely nothing wrong.

"Sheska can be the cleaning lady!"

A scrambling flurry of arms and legs tumbled out from around the house walls, "Elysia! Don't run off like that, your mom will get mad at me."

Clinging tight to Al's hand, Elysia shook her head stubbornly, "Nuh-uh, Al's here now. He's the Detective and he can look after me 'cause I'm the girl who needs detective things done. You can be the cleaning lady who likes to bring tea and biscuits."

Sheska's hands slapped down onto her knees, huffing to catch her breath once she arrived, "Why am I always the maid?"

Al stood in the middle of the hubbub completely bewildered.

Straightening herself out and taking Elysia by the hand, Sheska adjusted her glasses and turned her attention to the new boy in the yard, "Hi there, was there something I can help you with?"

Completely lost in the middle of all that was going on, Al's mouth creaked open, "Actually, I was looking for Mrs. Hughes."

Sheska's eyes swelled to fill her glasses.

"I'll go get mummy! I'll tell her Al is here!" Elysia flew away from Sheska when the woman forgot how to hold the girl's hand.

A grin grew into Al's face, amused by Elysia's endless reserve of bouncy energy. Sheska snatched his attention back when she grabbed him by the chin and yanked his head towards her.  "Are you Al?" Sheska leaned in nose to nose with him.

Considering Elysia had just been yelling his name, it wasn't exactly a secret.  "Yes," he took her hand off his face.

"Wow… Okay.  Winry was right, I would never have guessed you looked like this," her hands came over her face in awe of who was standing in front of her.

Al narrowed his widened eyes, completely baffled by who this was and how she seemed to know both he and Winry, "Who are you?"

"Sheska!" she answered and leaned in curiously to Al again, "I thought your eyes would be gold like Ed's."

"Sheska…" Al leaned away from her as a lightbulb went on his head, "are you Winry's pen pal—"

"Oh my god!! Winry!" Sheska's hands drove into her hair as she screeched, "Do you know where she is? I haven't heard from her in days, I hope she got out of town okay. She could have at least called and told me she was alright.  Unless the brigadier general caught her.  I don’t think he did.  Unless he did and it’s a secret…"

Al's face twisted in confusion, not sure about the tangent Sheska was going on about, "Winry's staying with me."

Sheska's expression wrenched around her face, "With you? She found you!? Oh thank goodness, she was so worried that someone was going to find you and question you and harass you and hurt you or dissect you or… WAIT," Sheska's hands grabbed Al's shoulders firmly, her eyes wide with a thousand unvoiced questions, "why are you here to see Mrs. Hughes?"

"I... uh," Al side glanced to the door to see if either Elysia or Gracia had shown up to help him, "I came to talk with her, she invited me to come back if I wanted to talk."

"So you've been here before?"

"Yes."

Sheska's hands fluttered around him, "She's seen you like this?"

Al nodded, "Yes."

Sheska's head dropped back in relief, "Thank goodness I'm not the only one who knows about this.  This secret is so hard to keep."

"Alphonse!" Ms. Hughes exclaimed as she stepped out of the house and approached the pair yammering away on her lawn, "you look so nice today."

Al glanced down at himself, dressed nicely in the black dress slacks, white top, tie, and the black jacket in his arms. It was a shame the reason he was done up was because of a funeral, "Thank you."

"I'm glad you came back to see me, you're looking so much better than the last time we spoke. Have you been getting along alright at the Mitchell residence alright with all that's been going on?" her eyes grew concerned at the thought.

"It's been okay.  There's not much we can do about the circumstances, but Winry's been with me the last few days," Al replied quietly.

"Has she? That's good," Gracia's gaze fell away as she weighed the new information, "Sheska, Elysia wants to make tea again for Alphonse, since he liked it so much last time – would you help her?" the mother reached out and collected Al's jacket from his arms, "let's go inside, sit down, talk for a bit, and maybe invite Winry to join us… I think it would be nice if we all had a chat together."

Climbing the first few steps back into the Hughes household, Al stopped to address his worries, "Um… could we call Winry later?" Winry had no idea he had gone to see Mrs. Hughes. She had always spoken well of the Hughes', but this was still a family with deep ties to the military and he didn't know how Winry would react.  Al wanted to talk with Gracia before anyone could get upset about it.

Mrs. Hughes stopped at the bottom of her porch, "Why would you want to exclude her?"

Sheska's expression softened as she walked up behind Gracia, "Well, if Ed comes up…"

Alphonse felt the blood drain from his face.

"…Winry gets upset when people talk about him in past tense."

"Past tense?" Gracia whirled around on Sheska.

No, no, no, no this wasn't what Al was here for. He didn't want to talk about this right now. His brother wasn't ‘past tense’ – he was out there somewhere, Al knew it. He would prove it! Things shouldn't be this way. It should never have happened. Al was the one who should have been ‘past tense’. His brother should never, ever have…

But now Al was trying to fix things, like his brother would have done for him – like he did do for him, twice – except everything was going wrong.

Al vanished from the doorway, disappearing into a house that once meant something, full of people he wanted to know, that he should have known, but he couldn't remember anything about.

 


To Be Continued...


Notes:

I'm going to try and refrain from calling Hitler "Hitler" as much as possible. I'll refer to him as Adolf unless I'm going for some story effect.

"Harrer" – Karl Harrer. Original leader of the Nazi party.

Sturmabteilung – also known as the "Brown Coats". The name of the early Nazi army.

 

This chapter was revised 2022-11-19 for clarity purposes.

Chapter 9: The Warmth Of...

Summary:

Al and Winry reconvene at the Hughes' house while Hohenheim deals with Ed's incidental trouble.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It was as reclusive and hidden a spot as Ed could find – curled up on the floor beside his bed believing no one would suspect a thing from the abandoned sheets. The room was silent now, a far contrast from the noise moments before. To preserve the serenity, Ed attempted to hold his breath for as long as he could, occasionally failing his attempts.

It was his mother who broke the silence, calling his name in the room. The concern in her voice was real, not a feint to lure him out, but he was still afraid to face her. He curled up tighter into his ball, hoping that the feet moving across his bedroom floor would not come close enough to find him.

"Edward…"

The voice of his mother was saturated with concern and relief at the same time when she found him. In the moonlit bedroom standing the middle of an unfarmed field, Trisha picked up her son as he started to cry.

"Where does it hurt?"

"My head," he choked out, his face buried in her chest.

Not wanting to harm his pride any more than her discovery of the incident had done, Trisha didn’t ask what had happened. She knew. She also knew which man she would scold for insisting their growing boy would not roll out of his first proper bed. Sitting at the edge of the new mattress, Trisha stroked her fingers through his downy soft hair while Edward clung to her.

"Mommy I'm cold."

Trisha didn’t respond to the complaint, distracted by Hohenheim's reflection appearing in her son's window. They'd both known what they would find the moment they heard the thud on the floor, "I told you…" Trisha’s hand continued to smooth over Edward's hair, "he was going to fall out if you didn't put a guard on the side. He’s busy in his sleep."

Hohenheim had no argument to defend himself; just that he’d honoured his son’s request and let him sleep without one, ignoring better judgement. He sat down next to Trisha at the foot of the bed. With a kiss to both their foreheads, he offered his apology, "I'm sorry, you were right." With the light clasp of his hands out of sight from Ed's prying eyes, Hohenheim touched the wooden bed frame to initiate a transmutation that would remedy the situation a little too late. The couple looked over their shoulders to the short wooden rail that now protected the middle portion of the bed.

"I don't want that," Ed tearfully whined into his mother’s collar bone, eyes peering over his shoulder to spite the additions on his bed, "I'm a big boy."

"Yes you are," Trisha knew he whole heartedly believed it, "but even big boys sometimes need help to not fall out of bed. Don't you remember when we were on the train a few months ago? We slept in the cabins and those beds had sides for the even bigger people, like mommies and daddies."

Both parents caught the fiercely sceptical and teary eyed reaction of their over tired, embarrassed son. Hohenheim took Edward from Trisha's arms and placed his son, on the verge of tears, on his knees, "There’s no reason to start crying again? I thought you told me big boys don't cry?"

Driven to be a ‘big boy’, but unable to explain away his tears, Ed decided an excuse was enough to help him save face, "My head hurts."

"Where does it hurt?"

Ed answered his father by covering the left side of his face and Hohenheim pulled his son's hand away to take a closer look.

"You bumped your cheek," his hand softly brushed over the tender spot, "were you trying to dive into the lake like older boys do?" His other hand cupped the good side of Edward's face and Hohenheim gave the cheek a pat of encouragement, "Everyone knows you’re a big boy, so you'll be better than new when the sun comes up later in the morning, I promise."

Edward’s head rolled into the warm hand cradling his frozen cheek and shivered.  He'd gotten cold without a blanket on the floor.  His parents spoke to each other but he wasn’t listening, Ed clenched his eyes and focussed on trying to use this toasty hand to warm his face.  The effort made him tired.  He wanted to go back to sleep.  Attempting to bury his face in his father’s hand and fade away, Ed was jostled back to the room when his father patted his cheek a little too hard.

"Edward, are you okay?"

Staring blankly into his father’s face, Ed couldn’t figure out why he sounded so concerned.  It was just sleep, isn’t that what they wanted him to do every night?  Ed didn’t understand why he looked so concerned.

"Dad?" maybe he’d explain.

The little peep he’d made eased the concern and put a soft, somewhat tired smile on the elder man’s faces.  Hohenheim's warm hand came up and brushed through his young son's curtain of bangs, and Ed watched from the corner of his eye as the caring hand lifted off his face.

 


"Come on Edward, wake up," Hohenheim's hand firmly connected with Ed's cheek, with enough weight to snap him back to his senses.

Ed rolled his head away from the slap after it made contact. He tried to open his eyes, only to find himself staring through a haze at a brick wall. Not bothering to understand why his left eye wasn't opening, Edward felt the chill again the moment his father's warm hand came to his cheek and turned his head forward.

"Edward, are you okay?" Hohenheim repeated, still leaning over his son.

The list of questions mounted until a layer of fog cleared in Ed's head, realizing he lay on a cold cement floor, staring up at his father within a poorly lit room. He wondered if there was more to it than that, but couldn't get his mind to concentrate long enough.

"Get moving old man, I'll lock you in here too if you don't get your ass in gear."

"Now you listen here, if you want to keep that tongue of yours…"

Ed winced at the pair of loud, unidentifiable voices now ringing in his ears. For the moment he was able to think about it, something familiar existed in the retaliator's voice. The desperate urge to go back to sleep, despite how easily the cold cement filtered through the back of his dress shirt, kept his mind from focusing on it.

"I need you to sit up," Hohenheim's voice came out far quieter but more clearly than the other men barking at each other. He put a hand at Ed's shoulders and helped him to a sitting position. The sudden change in equilibrium within his head brought Ed's hand to the left side of his face where a concentration of pain existed.

"What the hell…" a viciously pounding headache swept through Edward's skull.

Crouching down at his left side, Hohenheim put his son's clutching left hand on his own shoulder and slipped his arm around Ed's back, "On your feet. Hold onto my shoulder." The moment Hohenheim felt Ed's hand grip onto his shirt, he rose to his feet, pulling Edward up with him.

Swaying off balance by the abrupt change in posture, Ed did not understand why his father was being so careful helping him to his feet. Taking a balancing step towards the man, Edward's left foot never hit the ground. Tumbling off balance into his father's side, Hohenheim's grip tightened around his son as he tried to re-steady him. Uncontrollably, Ed began to shiver.

"I have other things to do than stand here with the goddamn door open. Get the hell out." The angry voice echoed within the cement walls once more.

With a sudden panic, Ed's weakly opened eye glanced around the room, the fog not having cleared enough for him to clearly grasp his surroundings, "Where's my leg?"

"Don't worry about it," Hohenheim's voice did not display aggravation for any event going on within the echoing room, he simply pulled Edward along as the pair staggered to the barred exit doors, "Let's go Rudolf."

Ed connected his confusion for the retaliatory voice to the name his father had called out. His mind consumed by the throbbing headache, Edward did not think about it long enough to wonder what Hess was doing there.

"What's your name?" Hess pointed a commanding finger at the armed cell guard. The two vocal combatants stood in limbo when the officer used the silence to refuse answering the question. Riled by the uncooperative man, Hess' jaw tightened, "Alright you little fu-"

"That's enough." Hohenheim's displeased voice engulfed the hall, silencing Hess and causing Edward to grip tighter in surprise. As the echo of his voice dispersed within the bitterly cold, damp, and dimly lit holding area in the basement of Munich's police headquarters, Hohenheim turned to leave the area, "Let's go Rudolf. There's nothing worth your time down here."

Again, trying to open his left eye unsuccessfully beyond a thin crack, Ed had shifted the majority of his weight to his father's far stronger hold. Glancing over his shoulder the best he could, Ed tried to concentrate his thoughts long enough to figure out what was going on.


The pale afternoon light lay scattered throughout the master bedroom, sneaking in from between the spaces of the lace curtains. The smell of the trees and prized flowers filtered in with the afternoon breeze. The silence so deafening, the birdsong emanating from the trees had been muted.

"Alphonse?"

Standing on the shards of sunlight upon her floor, Gracia's soft voice carried in the room. From beyond her bedside, she could see the ends of sandy blonde hair – as though wanting to be found. Her footsteps did not echo in the room as she swept her toes along the hardwood floor. Coming up to the side of her bed, holding vigil next to Alphonse, who had pulled his legs up to his chest sitting upon the floor, Gracia waited.

"I don't feel good," Al's forehead rested atop his knees, fingers intertwined around the front of his legs.

Gracia swept her skirt behind her legs. Silently, she sat down at the edge of the bed.

"My head hurts sometimes… I'm tired," the voice existed with barely enough energy to sustain life.

Brushing her hand over the soft, down-filled comforter, Gracia's voice gently extended an offer, "Do you want to have a nap?"

"I'll still have the feeling later."

"What feeling is that?"

The birds' chirp from the window was a welcome intrusion into the dire sensation Alphonse's silence created. The warm orange shards of sunlight decorating the room began to dance; the breeze from the window touching upon Gracia's back and teasing through the tips of Al's hair. Nature tried to entertain the sorrow.

Gracia slid to her knees on the floor next to Al, un-tucking her legs to the side as she leaned back against the bed.

"I feel so lost around here. I don't know where Sensei is, I don't know where to start looking for my brother, I don't recognize anyone," as Al finally picked his head up, his eyes looked to Gracia, and he gave up hiding from her. Holding Gracia's comfortable atmosphere in his eyes long enough to feel at ease in the room, Al put his chin down atop his knees and stared across the floor to the white baseboards, "And I'm scared I'll fail."

Pulling herself up next to Al, Gracia untied his fingers from around his legs. Her right arm siding around his shoulder, her left hand came delicately to Al's forehead as she moved him; Gracia tucked him into the care of her right arm.

She was warm; to both the touch and feel of her aura. Al liked how comfortable that made him, "I want to stand on my own two feet and move forward. That's what my brother always did. I've been told that and there is no doubt in my mind he did - that's who he is. I want to know I can do that too."

Silence followed Al every time he spoke – yet this time, the silence carried a clause. He'd left his thoughts at an unconfident open end.

"But?"

Though everything about Gracia's presence made him feel at ease, nothing seemed to ease the thought lingering in a darkened and frightening part of his heart, "I should have been the one who died. That's the way it should work - I was dead to begin with."

Uncertain how to deal with a statement such as that, Gracia remained silent.

"Even before that, I could have prevented this," Al's hand came up to rub his cheek, it burned, "I knew it was wrong from the start. It was my fault."

Gracia rested her chin in his soft hair to remind Al she was still here.

"I even died twice."

Until then, Al had retained the strength to keep his words steady. From deep within his body, he could feel the tremble; it resonated in his voice, "I died once for my mother and it was my brother who brought me back. I had my soul stapled to a metal suit so I could cling to life somehow. He suffered for that - for my sake. I ended up dying again when I used that stone to right a wrong that should never have happened. He's so stubborn and stupid, why couldn't he just let it be. I don't have any right to be alive. I don't want to be alive through someone's sacrifice, especially my brother's."

Gracia was relieved that he allowed her to hold his trembling hands. She sat there, arms wrapped around him, allowing Al the comfort of her presence to gather and calm himself within. Through the tremble in his hands, Gracia could tell how much time he needed in the warm afternoon before either spoke again.

"Do you want to be dead?"

It was an unexpected question Gracia had posed to Al; a state of mind that had never been brought into the picture. The question wrapped up his mind so tightly, the tremor in his body ceased.

"I like being alive," the longer he thought over the statement, the more foolish it sounded. Of course he liked being alive, "I like Resembool, lying in the grass, watching the sky and the clouds, reading alchemy books, helping with the baby, helping Winry, Aunty Pinako, Roze, Sensei…" Al's voice captured the room; there was no debate on the issue, "No. I don't want to be dead."

Though Gracia had not expected a statement to the contrary, Al's definitive tone was a relief, "Neither does anyone else. Hasn't your brother set that example for you, that no one wanted to see you disappear?"

The sweet chime of the Hughes' hallway clock trickled into the room for the bottom of the hour. It was true, wasn't it? Al ran that through his head; that was the example and the purpose. And it was those two things he struggled to rely upon. They were true; and he didn't struggle because he did not believe in everyone's motives, he struggled because he fought to associate himself with the burden of guilt and relentless determination he and his brother had carried for so long. No matter who told him the memories, the impact of the experiences they had gone through had been stripped from him. Yet, that was the underlying principle behind why he lived and breathed upon the floor of the Hughes' master bedroom.

Gracia's gaze traveled up the white wall, her mind's eye carrying a far more vivid image than the simplicity of the room, "You were born, you were raised, you were taught, you were befriended, you were cherished and you were loved. You lived." She shifted, brushing Al's hair from his forehead, "That's why Edward didn't let you disappear, you were too important to him, and all those people along the way."

Al took a moment to process her statements. He enjoyed the way the comments made him feel, but a lingering hurt continued to toil, "Doesn't make it right."

"It doesn't have to be," Al's head picked up at Gracia's words, "It simply has to be true."

It was true, he'd just told himself that. The depression of Al's eyes and disposition lifted as he gazed off into the corner. His line of sight slowly canvassed the room, taking nothing more in than the words Gracia had spoken.

"I want to get him back. I don't want my brother to be only a memory.  I don't want him to be 'past tense'," it was a definitive response, no room for argument or debate; that was the way it was each time one brother chose to look after the other, "there's a catch.  I don't think he's dead."

Gracia's thoughts traveled with Al as he picked himself up and moved on, "Why would you want to bring him back?"

Al finally glanced up to Gracia, as though she'd asked a foolish question, "Because he's my brother, he would do the same for me."

As though to reinforce Al's determination, Gracia challenged his motives, "What if he couldn't… or wouldn't do the same for you, would you still search to bring him back?"

"Yes," Al showed no hesitation in his response.

"Why?"

"What would I do without him?" It was a statement that made obvious sense to Alphonse, why did she ask for justification, "He's my brother."

Entertained by Al's bewilderment of the questions, Gracia couldn't help the refreshing smile that crossed her face, "And he's loved; if by no one else, he's loved by you. Loved, cherished and cared about; he's important. This doesn't make your actions right, but it makes your motivation just as 'true' as your brother's. It's why he deserves to be here. Same reasons he had to believe you deserved to be here."

A light breeze played with the curtains again as Al sat silently in wake of her statement, unable to contest it. The pieces of light danced around the room once more.

"I miss my mom," was all Al's hurt little voice offered, almost as if it were a default statement; a comfort he longed for to make all other factors negligible.

"Your mother raised her children with lots of love in their hearts."

"She'd scold us for everything if she were here now," Al wrinkled his nose and downcast his eyes as he thought about her reaction, "it would make her cry if I had to tell her these things."

"Perhaps," Gracia's hand came up and smoothed over the tiffs of hair displaced by the breeze, "But at the end of the day, she'd be proud of the both of you."

Tilting his head, Al turned a puzzled eye up to Gracia, "Why?"

"Because her boys never gave up on each other."

Searching her eyes for doubt, he found none in either Gracia or himself. He did not want to look hard to dispute that statement, he wanted it to be true. Al rolled his head away and slid out from the warm hold she'd cradled him with. Straightening his shirt as he got to his feet, Al did not wander very far. Gracia glanced up to him as he sat down on the side of the bed; hands clasped in his lap, eyes shifting lightly as he looked down in thought. She followed his cue and got to her feet; standing in wait before Al, Gracia smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt.

He had no idea where to start or what was known already; so why not start at the beginning.

"I guess it's been seven years since my mom died. I remember it clearly and, for me, it seems like it's not even been two years. The doctor said she was ill for a while, and the disease ended up killing her. It was so hard to deal with; our dad wasn't around, there was Aunty Pinako but… what do we do without mom. We didn't know. It was Ed who suggested we bring her back, I didn't object; we would have given anything… to see…" Al stopped himself, running the completion of his sentence through his mind first.

That was what had given them the strength to move forward the first time, the willingness to give up anything in order to obtain something. That was part of their story Al still remembered.

And he continued on…


"Come in," Hohenheim's voice called out to the knock on his office door. With the creak of the hinges, Karl Haushofer stepped into his associate's office. Relieved by the pleasant surprise, Hohenheim placed his glasses down on his un-graded papers, "How unsettling, usually you're the busy one I'm visiting."

Haushofer laughed at the comment, "Aren't I though? But that's simply because my son doesn't help me out like yours. I haven't an extra set of hands like that," being allowed free reign in the room; the man pulled a chair over to the front of his associates' desk, "it's been good of Hess to help out like he is."

"I haven't the time to fight with the police department to find out what they did with Edward's leg, thank you for exempting him from your lecture so he could do this for me," frustration lingered in Hohenheim's tone, "I can just imagine the trouble that's going to come of the cancellation of my 8am class today."

"No trouble," Haushofer relaxed in the seat, crossing a leg over, "if I were your student, I'd be thankful, not complain and enjoy the respite; you couldn't assign them any homework and those who did not complete theirs have an extra day of grace. With that said, you have less to go over. Why are you still here?"

His arms crossed on the edge of the desk, Hohenheim simply shook his head, "I told you at lunch, I still have work to do."

"I have been up since just after three this morning and you no fewer than ten minutes of that, there is nothing that is left here that cannot be done tomorrow," Haushofer reached to the desk, shutting off the lamp light, "go home."

Flicking the switch back on, Hohenheim engaged in a competition of supremacy stares; knowing what the man was getting at, "Beyond his ill tempered mood, Edward is fine. The engineer he's apprenticing is an excellent physician and is at the house. I don't need to be overseer or babysitter. If you want to run with this logic, why are you still here?"

"Because my son was able to call me and tell me where he was. I had to call you because yours couldn't," Haushofer's brow tightened as he stood up from the chair to lean over the desk, his hand coming down over the paperwork, "these are the same physics assignments you were working on when I took you out for lunch. If you're going to worry yourself, do it at home and stop pretending you're concerned about these."

The suppression of Hohenheim's concern began to fail. His voice echoed the loudest with unease as he began to cave, "If Albrecht hadn't been able to call you I would never have known Edward was there."

"They should have sent him to the hospital. There was no reason for them to leave him in the cell like that," Haushofer's disgust for the situation became apparent by his tone.

Hohenheim's hand came to his forehead, slouching back in the chair his voice deflated, "Mr. Oberth said the same thing this morning." Having words to say, but suffering from the uncomfortable sensation of not knowing how to compose an explanatory sentence, the man relented to Haushofer's accusations; his hand smoothing over the tied back hair, "It's been hard to keep my concentration today."

A faint smile eased into the Political Professor's expression, "If that's all I can get from you, it'll have to suffice," the man folded his arms firmly across his chest, "I've been chauffer for everyone today since this started, you don't need to walk home. I drove you this morning, I can take you home."

Pushing up from his seat, Hohenheim returned his glasses to his nose and filled the papers into their folders. As he placed them into the desk drawer, Haushofer flicked off the light and spoke up once again.

"The start of a new term is always so hectic, I cannot always keep my mind straight. So before I forget; did you ever find what it was you were looking for?"

Taking his coat from the rack, Hohenheim's gaze grew puzzled, "I went looking for something?"

"After the meeting last week you stayed late with Dietrich, I got the impression you were looking for something? Was I mistaken?"

Hohenheim's movement slowed at the question, pausing while he dressed the overcoat around himself, "I was concerned about construction flaws in the restoration Dietrich had done with the hall last summer. I asked him to walk me through the designs."

Haushofer narrowed his eyes in question, puzzled by the sudden concern, "We went through that last summer and it was fine."

"I wanted to go through it again with him, I was running with a gut feeling," he tightened the jacket belt firmly, "though I was curious to know how he came up with some of the restoration designs and etchings. He's not known as a master of art, just master of words."

Thinking about the engravings within their ancient hall, a side ways grin came across Haushofer's face, "I recall how infuriated he was when you told him that alchemy circle he had etched into the floor was utterly useless. He went to great lengths to find people knowledgeable enough to help him create that. He wanted to impress you the most with it."

"If he wanted to impress me, he should have consulted with me," Hohenheim's un-amused tone gave way to his natural wise aura, "I won't humour the man and tell him he's created a work of art and science when it's simply a flawed inscription."

"What was so wrong with it?"

Hohenheim slid his hands into his pockets as he raised his eyebrows, "Everything." Both men couldn't help but snerk once the words were spoken, "If it were possible for Dietrich to get something like that to work, it would rebound on him because the equation is dangerously incomplete. Why anyone would waste their time trying to develop a wild reaction like that, I have no idea. It may be 'pretty' to look at, but I would never want to be the one who figures out how to use that circle; I place a higher value on my life than that."

Haushofer stood silent in the room, staring with an overwhelmed expression back to Hohenheim, "Going back… you said 'rebound'?"

"The alchemist's body is used to fill in the missing proportions of the alchemical equation. That circle would rip you apart."

"In theory," Haushofer said flatly, narrowing his eyes as though carrying suspicion.

Nodding in agreement, Hohenheim laughed at the look placed upon him, "Yes, in theory. This is why I teach physics and not magic. But if some poor fool gets it to work, don't hesitate to call. You all know where to find me."


Her elbows on the table and feet tucked behind the legs of the chair, Winry stared out into the magnificent shades of pink and purple caused by the last rays of a setting sun. The picturesque scene developing before her eyes did nothing to fill her hallowed feeling.

"Winry?"

She glanced over to Elysia, who'd pulled herself up into the adjacent chair.

"You're always sad when you come to visit," Elysia pulled one of her stuffed animals onto the table, "would you like the teddy to make you feel better?"

Lifting her elbows, Winry stretched her shoulders out; giving a sigh as she finished, "Elysia, Aunty Winry's not feeling so good right now. Could we play with the teddies later? It's almost time for you to go to bed anyways."

"I don't want to go to bed," Elysia's face wrinkled as she pouted.

"You should go brush your teeth." Winry dawned a stern look, "Go on."

With a huff, Elysia snatched up her stuffed bear and sulked out of the room. Again Winry's elbows came to rest on the table; her forehead eventually falling into the palms of her hands.

"Are you mad at me?"

She startled with a gasp at Al's voice. Turning around in the chair, Winry looked into Al's somber expression as he approached the table.

"No, I'm not." Winry turned forward again in her seat, her voice poorly holding a pleasant tone.

"You look mad at me," Al slipped into the seat Elysia had vacated within the kitchen. He folded his arms on the table and put his head into them. He looked up at her downtrodden expression, "You always look like that when you say 'I'm not mad' or 'I'm not upset' and someone else tells me later you really are."

Displeased by Al's observation, Winry's arms fell crossed upon the table as Al's were, "I'm not mad. I'm just upset," her displeasure cutting out into the abstract sky beyond the window.

Al sunk into his folded arms, his eyes following the same path out the window. He wondered how to word an apology.

"I'm sorry."

"Huh?" Al's head picked up, eyes wide with surprise; that was supposed to have been his line, "What are you sorry for?"

Putting her chin down into her arms as Al had been doing, Winry looked over to him; her expression tied in knots with concern, "Gracia told me some things… while you were napping."

Sitting straight in his chair suddenly, it was that miserable look she had which could put both Ed and Al on a flustering, nervous edge. Al waved his hands in front of himself in defence, "I was just really tired and not feeling good. I didn't want anyone to feel bad, don't look like that Winry! I'm sorry, it's not that bad."

"No, I'm sorry that it's hard for you to deal with this," her downcast expression tilted over to him, "It's not something you apologize for, Al. I just wish I could do something to make things easier."

Al slumped back in his seat as she'd spoken; finally sighing, he shrugged and dropped his hands onto the edge of the table, "It was easy not to think about a lot of things in Resembool. I didn't have to talk about it with anyone, you all knew before I did what had happened. I didn't meet anyone 'new' beyond Roze. I just had lots of time to think too hard."

"Maybe we should have talked with you more about how you were feeling, rather than just telling you stories about how you once felt."

Patting his light case of bed-hair flat, Al folded his arms across his chest; determined to end this cycle of depressing people, "You know, I liked those stories."

"Al," Winry's voice fell flat as she sat up firmly in the chair, "they made you miserable."

"I was jealous," Al's pouting voice came out defensively, "all those things you know and I don't. And then they all ended up being the same stories after a while."

"Would you like some new stories, Alphonse?" Gracia peeked into her kitchen.

Both Winry and Al looked over their shoulders to Gracia; the wide-eyed open reaction Al displayed to the proposal was an obvious answer.

Gracia clasped her hands with a clap as she moved to her kitchen table, "Very good then. Alphonse, would you first read Elysia her bedtime story. Winry and myself are exempt from this since we've done it many times already."

Winry giggled at Al's 'who, me?' response as he returned to his feet, making his way out of the kitchen.

She watched him as he left; the moment she heard his feet move up the stairs, Winry's arms and head came back down on the table, "I feel terrible, this has just been so hard."

Taking her seat at the head of the table, Gracia gave her mother's accusing gaze to Winry, "Why hasn't anyone been talking to him about this?"

"We did at the very beginning, but it stopped after a while. He didn't want to talk about it," she cowered under the disappointed look in Gracia's eyes, "We'd tell Al about what happened and he would avoid topics that involved how he felt about it. It was easier to not upset him and move on with our lives. Bringing Ed back came out of the blue and was all Al's idea. You could see it coming in retrospect, he started to research alchemy on his own before going to Izumi for help."

Lightening the displeasure she looked upon Winry with, Gracia straightened the napkins at the center of her table, "He's a very sweet boy."

Winry ran her fingernail along the top of the polished table, glancing up at the night overtaking what remained of the colourful evening sky, "Izumi made a good point. Al deals with some situations by not dealing with them; he'll try and distance himself first. He runs away and hides until someone comes to get him or until he can figure himself out enough to deal with things. That's what he used to do years ago when Ed would fight with him."

"He's lost five years of maturity, Winry," Gracia stood up from her seat and moved to one of her cupboards.

"I know," Winry watched with a shameful expression as Gracia took three glasses from her cupboard and began filling drinks for her guests. Turning her head forward again, she burrowed her chin back into her arms, "He avoided me for a while. I was so worried; I didn't know if I'd done something wrong or if he hated me or was scared of me…" she gave her head a light shake to dismiss the memory, "Izumi told me that Al was having problems coming to terms with how much older I was."

Placing a glass of lemonade in front of Winry, Gracia sat back down again, "He seems to be alright with you now."

The corners of her mouth curling up, Winry nodded in agreement, "He got over it. But Izumi warned me that Al was going to behave differently without Ed around. Al fed his strength and confidence off of his brother, just as Ed was kept from flying off the handle by Al's composure. Their personalities complemented each other's weaker aspects."

"I can see that. From what I can remember of the boys, and what I see in Al right now; their personality strengths and natural dispositions are quite different."

Winry propped an elbow up onto the table, resting her chin in that hand as she ran her finger around the edge of her glass, "I think Al benefited more because he was the younger brother, he looked up to Ed and Ed was a natural leader; even if he wasn't always a good one, but then that's where Al came in." She glanced over her shoulder to see if Al was close to resurfacing, "He lost that support and it's been hard for him to cope in Central. He's read a lot to keep his mind occupied. Nothing really happened in Resembool these last few months to help Al deal with a crisis, he gets to find things out the hard way."

"He feels lost and that scares him. But he recognizes that, which is good," Gracia tapped her fingernail on the table; watching Winry knowingly, "it's good he has a big sister to rely on now."

Winry gave a laugh at the remark, "I don't know how to do this job very well, I wanted it really badly and it's been a bit more than I'd expected. I don't know if I'm any good. Just look at what happened today."

Softening her expression, Gracia smiled in thought, "If you weren't doing a good job, then he wouldn't rely on you like he is."

"It doesn't matter anyways, I guess."

The empty voice Winry spoke with struck an uneasy cord within Gracia.

"I'm just the replacement until he gets Ed back."

"… Winry?" Gracia straightened in her seat, suddenly concerned by the statement.

Both turned their attention to the kitchen entrance as Al's feet were finally heard coming down the stairs.


For the length of time he was aware of his father standing silent in the doorway, Edward never realized when the man finally entered the room. Having gotten use to the semi-unwanted feeling of his father's distant gaze watching over him, somewhere between staring at the cracks in the ceiling and the half sleep he'd been drifting into, Ed had faded out long enough for his father to seat himself at the edge of his bed uncontested. The concerned vigil had gone on since the day Hohenheim had found his son in the London hospital. Because of that, Ed's awareness of his father's hand on his forehead had become a familiar sensation; it no longer woke him or startled him. Even though he knew the circumstances behind the man's motivation, Edward would continue to find reasons to object. Having drifted back to a semi-conscious state from the pounding between his temples, Hohenheim was able to feel Ed's facial disapproval and lift his hand before Ed had any chance of swatting it away. Amused that he had gotten away with doing that, a grin and a subtle laugh crossed Hohenheim's face.

"Don't laugh at me," Ed scowled; only his right eye returned to glowering at the ceiling, his left eye now covered in the patch Oberth had dressed him with, "What do you want?"

Hohenheim shook his head; sounding amused in relief of the coherent, yet displeased, voice Edward had, "are you feeling any better?"

"I feel like I got hit with a pipe…"

Hohenheim raised his eyebrows; "You did get hit by a pipe… well, the police baton, which can be likened to a pipe."

"Right…" Ed sank into the bed sheets, somewhat ashamed of the incident he couldn't recall, "go away."

In the quiet, late day, sun lit room, Hohenheim continued to sit silent on the edge of the bed; his mind adrift in the thoughts he'd carried all day long. An uneasy silence between the two began to creep into existence. Upon feeling Edward's eyes cast questionably at him, Hohenheim motioned to the bandaged side of Ed's face, "Hermann stitched it up alright?"

Ed shivered at the thought, spewing out a string of profanities at the experience. He wrinkled his nose and called upon his most displeasing tone, "and the next person to poke me with a needle isn't going to have any fingers left to poke me with again."

"Okay," Hohenheim nodded having heard that sentiment before. A bemused smirk crossed his face while he entertained a thought, "but now you can pass as a pirate."

"Oh for the love of…" Ed rolled over onto his stomach and pulled the quilt over his head, "just don't. Go back to your hole and grade papers, I don't need this from you."

Hohenheim sighed and looked up at the ceiling; his voice sounding tired, "Rudolf has been heckling the station and officers to find out what's been done with your leg."

"Good for him," from beneath the covers, Ed's miserable voice continued to sound out, "Explain to me again why they took it."

Hohenheim rolled his eyes at the thought and simply shook his head at the police's rationale that after they had knocked his son out, they could prevent him from running away by taking his leg, "I have no explanation for that."

"Yeah, you're such a big help. You can get out n-"

"Edward," Hohenheim's voice came out flat, the feign of amusement missing from his tone, "what do you think you're doing?"

Somewhat naive, Ed peeked his head out from the covers, "doing? I'm trying to sleep, I have had a headache all day and you're interrupting me," his eyes narrowed as he voiced his dislike for the man's continued intrusion into his room, "what do you think you're doing? I told you to g-"

"What the hell were you thinking?"

The angered undertone of his father's normally subdued voice was startling, and apparent in his precise enunciation. Slowly turning and sitting up, Ed brushed his blonde hair off his shoulders; unresponsive to his father's question. They sat in the uneasy moment created by the stern words, Hohenheim facing off into a corner of the room as he sat; elbows on knees, chin in hands. Ed leaned away as he turned to sit squarely on the bed.

"What got into your head?"

Frowning at his second accusation, Ed replied, "You're the one who told me to keep on good terms with these people."

"I never told you to get involved," Hohenheim's fierce displeasure in the situation was made painfully clear by his sharp and unchallengeable voice. The voice his father possessed had yet to hit enough wrong cords to draw a response from Edward; though frustration began to show on the younger man's face.

"Why did you go to that?"

"I wasn't given too much of a choice. Haushofer's pupil, Hess – I bumped into him when I was running those errands, he told me to attend," Ed's voice cautious yet firm within the conversation.

"Since when did you abide by a stranger's requests so willingly?"

Annoyed by the questioning of his judgment, Ed's gaze stiffened as he spoke each word carefully, his cocky tone ever-present, "Since I didn't think I'd been given much of a choice in the matter. You should know better than I; he's your associate, after all."

Standing up from the bedside slowly, as if his body ached of age; Hohenheim straightened his shirt and turned the serious and over powering gaze he commanded onto Edward. His voice remained constant and harmonic with the underlay of disapproval, "Don't get involved next time. Decline them; find some way out of it. Just stay away."

Taking a moment to digest and fight off the undesirable intimidation, Ed scowled back at the man, "Since when did you start thinking you can control my life?"

"This discussion is over," Hohenheim's voice cut in, not prepared to argue the issue.

Edward straightened sharply in his spot; jaw tightening and brow knit as he challenged back, "The hell it is, you-"

"Enough, Edward."

It was that crushing voice.

That tone which somehow retained the power to silence Edward. A voice saturated with forceful command and a frightening ability to conquer. It wasn't loud or forced, and it never yelled; it simply boomed with authority strong enough to cause cement walls to tremble. He had watched his father draw this tone out occasionally in London, with a slightly greater frequency in Munich, and despised it with a passion when it was turned upon him. Yet, Edward would say nothing. The man would get his way, and no one had enough strength to challenge him; the unquestionable firm expression and devastating look of his eyes made efforts futile. It was a persona that made Ed jealous in retrospect of any given situation; he wished to master a prowess like that.

An eventual sigh was released into the ensuing silence as Hohenheim's laid-back demeanour returned at the fall of his shoulders, "I just ask… that you don't get involved with them again. It's a simple request."

Edward did not reply to yet another of his father's statements; by this time, an answer was no longer required.

"Do you want dinner?" the tired voice Hohenheim had taken home with him from the university returned to his voice.

Still somewhat locked in the submissive state his father had ground him into, the shrug of Ed's shoulders was half-hearted and his voice flat, "Sure."

"I'll bring it up to you," Hohenheim slid his hands into his trousers' pockets, "try and get some more sleep when you're done, the headache will go away faster."


"Let's see, after that…" Gracia tapped her chin, "Maes had arranged for your boys' escort and body guard to be Lt. Colonel Armstrong, back when he was still a Major."

Winry's chin rested in her folded arms upon the table, "So that's where he came from."

"He arranged for all your escorts, including Lt. Ross and Sgt. Broche," Gracia nodded, trying to recall the memories, "after Maes had been out East for a while, he came home and you boys followed not long afterwards. I know you spent some time in the fall with Sheska, as she re-wrote some books you needed to look through. You spent a lot of time over the winter in the library, Ms. Ross was constantly on Maes' case about that too, she was petrified Scar was going to show up."

"Did he?" Al continued to sit at the table in similar fashion to Winry, head in his arms as he eagerly listened to her fill in a void for him.

Gracia nodded slowly, "Maes got called out one night on an emergency. Turns out you boys got yourselves in a situation and the Fuhrer commanded the troops entering the compound to get you out. Both you and Ed were hurt in that."

"I think Ed called me right after, because his AutoMail stopped working," Winry added quietly, trying to keep her aura of innocence in the whole situation.

"Oh yes, that's why you boys couldn't attend Elysia's birthday party. You were in the hospital," Gracia stirred the spoon in her teacup, "but Winry came, and I sent her back with a cake for you two, since it was Ed's birthday too."

Al turned his head in his arms, "I thought I couldn't eat?"

Winry laughed nervously, "Ed ate most of it, the pig. Mrs. Hughes gave me the recipe and I made it for you on your last birthday, remember? So you did get to eat it, just a bit later, slightly different…" her voice trailed off, deciding that it be best to ask Gracia to make a cake for him instead.

Gracia giggled at Winry's attempt; lacing her fingers, she returned to the thoughts, "Once you were doing better, right around the end of winter and the beginning of spring, you three were off to… Dublith I believe it was," she looked to Winry who nodded to confirm the story, "We saw you off at the station, and that was the last time I'd seen either of you."

Al crossed his eyes as he tried to place everything into a time frame, "How long ago was that?"

"A little over a year, it was just before Maes passed away," Gracia nodded as she sorted out the events around that part of her life.

Winry and Al exchanged an uncomfortable look once they realized what had been brought up. Bouncing up in her seat, Winry piped up, "Can we go back to the story about Ed's birthday party Al was asking about earlier, when he first came to Central and Elysia was born? In his 'lookit me! I'm so cool, I'm a State Alchemist!' letter Ed briefly mentioned what happened."

Al's eyes glanced out the kitchen and down the hall; he shut the noises in the room out of his mind for a moment, trying to spot the suit jacket hanging up on the coat rack before Mrs. Hughes' voice interrupted.

"Oh goodness," entertained by the memory, Gracia laughed, "those two came over with little Nina. Edward was all out of sorts having people fuss over him like that; I think he wanted to crawl away when we sung him Happy Birthday. But he loved the food. I have no idea how that tiny boy stored everything he ate."

"Mrs. Hughes," Al interrupted her, "that little girl in the photo, her name was Nina?"

Winry's expression fell sideways in confusion, "What photo?"

"Mrs. Hughes gave me a photo from Ed's birthday party when I was here last. It had everyone in it." Getting up from his chair at the table, Al slipped out of the kitchen and made his way down the hall. He had put the picture in his suit jacket, concerned that someone might find it in his other coat. Taking the envelope from the inside pocket, Al held it in his hands for a moment, turning it over a few times as he thought over his questions, before moving back into the kitchen. Returning to the chair, he remained distracted in thought.

Lifting up from her seat at the table, Winry leaned across, "Can I see it?"

"Sure," Al lay the envelope flat on the table's polished surface slid it across to her.

Catching an unsettling feeling from young Al, Gracia's eyes grew concerned over seriousness of his expression, "Alphonse, is something wrong?"

He was silent a moment as Winry flipped the envelope open and pulled out the picture.

"Maybe."

Winry burst into giggles upon seeing the picture, "Aww… it's so nostalgic to see everyone like that. Ed looks so young! Al you're just monstrously huge compared to everyone else…" her eyes glanced up to Al, entertained by the photograph. The mood was instantly displaced; Winry found herself caught off guard by stern grey eyes Al watched her with.

"…What?" her voice came out slowly.

"Look at the photo again."

Leaning back in her chair, Winry ran her eyes over the photo again, "What am I looking for?"

Al didn't answer; he just watched her eyes and waited for a reaction. The moment her eyes stopped drifting around the image, he knew she'd seen it.

Winry's posture began to fall apart as her eyes grew wide in confusion. Slowly sitting forward, her hand coming to her mouth as she tried to wrap her mind around what she saw, "how long ago was this?" her voice came out sharp and quick; and though she was aware of the answer, she still wanted someone's confirmation.

"Just over five years," an abnormally serious tone echoed in Al's voice.

Winry sat the photo down on the table, her fingernail pointing to the little girl sitting adjacent to Ed, "Nina… you said?"

Al turned his attention to Mrs. Hughes, "Nina right?"

Gracia nodded, uncertain as to where the conversation was going.

"Well…" Winry sat back, her eyes trained on the photo, "how old is she there? She looks four or five."

"Four, Nina's fifth birthday was coming up in the summer. She asked if I could make the cake for her party too," Gracia said quietly as she recalled the memory.

"So if this picture was taken in January, and it's the summer now, she'd have to be about 10 today," Al's gaze crossed back to Winry.

Leaning over the photo once again, Winry's eyes dug into it, "Mr. Mitchell's daughter is seven going on eight… she certainly doesn't look old enough to be ten."

"But look at it Winry," Al insisted, sitting higher in his seat.

Concentrating on the image, her hand came over her mouth again; elbows resting on the table, "I know. I can see it… that's just… not adding up."

Gracia glanced between the two, uncomfortable with the uneasy aura they were giving off, "What are you two going on about?"

Al pointed to the photograph, "The little girl the Mitchell family adopted in the last week looks just like that little girl in the photo."

Pausing a moment to examine the correlation the two had made, Gracia suddenly shook her head, realizing the piece of information they missed, "No no you two, you're mistaken," she waved her hand to ease the situation, her voice somewhat withdrawn by the recollection, "Nina died a couple months after this was taken."

"What!" Al's full attention shot to Gracia who seemed taken aback by the sudden response. Catching her discomfort, Al withdrew his aggressive posture and returned to staring at the photograph before them, "Your other photos from the party, they have Nina in them too don't they?"

"Yes," Gracia stood up, she did no need to wait for Al to request it, "let me get them."

Both sets of remaining eyes trained diligently on the photo as Gracia stepped out of the room. Within her fingernails, Winry picked up the photo again, "Maybe it's a coincidence…?"

"Winry you know what she looks like. That picture is clear, you can't mistake it," Al's voice insisted desperately.

"I know…" she put the photo back down on the table, at the mid point between herself and Al. Her startled expression staring back into the seriousness of Al's eyes, "But Mrs. Hughes said she died."

His frown deepening, Al challenged her statements, "Then she either didn't really die, or someone brought her back."

"Al, don't go there. There was only one stone and you used it," Winry snapped sharply, not liking where he was taking this.

"My brother didn't use it! Everyone said so," Al swept his hand across the table, picking the photo up by the boarder, "There was only one Nina, but now we've seen another. I've looked at Mrs. Hughes' other photos, I know who I saw. You're going to see it too in a second."

Winry sat back, silent in her chair, suddenly anxious, nervous, and quite frightened to see the impending photo album.

"There's someone out there responsible for this. Maybe this person has done something similar to what my brother did with me. If they found another method and brought her back without the stone, then maybe they can tell me something to help get him back."


To Be Continued...


Notes:

Al is someone everyone should be allowed to hug. A8nd Gracia is everyone's mom – she's so good at it.

I'm going to run with the assumption that Wrath spilled no information what so ever during the time Winry equipped him.

Speaking of Winry: Bad little Nina-girl, planting the seed of doubt in Winry's mind that she's a substitute. The one thing I noticed about Winry in the series was that she oozed confidence when it came to mechanics or anything technical, but she was quick to doubt or tear up when it came to personal issues with Ed and Al.

I want Hohenheim to have a powerful dimension to him. Something that scares everyone but he doesn't use or abuse because he values his compassionate side. The refined dimension that allowed him to survive, and want to have survived, for 500 or so years (which involves a killer instinct, or he would not still be around). The fact he made it clear he'll allow himself to die off this time does not indicate (in my mind) that he's given up – but simply that he's realized his time has come. Ed is smart enough to have figured out that his dad, if he wants to be, is a very intimidating man. I'd go so far as to say that by this point Ed is able to respect that about him; God forbid Ed ever admit to this.

Chapter 10: The Hermaphrodite Child of the God of Boundaries

Summary:

Brigitte gets curious about Ed's interest in alchemy. Winry returns to the Mitchell house to search for her tool kit.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Hermes called me the Sun and the Moon. Riplaeus called me the green lion. Our author called me hermaphrodite, but I pay no attention to that. It makes no difference. Nor does it matter what the sophists call me, for they learn nothing for all their trouble except: (1) I am One Substance, not two; (2) In me is Bernard's little fountain; (3) I am dry water, subtle pure; (4) I am raised up by the power of Mars, as commanded by Philaleth, the famous Adept who coagulates my esoteric nature with Mercury.


"Ah!" Ed's hand reached up to snatch back the note pad his father had taken from him, "what do you think you are doing?"

Sitting down at the end of the couch, Hohenheim's eyes scanned Edward's scrawling, "You haven't done this work at home lately."

"Not like I'm going anywhere, give that back," from his usual perch upon the floor, one and a half legs outstretched beneath the coffee table, and a pile of papers tossed about on the table; Ed tried to reclaim the note pad from his father.

"c(I-k)dm equals (M-m)dv plus (R plus g(M-m))dt; where M is rocket initial mass; m is the mass that has been ejected up to time t; v is the velocity of the rocket up to time t; c is the velocity of ejection of the mass expelled; R is the force, in absolute units, due to air resistance; g is the acceleration of gravity; dm is the mass expelled at time dt; k is the constant fraction of the mass dm that consists of casing K, expelled with zero velocity relative to the remainder of the rocket; and finally dv is the increment of velocity given the remaining mass of the rocket," Hohenheim's glasses slid down his nose as he took a deep breath, "Hermann is going to disown you for reading Goddard's report."
Ed snatched the pad of paper away from his father, "I'm comparing notes."

The questioning look on Hohenheim's face grew as he eyed Edward, "That is cause for trouble; it is not notes. And that formula can be simplified, a great deal."

"I know that," Ed's flat voice drawled out unimpressed, "I have it broken down because I'm looking for something."

Hohenheim shook his head at that with a grin; he loosened the tie around his neck, enjoying the relaxing feeling of the final class for the week being finished and knowing his weekend was more or less free. He relaxed back in the couch, closing his eyes for a moment.

"You know," Ed tapped his pencil on the pad of paper, "if I had known even half of this information six or seven years ago, I could have done so much more with my alchemy. Concepts of acceleration, gravity, air displacement… everything that keeps an airplane in the air and will make this rocket go up."

Not opening his eyes, Hohenheim simply put the mental image of his living room into his mind; "A lot of that information is dangerous because you're playing with gaseous elements. Alchemists don't normally tinker with intangible elements like molecules in the air, we prefer to transmute a substance into something we can hold and display. Solids and liquids."

"When I first met with Lyra, she manipulated the air; that stupid Colonel played with the oxygen concentration in the air too," Edward wrinkled his nose a bit at a few memories.

"And they both had destructive effects and nothing tangible to show for it, correct?"

"I suppose," Ed turned back to his table of work.

"Which Colonel played with oxygen?"

In a mirror image of dumbfounded facial reactions, both Ed and Hohenheim startled in their places and shot their attention out of the room at the intrusive little voice in the hall.

"How do you play with oxygen anyways?" Brigitte waved her left arm wildly in the air, "I don't see anything happening."

Both father and son held a look of dismay on their faces, it was Edward who spoke up first; his eye twitching, "Do you just walk into everyone's house without knocking? How did you get in?"

Brigitte pointed to the door down the hall, "It was unlocked."

Hohenheim brought his hand slowly to his chin; an innocent look hid a guilty conscience, "Did I leave the door unlocked?" He quickly found a fluttering of papers in his face as Edward tossed his pad of notes at the man.

"You yelled at me for that last week!"

Marching her way around the men, Brigitte sat herself down on the floor across the table from Ed, "Can I see it?"

Ed pointed to the patch still over his left eye, "This?" Upon receiving the affirmative response, Ed pulled the patch off his eye to reveal the purple & blue, swollen, and stitched up eyebrow and upper cheek.

"Eww," Brigitte's eyes widened, "does it hurt?"

Ed snorted at that, "Yes."

"Can you see?" she leaned across the table, peering up into his face.

"Yes, I can see," Ed returned the patch to it's place, "I have to keep the patch on or, according to Hermann, I'll strain the eye and with all that swelling it will give me a never ending headache. The patch stays on until the swelling and bruising is not so bad."

Placing her hands neatly folded on the table, and coming to sit on her knees, Brigitte straightened her back to a proper posture, "And you're going to teach me alchemy in the meantime, right?"

"What?" Edward's face fell as his father started to laugh. Narrowing his expression, Ed leaned across the table, "how long were you standing in the hall?"

"A long time!" Brigitte bounced in her place, "so now it's time for you to convince me this house isn't full of raving lunatics."

Hohenheim couldn't help his laughter at the situation and stood up, "Speaking of alchemy, Edward, I need you to come talk to me once you're done with this tutorial. There's something I need to discuss with you."

"Huh? Discuss something?" Ed's expression fell flat, "I ain't doin' a tutorial!"

Waving a hand to dismiss potential concern, Hohenheim's voice spoke up at the initial ring of the telephone, "We can discuss it later. It can wait," he turned out of the room to answer the phone.

"What is this?" Brigitte exclaimed through a squeal in her voice, "you're building a rocket ship!?" She held one of Edward's design schemes up in the air.

Ed threw his arms into the air, "What are you doing!? Don't touch this stuff; you're more nosey than that stupid old man!"

Brigitte let the paper layout float down from her hands back onto the table, "When you go to the moon, can I come too?"

"I have no intention of going to the moon," Ed began to file his paperwork away, "I have a far better place in the sky to be."

"The only other place in the sky is heaven," giving him a skeptical look, Brigitte narrowed her eyes, "You want to fly to heaven?"

"Not quite like that either," Ed snapped an elastic around his folder of papers.

Tilting her head in thought, Brigitte tapped her fingernails on the table, "Okay, if you say so. But in the meantime you can tell me all sorts of things about alchemy."

Edward's left hand came over his forehead as he slumped in his place, "Why do you care? It's just convoluted theory, you wouldn't underst-"

"Edward!" Hohenheim's voice came out in a rush; "I'll be back," the door slammed shut the moment his words were out.

Ed sat up higher, trying to peer down the hall from beyond the back of the couch, "What was that?"

Standing up on her feet, Brigitte gazed down the hall to the main door, "Your father just left."


Side by side on the Hughes' family sofa, sitting with their heads shamefully bowed as if they were to be scolded like puppies, Winry and Al sat silent. Gracia's folded arms and unimpressed expression postured in front of them. Elysia at her Mother's side, an empty roll of paper towel in hand.

For the second day in a row, the pair had returned to the Hughes' household, and things had not gone according to schedule. Al had expressed concerns to Gracia about certain things that Winry would disapprove of, and Gracia had found out that there were certain things Winry had neglected to inform Alphonse about that she was afraid would make matters worse. Gracia had individually told them that open communication would improve both their situations, yet as the day wore on, both played an oblivious game with the other. Having had enough of watching this progress, Gracia devised a solution.

Giving a sigh, the mother glanced to her daughter, "Winry first."

Marching up to Winry, Elysia handed her the empty roll.

With a demoralizing sigh, Winry took the roll from Elysia, "Okay, so when I got to Central I met Sheska at the library. Lieutenant Havoc was there and he took us shopping. When we were done he took us to visit with some of the military personnel and I ran away when Sheska scared me and I thought I would be pressured into talking about you and Ed. I found out when I went to the police station to ask about you that someone had issued an arrest warrant for me, I have no idea what that's about but I can take an educated guess about who issued it. The next day, I was searching the hospital trying to find someone who would 'share' some information with me.  I spotted some more military officers I recognized, so I ran off again like the fugitive I am and bumped into you."

"Why didn't you-"

"Alphonse!" Elysia's commanding little voice interrupted him, "you do not have the roll. Do not speak unless you have the roll."

Winry's cheek twitched as did Al's eye, both of them staring back at Elysia's fierce childish expression; their shoulders fell at a loss, knowing Gracia stood right behind her daughter. They exchanged glances before straightening up in their seats.

Gracia, firm in her position, looked sternly upon Winry, "Is that all?"

"Um…" Winry looked up in thought, "I'm going to stay with Ms. Hughes from now on, I don't like the Mitchell house. Maybe you should ask to leave too," scratching her cheek in thought, she glanced up to Gracia, "I think that's it."

"Please pass the roll to Alphonse."

Taking the roll into his hand, Al scowled at Winry, "Why didn't you tell-"

"Alphonse!" Elysia's voice cut in again, "this is sharing time, not be mean to Winry time."

Once again, the dumbfounded looks found their way across the pair's faces. After a moment of sitting frozen in place, trying to understand how they ended up in this mess, both finally sat back into the couch with matching sighs.

Al put the roll in both his hands across his lap, "Again, I'm sorry I told Mrs. Hughes the 'secret', but I thought it was important to talk with her about it. Tomorrow she's going to take me to Central's military headquarters and I'm going to ask for some help finding Sensei," he took a deep breath.

"Al, I don't know if-"

"Winry!" Elysia's hands placed firm on her hips, "you do not have the roll. You cannot speak…"

"… unless I have the roll, sorry," her hand reached out and snatched an end of the roll from Al, his hand still gripping and end tightly, "why are we being treated like 5 year olds?"

"Because you're acting like 5 year olds. Five year olds know that lying is wrong and honesty is the best policy, taking things that don't belong to them is wrong and that it's polite to wait your turn. Do you want to stand in the corner for taking the roll that wasn't given to you and speaking out of turn?" Gracia's sweet yet firm tone never wavered as she lectured.

With the uncontrollable twitch of her eye, Winry's hand quickly let go of the roll she put her hands firmly into her lap. An unexplainable blush of embarrassment came across her face from the childish scolding.

"Alphonse, do you have any more?"

Al nodded affirmatively, "Mrs. Hughes makes me think that the military people might do a better job than the police are doing finding Sensei, especially if I ask. I want to find Sensei and get my brother back. I'm going to go see the military people and ask them for help with that. If they ask what's gone on with me and my brother, I'm going to tell them. And I'll tell them you're not a criminal."

"Al…"

"WINRY!" Both Gracia and Elysia's voices chimed together. Winry shrieked at the call of her name again and sunk into the couch cushions, her hands covering her face as she whined to herself.

Al sighed with coinciding embarrassment to Winry's reaction, "You can come if you want," he extended the roll to her.

A hand swiftly snatching the tube away, Winry's face soured as she looked at him, "Of course I'm going," the hallow pop of the roll sparked into the room as she swatted Al upside the head, "you're not going to do all these things on your own."

Al jumped to his knees in the seat and reached up, taking the roll away from her, "And when we're there you're not going to tell me what to do, or what to say, or how to-"

Snatching an end back from him, the two of them pulled the roll in limbo between themselves. Winry narrowed his eyes, tightening her grip, "I don't tell you what to do!"

"Yes you do! You even try to tell me how to dress!"

"I do not do that!"

"You do! You picked out this shirt!"

"I 'suggested' it because it looked good!"

"See, you do so!"

Elysia's hand came to tug on her mother's skirt, "Mummy, they're fighting and they both have the roll."

Gracia tilted her head, a half smile coming across her face, "I'm impressed it lasted this long," her voice rose above once again, "If you're going to fight, I have a sand box outside!"

Winry and Al stopped; fists, feet, legs and arms entangled with each other, the roll still locked in their hands.

"You abused the roll," Gracia announced, the feign of displeasure crossing her face again as she stepped up and snatched it away, "no one can speak unless I say so. You'll stand in the corner if you don't do as you're told."

The two fell back into their seats, once again morally trodden upon; Gracia treated them no better than her daughter would have been. Straightening themselves, they eyed her suspiciously.

"Now then, today's lesson was 'honesty'. You shouldn't be afraid to talk honestly with your friends because they are supposed to understand and support you. That's what good friends do," Gracia watched the pairs of eyes drift away as she addressed them like kindergarteners, "and since you two are so close, I don't see why this should be a problem again. Okay you two?"

"Yes ma'am," they spoke together; hands in their laps, downcast in their spots.

"Very good."

Elysia's voice chimed in, "Hug and say sorry!"

The two slouched in their seats at the depressing situation they drifted deeper into.

"Yes, that's a good idea. Hug and say sorry," Gracia's sweet smile emerged on her face as she looked down to the pair on her sofa.

Al's eyes looked up at her with a pathetic gaze, "Ms. Hughes, could we just-"

There was something frighteningly serious in the tone of her voice that did not allow either one of them to argue with Ms. Hughes, "I have lots of corners for you two to stand in if you don't do as you're told."


"It is of no consequence. Ottoberg did not get to speak, I'm quite satisfied to sit in this cell as reward for it," Adolf crossed his arms as he sat upon the wooden bench of his holding cell.

"Nothing I could offer them was sufficient for bail. I regret that terribly. We are, however, working on the judge who'll hand out your sentence," Hess leaned up against the cold metal bars separating him from the man he followed with blind loyalty, "I think we've pulled the assault charge down to one month."

"You continue to amaze me," A smirk came across Adolf's face at the thought. Though finally sighing, almost in content, Adolf changed the direction of the conversation, "and your friend, who has yet to entertain me with his voice," his hand motioned to Hohenheim, obscured in the dim light of the holding area; leaning up against the cold brick wall behind Hess, "he got his son's leg back I see."

Turning over his shoulder to Hohenheim, Hess gave an affirmative nod, "He even paid the fee. I would have cut off their hands if they'd demanded money from me after what they'd done, seems Professor Hohenheim is lenient today."

Hohenheim did not react to Hess' statements, choosing to remain as frozen over as the walls were within the dungeon of a jail room.

A smug tone carried in his voice as Adolf spoke again, "Does your friend realize how much of an inconvenience upon society his son could be?"

It was Hess, not Hohenheim, who reacted to the statement, "I was impressed. He's quite agile and holds his own very well. I thought he defended himself better than many of our men considering he did not provoke what he found himself involved with. It was the police, not the absence of his leg, that caused him problems in the hall."

Giving a slight shrug of his shoulders, Adolf redirected his lines of speech away from Hess; "I would be honoured if you and your son would entertain me with your presence more often, Professor Hohenheim. I certainly enjoy watching a well-respected man like yourself look at me with such intense eyes."

"Once again, Sir…" it was the first thing Hohenheim had spoken since arriving with Hess, "…I respectfully decline your offer at this point in time."

Scoffing at the comment, Adolf recollected the frigid aura around himself, "That is a shame."

"I still have a few engagements left in my day, so I need to get going. I'll bring your mail next time I come," Hess gave a nod to his Fuhrer who simply looked on in return. Glancing over his shoulder to Hohenheim, Hess indicated his departure and signaled for the man to follow as he walked down the hall.

Slow to respond, as if to spite the last 72 hours he'd been run in circles, Hohenheim stepped away from the wall; picking up the burlap bag he had put Edward's leg in from the ground. The remaining silence between Hohenheim and the man beyond the barricade was broken at the closing of the door from Hess' exodus.

"Professor Hohenheim."

Stopping at the call of his name, Hohenheim turned his attention over to the darkened jail cell. The look hardening in his eyes at the sight of malicious intent, poorly masked by the intertwined hands in front of Adolf's face.

"I am truly disappointed by you."

Hohenheim's expression remained unchanging.

"Your friends, your peers; they all praise you, speak highly of you and never once have I heard them speak down upon you. I hope it's not that frightening gaze you bestow upon me that has them all where you'd like them," slowly rising from his seat, Adolf straightened his baggy cotton pants, "I do not understand how you command their respect. I'm certain you're far dirtier than how you appear in other people's eyes. If you were not, then you would be a part of my regime by now."

Silent for a moment, Hohenheim finally bowed his head at the statement, "It is a shame you see me that way."

"I wish you would allow me the chance to get close enough to understand what it is that your colleagues see," Adolf's cold gaze moved into harmony with the chilled holding cell, "I've never been able to understand it."

Hohenheim brushed the ends of his ponytail from his shoulder, finally straightening the glasses upon his nose; his tone and aura remained unreadable, "I believe my position now, as a Thule Society member, supports your cause enough that I do not need to pay dues to your party."

Standing at the center of his cage, Adolf stared, devoid of emotion, through the metal barriers to the challenging counterpart, "One should keep their friends close, and enemies closer."

"Do you view me as an enemy?"

"You give me no reason to see you as a comrade."

"So be it." It came as somewhat of a relief to Hohenheim, to be able to tell the man who had corrupted the minds of so many of the people he had developed relationships with in Munich that he was not interested in being part of this scheme.

Turning and finally walking away from the scene, Hohenheim's shoes echoed louder than the sound of the slippers Adolf wore as he came to the bars of his cell.

"Your son's eyes are very strong; I met them at that meeting. He carries them in a similar fashion as you; you've been told this I assume?" The moment Adolf realized his words had altered the flow of Hohenheim's steps, he proceeded further – his voice echoing off the cement walls, "I am impressed that he has gone to such lengths to better himself, he has determination far beyond any man faced with a similar situation," the praise vanished without transition, "But without those attachments he's a disfigurement, with them he's an eyesore of humanity; that boy tries to exist as a flake of dead skin which should be removed from the pure body of Germany."

Hohenheim stopped.

"As does every crippled man, diseased individual and corrupt Jew," Adolf flicked his finger at every niche of mankind he mentioned, "Germany, the world as a whole, is ugly with these existences."

Setting the bag he carried down, Hohenheim slid his hands into his trench coat pockets. A calm exterior shrouded him as he walked back to Adolf's cell; a vacant expression carried on his face.

Leaning up against the bars of his jail cell, Adolf watched the reaction to his words with a half grin, "I did say 'should be', not 'will be' or 'shall be'."

"Is there a purpose to this tirade?" Hohenheim stood to face him from beyond the jail bars, "or do you enjoy hearing the sound of your own voice?"

"You hide your displeasure of me so well," Adolf ran a hand through his hair before propping himself up against the cold metal bars of his cage, "Professor, if there is nothing I can do to sway you, to convince you, to show you, that with our interests we can coincide in harmonic matrimony; may I have your son instead?"

"You may not," there was no room for debate in Hohenheim's tone.

"Will you provide me with a reason?" Adolf leaned back from his metal barrier, "I think he'd make a fine substitution for the role I see fit for you in this picture I have painted for my Germany."

"I will not play this game with you," shaking his head with obvious disapproval of the conversation, Hohenheim would have turned away if the man's voice had not picked up again.

"I poised a question to you, Professor, and you did not answer it," Adolf could read it, that look Hohenheim had on his face; he knew the answer had been given. But it was the elder man's use of situational presence Adolf disapproved of; he preferred the manipulative verbal argument to the contest of wills. Hohenheim's refusal to join the war of words aggravated him.

"Would you rather I leave him ruined on the ground instead?"

In an unprepared moment, Hohenheim's arm ripped through the bars of the enclosing cell; his hand seizing the front of Adolf's white shirt as he ripped the man forward from where he stood and into the unforgiving metal barrier.

"Do not touch him."

Adolf's hand gripped onto Hohenheim's merciless wrist that pinned him against the bars, "It's reassuring to know that I still frighten you this much, Professor."

Hohenheim's eyebrow twitched in response to the comment. Sharply taking the firm hand away from his challenger, he stepped back from the barred enclosure to prevent another knee-jerk reaction.

"I am doing you a courtesy. I did not have to give you this warning; I could have let you figure it out on your own," Adolf's tone was detestable, yet disturbing enough that Hohenheim could not allow himself to walk away, "I either want you, or I will have your son; if I do not get one or the other I will seize everything from you until the last thing left for you see is me."

Unwilling to provide a dignifying response, Hohenheim simply turned away and moved silently down the hall; picking up the bag with Edward's leg in it. The thickness of the air within the room had become suffocating. Gripping the door handle to exit, the pair of angered and disgruntled eyes turned over his shoulder at the final intrusion of a sickening voice.

"You never had a choice in playing this 'game'. Don't embrace that flawed illusion; it was you who started this."


Peering out from behind the safety of the wall in the Mitchell's yard, Winry watched as the patrolling police car made it's way down the street. A hand coming to her chest, Winry sunk down to her knees.

"This isn't fair, I'm feeling guilty and I'm hiding like a criminal," she crossed her eyes in confusion before finally shaking her fist at the air, "I didn't do anything wrong! They must be getting a kick out of this."

With the firm thrust of her fists down at her sides, Winry returned to her feet and promptly marched herself in through the Mitchell's front door. The days she'd spent here had felt uncomfortably overwhelming; overwhelmed at the size of the home, overwhelmed by the misery of the family, overwhelmed by the uncomfortable feeling of the occupants, and mostly overwhelmed by the vast nothingness the house possessed. Sure there were things: paintings, rugs, lamps, vases, and who knew what else to decorate this fine house… but there was still this chilling feeling of nothingness.

She decided it was a good thing she was going to stay with Gracia, "First thing, finding that damn tool bag."

It was a natural response any person would have to a situation like hers; ask someone if they'd seen it. Who could Winry ask? No one. Again, the house and its overwhelming void seemed intimidating. There was no way she'd bring herself to ask that nurse; the less Winry saw of her the better. What there was for security wasn't much help either, but at least they didn't hit back.

Starting at one end, and moving through to the other, Winry opened room doors, closet doors, linen doors, the attic trap door, anything with a door handle, to see if some how someone had wandered by and tucked it out of the way. It took what felt like hours to cover the top two floors of the massive building, never encountering a soul as she did so. Her socked feet echoed in the hallow air; she'd sneeze from the dust created, and it sounded so loudly that she feared the windows would shatter.

Holding position at the farthest wall of the building; Winry stood, with arms folded, brow done in knots, and jaw clenched in absolute frustration, "I bet someone stole it…"

She stared bullets down the main floor hall: her final canvassing grounds. With the firm grip of her hand, Winry flung open every door that had been left unlocked. Room after room of dining, studying, conferencing, book storage, kitchen storage; the living room, family room, the library…

"There!" Winry shrieked at the sight of her tool bag, propped up against the end of a shelf of books. Like a child searching for Easter candy, Winry swept into the room and scooped up the case into the tight hold of her arms.

"Oh I missed you, I didn't want to have to replace you… you have…" she dropped the case down onto the ground, giddy as a little schoolgirl she opened it, "my favourite wrench set, my favourite bits, my favourite drill… AH!" she lay down on her side upon the fuzzy rug beneath the furniture of the room, "thank goodness I can leave now. Why didn't I see this the other fifty times I looked into the room?"

"You make a lot of noise, where are you going?"

Winry sat up abruptly, her head sharply turning to the voice in the doorway. In some state of relief, a sheepish grin ran over her face as she looked to the Mitchell's young girl, "…I'm going to visit a family friend for a while."

"You're a weird girl," entirely unfazed and unresponsive to Winry's reactions, the little girl's ponytail atop her head swayed as she approached, "you're a bad girl too. You opened doors and went in rooms without asking. That's a no-no," she sat herself in front of Winry and her tool case.

Frowning at the child's abrupt and un-composed speech, Winry moved to her knees; catching the refraction of light that bounced off the pendant around the child's neck, "I wasn't bad, I didn't open any door that was locked. Besides, I was looking for something that was mine and if it was a bad thing to look in all these rooms, no one told me that," stemming from the discovery of one of her favourite possession and the reassurance that she did not have to return to this house, the decision made to conduct a solitary investigation came down, "if it makes the situation better Nina, I'm sorry for intruding."

At the mention of the name, the girl's face slowly tightened with a deliberate look of suspicion, "Nina?" her voice steadying a flat and vacant tone.

"Isn't that your name?" it was as good a time as any to ask; the child was there, no one around to influence the girl's answer, and she would be able to find out if the girl had any idea about what the two of them had suspected.

The baby's cry from upstairs interrupted the stalled line of questioning. Before Winry had time to completely organize her train of thought, her young companion had drifted back to the door.

"Miss Winry," came the child's innocent voice, a far cry different than anything in the preceding conversation, "I'm going to be a good big sister like you said, please wait for me."

As she vanished around the door, Winry's head tipped at the sudden change in the girl's disposition. Pushing to her feet and leaving the tool bag where it lay, she moved abruptly to the door, "Hang on, you're going to need a-"

The hall's emptiness silenced Winry; the only thing resonating off the walls was the vibration of the child's cry on the floor above. Neither direction the hall extended down revealed any trace of the little girl.

Winry's unease evolved into a dash down the empty hallway, tearing a path towards the main house entrance. Coming to a stand still at the bottom of the main staircase, the only thing carrying a trace of existence in the sunlit rotunda continued to be the baby's cry. Her hand gripped the stair rail cautiously as she took the climb one step at a time.

Nerves growing, Winry became spooked by the silence and completed her ascent at a run. Turning down the hall, she kept her pace until the familiar decorative door hangings of the baby's room greeted her. Without hesitation, she pushed the door open and barged into the curtain drawn room.

She frowned instantly, looking at the tiny baby howling from beyond the crib rails, "Does no one pay any attention to this child?" Eyeing every corner for a hidden presence intent on startling her again, Winry finally huffed, "What was up with 'be a good big sister'? That twerp disappeared."

Unlike last time, the baby's crying did not cease as Winry approached the crib, though her nose picked up what was upsetting the infant, "Poor little thing, I'm sorry you feel icky in that, it must be uncomfortable. I'll get you a new diaper."

She was thankful the room was neatly laid out; a pre-organized setup of baby wipes and fresh diapers neatly lined a table near the window. Setting everything down inside the crib, Winry looked around the room to see if there was somewhere she could put the baby that didn't involve leaning over the railing. Finding nowhere suitable, Winry rose to her tiptoes and leaned into the crib.

"See, Aunty Winry's going to make it all better. Now then…" Winry rolled up the long pink nighty the child slept in.

"What are you doing!?"

This time, the assaulting voice of Nina in the doorway did not startle Winry from her task. She did not turn around, nor did she even acknowledge the noise; it was simply an echo in her thoughts. Nina had intruded too late; the soft tips of Winry's fingers brushed over the child's belly as her own heart rate began to rise, beating uncomfortably in recognition of what she saw.

"Weren't you told not to touch Diana?"

"Diana?" Winry's hand lifted as she finally lowered from her tiptoes. Eyes wide with concern for the crying child, she turned her concentration over to the disapproving Nina, "Did you draw this on Diana's tummy?"

"Draw what?" the little face frowned profusely back at Winry.

Crouching down to meet the child at eye level, Winry forced a sympathetic expression onto her face, "Lying is wrong, Nina. Someone drew a circle and a star on the baby's tummy."

"I'm not lying," Her frown evolving into an extreme pout, the girl looked miserably back to Winry, "Mrs. Mitchell's hand drew that on Diana, these hands didn't," she held her palms for Winry to see.

Rising back to her feet, Winry brushed her hair off her shoulders and stepped back to the crib once more. Her hands reached in and pulled the pink nighty entirely off of the crying baby, "Why would she do something like that?" Her hand traced over the lines.

"I don't know that!" the child responded to Winry's rhetorical question.

Folding her arms on the top of the crib railing, Winry rested her chin while continuing her visual interrogation of the art, "What kind of alchemist was this lady," her eyes clouded over with a serious tone as she began to chew on her lip, "how could Mrs. Mitchell draw this… just like the one we found on Roze's baby."

"Roze?"

Winry shook her head, "I'll call home later." Attempting to set aside her confusion long enough to tend to the baby, she unraveled the fresh diaper and set it next to the crying infant within the crib.

Stepping up next to Winry, the little girl looked up to her with wide, curious eyes – a harmless voice reemerging, "Who is this Roze and baby that you know?"

"No one special," Winry's wary disposition shifted to meet the untrustworthy expression held in Nina's eyes. As she undid the tape holding on the child's diaper, Winry offered a simple invitation for assistance, "would you show me you're a good big sister and throw this out for me?" she pulled the soiled diaper away from the baby.

Glancing into the crib before Winry reacted, the little girl, bearing so much resemblance to the abused memory of Nina, curled up a side of her mouth in amusement of what lay in the crib, "Sure."


 

"Alchemy is a science where you need to understand the structure of matter; once you have that understanding, you can break it down and rebuild it. Since it is part of science, the laws of nature apply. You can't create something out of nothings, so something must be given up in order to create whatever it is you wanted. The theory is called 'Equivalent Trade'; or I think your physics texts here refer to it as The Law of Conservation. The underlying principal is basically: you cannot turn a piece of paper into a tree, or vice versa – you need to have your ingredient's mass match your final intended mass. If you understand the procedure correctly, you can use it to turn lead into gold - which you shouldn't do because it's taboo. In order to get the process going, you need the elemental ingredients for what you're going to recompose and a properly functioning sigil to circulate the power. Depending on your type of sigil, you can do various things, but if it backfires, or you don't have the proper ingredients in your equation, the alchemy process will eat you. Make sense?"

 

 

Tightening the bag's strap across her chest, Brigitte continued her canvas of the exterior of this molding boulder and concrete built structure. She ran her fingertips along the external portion of the towering walls of an ancient building with no entrance. Again she glanced up to the stained glass windows built in far too high off the ground for her to even consider climbing through. Catching the glimpse of the sun's rising rays, Brigitte turned over her shoulder to see the bands of diluted sunlight filter around the un-kept and uncared for housing within the community. She slid her camera bag off her hip and onto her backside; she continued to walk the wide circle around this impenetrable cathedral.

Stopping to bring another building into consideration, Brigitte continued to wonder if the church in the lot beside this monument was connected in some way. For the second time, Brigitte decided to canvass the adjacent church; by now she'd memorized the circumference of the tower she could not get into. The little feeling inside her stomach told her that breaking into a church was wrong; no matter how decrepit it looked. Again she prodded at the rusting door handles and knobs to see if someone had mistakenly left it open; an open church door meant she'd be welcomed. Pacing around to the far side of the building, Brigitte's eyes again looked up to the partially open window – her fingertips skimmed along the bottom of the frame as she stood on her tiptoes.

Stepping back, she swung her hefty camera bag around to the front of her left hip. She rummaged through one of the pockets; she produced a brown skin wallet.

"Oh no, you bad little hoodlums, please don't take my wallet," Brigitte's voice carried a melodramatic drawl as she stood alone in muddy grass below the window, "Oh no, please don't throw it inside. How ever will I get it back? Oh!" with the flick of her wrist, she tossed the wallet through the window, "Oh dear me, whatever shall I do now?"

Dropping her bag from her shoulders, Brigitte placed it on its tallest end beneath the window. Wrapping the shoulder strap around her ankle, she stepped onto the bag for an extra foot and a half of height. Not small enough to fit through the space in the window, her hands gripped the bottom of the rusted pane and slowly pushed it upwards.

"Seems I must… sneak into this run down… house of God… to retrieve my wallet. Forgive me," her voice choked as she struggled with the window; nearly tumbling into the dirt once it finally popped.


Winry's hand shook unsteadily over her mouth as she took another step back - the echo of her shriek eventually subsiding. Her breathing pattern remained inconsistent with the tense feeling she could not shake, "What is that?"

Tilting her head to the side, an unimpressed look grew across the pudgy face of Nina, "That is so sad. Even I know what that is."

Trying to calm herself from the unexpected sight, Winry turned her widened eyes into the malevolent stare of the child, "Isn't… the baby supposed to be a girl?"

"It is both, Miss Winry."

Winry spun around so fast the long ponytail slapped across her face. Taking an abrupt step backwards, her behaviour waded in unease at the darkened silhouette of the nurse standing at the doorway of the baby's room.

"The child is a hermaphrodite," the bluntness of the nurse's voice shot Winry between the eyes.

"What!?"

"A female infant from this side, fused with a male infant from another. Similar process that would be used to create a chimera," the nurse took a step into the room, shutting the door behind herself.

"What are you talking about? This side and another…" Winry's head shook quickly as she took a distancing step backwards – only to find she had backed up against the crib where the crying and naked baby lay. Her eyes glanced over to Nina as the girl moved silently away; her soft lengths of brown hair drifting out behind. Unsettled by the girl's lack of concern, Winry's voice swept back to the nurse, "WHY would you have a baby like that?"

The answer was given without hesitation, "Because it was far more efficient, and convenient, for our purpose than previous methods," though she addressed Winry, the nurse's attention followed Nina as she moved to a corner of the room.


 

" The church my dad goes to has a sigil etched into the floor for ascetics. It's done with a complicated design and looks rather convoluted. If anyone were ever able to get power to circulate in it, it would hiccup and who knows what would happen."

"Can I see it? I want to take a picture of it."

"It's a private church, members only, and no girls."

"…Weeellll, where is it?"

"You'd never want to go there. It's off in the old district, beyond the university. It's just a run down old concrete structure with some stain glass windows. Even if you wanted to take a picture, it's too dark. I'll draw you some circles instead."

 

 

It was as though the people able to get into this place had vast amounts of trust placed upon them; all but a single door had been left unlocked. And it was this one locked door Brigitte and her hairpin fought with; tucked in behind one of the tattered curtains hanging in the main congregation hall. Her other hairpin had been used to clip the wall tapestry away so the rising sunlight could help her pick this lock. Something about the click she could hear in the doorknob caught her attention; bending the pin in her teeth, Brigitte shoved it back into the keyhole and finally heard the unlocking of the latch.

Stepping back, she finally turned the handle and pulled the heavy door out from its socket. Brigitte was surprised to find no dust teased her nose as she opened it; every other door had exploded with a dirty cloud when she'd opened them. This door did not.

"I'm going in the right direction it seems," stepping into the moderately declining stairwell, Brigitte pulled the door shut behind herself and made her way off into the darkness.


Utilizing a fierce gaze that proved ineffective in warding off to the encroaching nurse, Winry could feel her heart rate continue to rise. Forgetting her location within the room, she stepped sharply back into the crib once more. Startled by the baby's cry from the jolt, Winry turned over her shoulder, caught off guard by the baby's noise.

The nurse caught her lapse of attention and swept forwards, "You shouldn't concern yourself with her."

Winry shrieked when the corner of her eye caught the woman's arm reaching for her; ducking from the grasp, she spun away from the crib. Scrambling to regain her balance, Winry turned deeper into the curtain-sealed room, finally repositioning herself at the opposite side of the crib; creating a makeshift barrier between herself and the aggression displayed by the woman. Glancing to the window, Winry pulled the rod off the blinds and held it out defensively in front of herself.

"What do you think you're doing?" Winry held her quivering voice as firm as the punishing tremor of her heartbeat would allow.

Disinterested in Winry's defensive posture, the voided expression of the nurse turned over to Nina; watching the child embed herself within the stuffed animals and dolls decorating the rocking chair. Nina looked back to the nurse with a casual and somewhat pleasant expression as she tucked her legs into the menagerie.

Remaining square to the situation, Winry's eyes followed to Nina as well; nothing seemed to explain why she remained oblivious to the unfolding situation.

The sound of the baby's cry was no longer heard by the occupants of the room.


 

"It seems that alchemy picks up characters from older European languages. I've seen Runic and Greek characters like Omega, Delta, Phi and Psi. Zhe, iotified I, and others were taken from the Cyrillic alphabet. Some of the elemental symbols are also Greek and are used to identify planets or Gods. It's really bizarre; God has nothing to do with alchemy. But these Greeks were really smart, all sorts of geometry for perfect flow; put a circle around a tetrahedron or hexagram and it's a great beginner's sigil. Hexagrams are used for showing harmony in opposites; man and woman, fire and water usually. A tetrahedron weighs one opposite more than the other. A pentagram is a bit more interesting; it represents symmetry and symmetry of the human body. If you want, you can use tin, mercury, iron, lead and copper elements as main conductors. If you indicate in your circle that the pentagram will be used 'upside down' the applications are entirely different. I met someone who wanted to use an alchemical pentagram upside down."

"How does it become different? What does it do?"

"Ummm… well, I discovered that in Greek mythology the upside down pentagram represents a gateway from 'there' to 'here' and also 'here' to 'there'. It was said that a baby was placed at this gateway in order for the worlds to initially appear and you had to cross through this gateway in order to find 'the truth' or obtain 'wisdom'. Anyone who comes in contact with this gate or ventures through it successfully comes back with tons of 'wisdom'."

 

 

"Wow…" Brigitte's eyes marveled at the colours the morning sun was creating through the stain glass windows, "Mr. Elric was right, it is too dark in here still… but it looks so pretty."

Stepping away from the outer circumference of the room, Brigitte made her way to the center of the structure; she looked up to the towering ceiling stories above where she stood, far higher than she'd witnessed from outside. She wondered if the place ever flooded; it was dug into the ground, rather than on ground level.

Her shoes echoed as she crossed the room, eyes following the decorations adoring the walls. It was nothing like the church upstairs. This place was kept and tidied. The wall hangings with pictorial descriptions she did not recognize were new and obviously maintained. There was a thin layer of dust that had begun to settle; she could see the particles rise in the room as she moved – the sunlight created speckled shadows floating in mid air.

Brigitte looked around the room; there were other doors, and she could not figure out where they led to – could the deteriorating houses on the block have access to this place? Or did they simply lead somewhere else? Were there more rooms than just this one? She wanted to go see. The train of thought was distracted as the smooth floor beneath her feet became warped. Having approached the center of the room, her toes touched upon the outer rings of this Transmutation Circle she'd heard about. Tearing her bag open, she pulled out the paper of symbols and circles Ed had done up for her the day before.

"This is it!" Setting her bag down outside the circumference of the circle, Brigitte walked around the engraving upon the floor, "it looks like a drawing for gypsies or something," she started to giggle, "I want to know how to use it!"


"Just who exactly are you?" Winry's concentration returned to the nurse who'd begun circling the crib towards her.

"That's irrelevant, do not concern yourself with it," the voice carried an obvious lack of interest for the question.

Her socks brushing against the floor with each countering step made, Winry wrinkled her nose as she continued to retreat, "You're the baby's nurse, you've seen that design, I know what it is. Are you an alchemist?"

"I have an awareness of alchemy," a mused grin came onto the nurse's expression.

"What's it doing there?" Winry's hardened voice demanded, referring to the sigil upon the infant's stomach.

The woman mused over the question for an elongated moment before replying, "It's an experiment. Care to partake?"

Her face curled with dismay for the statement, "Disgusting…" having dealt with enough abnormalities in her life, Winry narrowed her eyes with an abstract question, "are you even human?"

"Everyone starts out human," it was Nina's childless voice that answered.

Winry grit her teeth and tightened her grip around the rod in her hands; the corner of her eyes finding Nina, but soon revealing she'd backed up into a corner of the baby's room. Wiping a tear of nervous sweat from her forehead, Winry kept a vigil on Nina as she spoke again, "Is the baby human?"

"Diana is human," the nurse's carefree response intruded, "The Philosopher's Stone allowed for Diana to remain human."


 

"Okay, well I don't want to do that, I'm not that adventurous. But let's pretend I want something simple, and I want to make a nice vase for my mom. If I draw a circle that looks like this… do I always have to give up something in order to make the vase?"

"Well, it makes sense right? You can't make something out of nothing."

"I suppose, maybe I'm thinking of magic. But what if I don't have enough to make the vase?"

"Then the transmutation will rebound and the alchemist's body will be used to fill in what's missing."

"…Ow. No way around that?"

"Only the Philosopher's Stone can break the laws of equivalence."

"What's that?"

"It's too dangerous to worry about. It's not something just anyone can create, it's not something just anyone can use, and it's not something anyone should ever want to use. Alchemy's principle is equivalent trade, and that thing is anything but equivalent. We'll just stick with drawing circles and rearranging structures for now."

 

 

From a little baggie, Brigitte touched up the little smear of flash powder in the dish placed upon a makeshift tripod. Snapping a match from a package in her bag, she lit the paper strand hanging from the tray and took three wide strides away.

"Okay…" her eyes watched the paper burn within the tiny thin strip of flame, "three… two…" she turned her camera forward and listened for the initial crackle that always occurred right before the magnesium ignited. She snapped her shutter as the powder lit the room once more.

"Perfect! Now for the other side," snatching up the tripod and tray in one hand, camera in the other, and bag over her shoulder; Brigitte hauled her setup across the room. Occupied by the traveling struggle she found herself with, she never picked up on the intrusive sound that came from the opening of one of the doors providing entrance into the hall.


"There's no way," Winry's voice challenged the statement; an anxious vibration tightened her shoulders, "No way… Al used all of that stone for Ed. There was nothing left!"

"That statement is incorrect. Other's played with that power," the nurse tilted her head in thought, "some still do."

"Someone else…?"

Nina finally directed her attention to Winry; she did not have to see the girl's eyes fall upon her to feel the merciless gaze cutting her down, "An embarrassment known as Shou Tucker."

"A dead shell of a body once known as Mrs. Lyra Mitchell," the nurse's behaviour followed suit.

Winry's arms slowly fell from their defensive position; she ran the names repeatedly through her mind. She recognized them, "…Shou? …Lyra?"

"Perhaps…" sitting forward from her perch, Nina leaned out from the comfort she'd surrounded herself with, "… perhaps your friend Roze has forgotten a detail somewhere along the way? Though, I don't think you'll be able to call her and ask."

Winry's eyes widened, the feign of pity from the voice sent a shiver down her spine; why was Roze implied like that? It did nothing but confirm her distrust in the illusion the child formed around herself. Yet, the demeanor was enthralling and inescapable; swept up in its veil, Winry mistakenly lost track of the nurse's position.


 

"How did you find all this out? With alchemy and Greek mythology?"

"I spent a lot of time in the libraries in London, I've been fascinated with this long before you were born. Dad took me to Greece for a bit a few years back, which was where I found a fair bit more information. The ancient Greeks have far more knowledge that I could have wished for; I bet they could have understood and used alchemy. I would have loved to have understood some of this information five or six years ago."

"Why back then?"

"That's a long story, don't worry about it."

 

 

"What the hell are you doing?"

Brigitte shrieked, spilling her powder on the floor at the startling deep voice. Emerging from one of the doors around the room, the lumbering balding man associated with the sound appeared, shrouded in the mystery of this colour-lit room.

"I'm leaving!" Brigitte announced sharply as if the answer had been preprogrammed.

"What WERE you doing?" the voice challenged her. It had waited for her to set up all this equipment before speaking out, curious to find out what this young intruder was up to.

"Um, I was told of a charm on this floor and I wanted to take a picture of it for my art class at school," swiftly Brigitte dumped her camera back into the bag and rushed to disassemble the tripod where her powder once rested.

"This area is restricted, did you break in?" the man approached her swiftly; having mastered the art of silent approach, his feet were never heard making contact with the ground.

Sweeping the powder back into the tray with her hands, Brigitte stumbled through her words, "I wanted to come into the church, but it was locked. Some boys teased me because I was going to cry and threw my wallet in through the window. I had to climb in to get it back; I saw an open door and wandered down the hall. I came out here, I'm sorry I was only cur—AH!" her voice pierced out, echoing within the room; the man's firm grip of her shirt hauled her off her knees. His other hand snatched her face, holding her out in front of himself.

"Bullshit. That door is locked."

"Let me go," Brigitte's eyes swelled with tears at his bruising grip, "I swear it wasn't."

With a slap across her face, the man threw her to the ground amidst the photography powder. His cold eyes cut shards out of her, "You're lying in a place of worship, God does not look favourably upon you today."

Brigitte's hands came to her face where his hand once dug in. Shaken upon the ground, she watched the man turn and walk back into the darkened exit from which he'd initially emerged.


Before ever realizing she'd reacted to it, Winry had fallen out of the way of the nurse's reaching arm once more. Scrambling to her feet, she'd not advanced more than two steps before the grip of the woman's hand came to her side. With unexplainable force, Winry was swept from her feet into the crib siding, crumpling down in a heap. The contents of the crib, baby and all, spilled out across the floor as it toppled over.

"That was careless."

Nina's little voice barely registered in Winry's mind as she felt the suffocating, finger nailed grasp of the nurse's hand close down around her neck; a thumb pressing down into the clef where her collarbones met. Clawing at the crushing grip, Winry found herself on her back upon the floor. Desperately kicking, she turned herself enough to get a foot into the nurse's face; though, no matter how hard she thrashed, the hold refused to relent. Her head began to throb from the inability to breathe; she could do nothing but panic and
fight with a merciless hand.

"This isn't very fun," came Nina's whining voice into the struggling noises within the room. Her gaze drifting over to the baby crying out from the floor, "so careless…"

"Are you too young to see a dead body?" the nurse glanced up from her project with a musing smirk; it was the roll of Nina's eyes which dismissed the question.

The distraction Nina provided had allowed Winry an opening; putting her heel into the nurse's chin with all the force she had left, the grip finally relented. With a second kick to push her back, Winry scrambled away upon her hands and knees, gasping for air. Unable to overcome the dizzying stars and light headed feeling, she could not rise to her feet; trembling under her own weight. Winry watched as the nurse simply rubbed her chin.

As if given time to collect herself, Winry's hand came to her neck while she continued to pant; her eyes shaking with the terrified gaze she handed out to the two other occupants of the room.


 

"If it's just like that, how come no one can make alchemy work?"

"Because no one really understands the structure of matter and the flow of nature. I can tell you all about the ingredients, you can have all the knowledge and formulas in the world, but unless you're able to understand how nature intertwines them, it doesn't do you any good."

"Isn't that what scientists try to do?"

"An alchemist is different from a research scientist. An alchemist needs to understand structure of matter and process of nature at the basic level of existence. One is all, all is one. Your soul communicates with nature to understand it's composition because you are essentially part of nature's flow; your soul feeds that information to your mind for you to understand and interpret, and your body becomes the vessel used to carry that information - feeding the knowledge-power it to the circle to initiate the transmutation. It's sort of like the idea behind quintessence. And that's only the first step; you need to repeat similar processes for decomposition and reconstruction. The process is breached at the mutual understanding your soul has with nature and the feedback your mind receives to understand all that information. Since no one's able to properly do this, alchemy isn't possible."

"Do you realize… how ludicrous you sound?"

"YOU asked."

 

 

"Shit shit shit," Brigitte scrambled to close her bag; the photography equipment jammed into it a as> best she could. Panic ran through her body as she scrambled to collect her things before the man came back, "I'm in so much trouble." Her hands trembled and fumbled uneasily as she locked the clasp on her bag and threw it over her shoulder. The sun had risen high enough by now that the coloured windows shed their light down upon her position at the center of the room.

"That's far enough for you."

The deep voice of the man sent a tremor through her body; she wished to curl up like a young child hoping to disappear, "I'm sorry, I'm leaving, I'll never come back. I'll pay the fine for trespassing." Her eyes turned shaken over her shoulder as the man stood between beams of light in what was still the darkness.

"This is unfortunate," the man's voice hinted at remorse, but not enough to negate his actions.

Brigitte's scream echoed in the ceilings of the hall; she curled to her knees at the center of the piece of work she'd come to admire, hands gripped over her head as she'd been taught to do for an air raid. The echo of the first of six bullets from within the gun barrel unloaded in the hall overtook her voice. The shattering sound of the gun rang out until the empty click of a non-existent seventh bullet snapped in the room.

It was an unnecessary empty shot; Brigitte had fallen silent after three.


"Aren't you going to run?" the nurse asked nonchalantly.

Winry did not respond, though it made the urge just that much greater. She wiped a trail of sweat from her forehead before her hand returned to cradling the sore spots on her neck, continuing to regain her breath.

"A wise man would run to his freedom."

"Shut up!" Winry screamed in response; her eyes clenched shut as she shifted her weight to her knees – her arms trembling too much to support her any longer. Cracking open her eyes, the line of sight shifted to Nina once more; the malevolent smile of amusement the child carried had grown. Winry watched it through the swelling of tears in her eyes; it felt as though she could do nothing to subdue this fear overtaking her body. Her attention focused temporarily on the baby squawking on the floor, between herself and the exit.

"I wonder…" the frightening female voice grabbed Winry's ear, "who'll help that remaining Elric child… if you continue to sit there afraid?"

It was the implication of Al that pulled Winry to her feet finally; like a sprinter moving from starting blocks, she burst forward to the door. Disregarding the eyes within the room that watched her, Winry gave up concern for the baby on the floor and jumped over it as she ran.

"Miss. Winry Rockbell…"

Her pulse pounded in her ears; the beads of sweat bounced off her temples as she stumbled into the closed door.

"It's not going to be you."

Her left hand clasping around the doorknob, Winry's watering eyes shot wide at the familiar sound of a handclap echoing within the room.


To Be Continued...


Notes:

Oh! Copyright/source notices:

- Opening quote taken from "Hermaphrodite Child of the Sun and Moon". Copyright Mike Brenner 1997.
- Edward's convoluted calculation of getting a rocket into space taken from "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes" by Robert H. Goddard 1919.

The Greeks were smart… Ed is smart… and they're both a whole lot smarter than me :(. And that explanation Ed gave about the upside down pentagram is part of Greek mythology. Ed is in his element talking about alchemy.

Pentagram – your standard 5-point star.

Hexagram – looks just like the Jewish Star of David. The triangular centerpiece for the Ouroborus symbol and many other alchemy things you've seen.

Tetrahedron – It's what a 3D symmetrical triangle looks like when it's unfolded flat in 2D. Like a big triangle with a little triangle inside.

Sigil – Ed refers to the transmutation circle as a sigil for Brigitte, sort of like trying to relay it in layman's terms for her to understand. 'Transmutation circle' would be a really foreign word for her.

Ottoberg – the name of the guy who got rushed on the stage by Hitler.

Chapter 11: An Omnipresent Void

Summary:

Al searches for Winry while Hohenheim causes grief for Ed.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Keeping an eye upon her youngest son perched next to the sink, a towel draped over his outstretched legs, another towel fumbling around in his hands as he made a continual attempt to dry his mother's dishes; Trisha treated another plate to the rinse water. Trisha couldn't help but giggle at the delight dancing in Alphonse's eyes, having finally been allowed to help his older brother dry the glass dishes.

Setting his plate off with the rest, Ed pushed to his knees and leaned into his younger brother's battle with the dish in his lap, "See Al, if you turn the bowl on it's side, put the cloth there, and turn it like that in a circle, it dries lots faster."

Following along with his brother's motions, wide-eyed Al did as instructed. As if a valued trophy, Al gripped the rim of his bowl and held it out for his mother to see, "Mommy, see. I done bowls too."

"Yes you did," Trisha's tone tingled with delight as she gave a huge grin in reply to Al's far larger one.

From the corners of both Edward and Trisha's eye, the pair caught as Al tipped the bowl, only to have it slip from his grasp. Trisha was unable to move fast enough to catch the dish as it bounced off the counter's edge, and shattered on the hardwood floor.

"Oh dear," Trisha's hand came to her cheek as she stepped back from the sharp mess, "oh, Alphonse," Trisha swept a few pieces aside with her slipper as she reached for Al, his lower lip trembling as his eyes watered up. Not given time to grab her son, Trisha took a startled step backwards at the unannounced handclap echoing from the top of the stairs. The transmutation light, and the decent of their father from the second floor, was enough to distract Al from his tears.

"See, Daddy fixed it," Ed pointed down to the ground as he tried to get Al's attention.

Trisha's hands came to her hips as Hohenheim crossed the kitchen, picked up the bowl, and sat it down in his youngest son's lap, "All better, right?"

"Thank you Daddy," Al's voice choked, the miserable look still in his eyes.

Hohenheim's hand came up and ruffled Al's hair before cheering the miserable look with a kiss to the forehead, "No tears. Remember what went wrong, and don't let yourself do it that way again. You'll do just fine when you try again."


With the flick of the clasps on his briefcase, Ed flipped it open. It had been in the back of his mind for weeks, and since that unpleasant Tuesday when he'd discovered a new dislike for this type of humanity, Edward produced an unhealthy piece of curiosity.

"What's that?" Hohenheim raised his eyebrows in question; he finally got to find out why his son was staring bullets at his briefcase.

Standing up from his spot on the floor of his father's home study, Ed tossed the magazine onto the man's desk, "I picked it up in Vienna. It's a magazine that Ekert guy publishes, edits, whatnot. The centre article is about that Adolf Hitler guy everyone seems so enthralled over."

Taking the magazine up, Hohenheim leafed through the pages, "Why do you have it?"

"I was curious. I had some shop owner berate me for being German, then threw that at me," firmly stepping up to his father's desk, Ed leaned over the glossy pages of this magazine pinched in his father's hands, "it's something like that which makes me glad I'm not German."

Setting the magazine down with the centre page open, Hohenheim slowly shook his head, "He has a way with people."

"He's a boar," Ed simply scoffed, turning up his nose, "leading his people into some unprovoked fight."

"It's called 'intimidation tactics', Edward," Hohenheim looked to Edward from above the rim of his glasses.

Spinning the magazine around so that he could read it right side up, Ed slapped his hands down on the desk, "I know that, and they're so desperate to feel good about themselves again that they'll listen to anything," he skimmed over the article slowly as he spoke, "I've read this thing maybe twenty times this week, and every time I read it my skin crawls; nothing but Aryan supremacy and the eradication of other types of people. This guy isn't for the good of Germany," he flicked a page over, pointing at the image printed of Adolf in the material, "this guy is not interested in the good of everyone."

"Edward," Hohenheim clasped his hands together over the desk as Ed raised an eyebrow at his father's long and exhausted sigh, "I'm thankful that you have blonde hair and white skin, it makes it far easier for you to pass as a German."

Snatching the magazine off the table, Ed threw it without care over to his briefcase on the floor, "Same goes for you."

Hohenheim's eyebrows rose at the unexpected comment.

"Hermann called earlier," it was an abrupt conversation change Ed made, "he was in a rush but mentioned something about Tilly wanting to do something tonight. I have a feeling I'm not going to be going to the university tomorrow with you; he said something about 'oh! Just because you have a patch on your eye, doesn't mean you can become a hermit'. They're going to call back."

Again Hohenheim sat silent, staring with a raised brow at the unprovoked spill of information. It would probably take him another hundred years to figure out the exact moments he could get this type of information out of his son; to save a headache, he normally let Ed come and go as he pleased, "Alright. Let me know what you're going to be up to when you find out."

Ed nodded and looked down at his briefcase without another word.

It was Hohenheim who had something else to contribute; he simply did not know how to present it. Choosing to remain silent for moments longer, he watched as Ed stuffed the magazine into his briefcase once more before taking a deep breath.

"Edward."

He glanced up, snapping the latches on the case shut.

Hohenheim tapped his pen on the desk, "We have a couple of new apprentices assigned to my division, Karl suggested I take one of them under my wing and let him contribute in my office."

"… Are you firing me?" Ed blinked, standing up straight.

The question made Hohenheim laugh, coming as a refreshing relief, "No no," he straightened his ponytail and stood up from the seat, tugging on his vest as he did so, "but why don't you take some time off."

Glancing away in thought, Ed considered the suggestion, "Well, I guess I could focus more on Hermann and his work."

"No, how about a vacation somewhere. Why don't you take a trip back to London?"

The following silence was almost as upsetting as Edward's cold response, "I'm not going back there."

"Why not?" though Hohenheim should have expected the response, he had been hoping Edward would be a little more willing to negotiate the offer, "there are a lot of people you haven't seen there in a long time."

"I'm NOT going to go to London. Why don't you send me somewhere else?"

"I called Doctor Wilson this morning, we talked about train accommodations, and he said he had no problem letting you stay with-"

Ed let the briefcase fall from his hands, "What the HELL do you think you're doing? You think you can ship me off to London without consulting me?" he had no problem challenging his father on this issue, "Even if I wanted to go to London, which I DON'T, you think I'd want to stay with him? Ship me off to Rome or Greece or Switzerland or somewhere… maybe ASK ME too."

Hohenheim reminded himself that he had to keep his cool for this, "Dr. Wilson treated you very well, you owe him a lot of thanks regardless if you like him or not," he didn't give Ed the opportunity to complain about his statement regarding the doctor, "If I'm going to get you a train ticket anywhere, it'll be somewhere I know you'll have a lot of familiar faces if there are any problems."

"Then I'm staying right here," Edward gave his briefcase a swift boot into the corner of his father's study as he turned away to the door.

"Edward," Hohenheim's voice rose, only to provoke a glare from over his son's shoulder, "I think you should go to London."

Gripping the door handle firmly with his left hand, Ed shot his look of flat refusal back to his father, "I think you should go to hell. I'm not going back to London," and he slammed the door behind himself.


"She didn't call at all in the last couple of days?" Al's voice quickly deflated as his grip on the telephone receiver weakened, "not since then? Okay." His eyes sagged as he slowly nodded his head to Roze's voice on the other end of the line, "no that's fine, I'll be okay. Could you just give Mrs. Hughes or me a call if she does show up in the next couple of days? It's a three day trip to Resembool, so if she's on her way, there's still time for her to show up," as upbeat as he tried to hold his voice, Al's grey and sleep deprived expression could not hold the same enthusiasm, "no really, you don't need to come out. It's okay Roze, everything will be fine," a statement Al could not believe in himself.

Finally after the good byes, Al slowly sat the telephone receiver back onto its cradle and let his mind wander. The daydream was lonely. It was that hill his brother always sat on after having been scolded, embarrassed, or simply to show protest against whatever it was he was disapproving of that day. The sun rose, or the sun set, it didn't really matter. He simply stared off into the valley flanked by the train station at one end, the flowing river on the other, and just over his shoulder rose his house in the middle of the field. It was only he who sat there atop this hill – watching the world pass by. The train never stopped as it passed Resembool station, no one waited on the platform, his brother never came to get him, his mother never called his name, the flashing lantern light never grabbed his attention. The vast blue sky, untainted with clouds, didn't even have birds.

The second ring of the phone startled Al and he was suddenly back in the white painted hallway. After the third ring, the phone had been answered. As much as he'd wanted to pick it up, Al left that task up to one of Mr. Mitchell's handlers or caretakers in the house.  There was a lot of them mulling about today in a tizzy over who knows what, but they would still answer the phone.  That was their job; though, he figured by now they were getting sick of his desperate eyes wondering if all the new calls were for him with any sort of news.

They rarely were.

Al picked himself up and walked down the hall without a sound, a sleepless headache beating behind his eyes. There wasn't any cue for it, nor a specific purpose it would serve, but Alphonse started to run. Not enough people were paying attention to him to stop him and he ran through the maze he'd gotten himself into - down a hall that he didn't care for, past people he did not know, within a house that was not his. He kept going until he entered one of the few spaces he'd grown familiar with, every thought in his mind was thankfully stopped by what distracted him in this borrowed bedroom.

Two big, blue eyes looked up at him from where she sat on the bed, hair braided in frighteningly familiar pigtails trailing over her shoulders, "Why do you look so sad today?"

Al used the palm of his hand to rub one of his eyes, "I think I've lost someone again." 

"You can loose people?" Nina stood up on his bed, her socked feet leaving imprints as she stepped over the freshly made sheets.

"I guess so," Al shrugged, sitting down on the bed and glancing over to Nina as she plunked herself down next to him, "I've gotten very good at it."

"I'm sorry that you loose people," Nina smoothed her dress out as she dangled her feet off the end of the bed, "that girl friend of yours isn't here today, did you loose her?"

"I don't know," giving a shrug, a nibble of curious concern was growing in the back of his mind, "why are you so friendly today? You never said much to me before."

"My nurse is busy doing things with Diana and my friend. I was helping them, but all the other adults got in the way, so I came here," Nina put her hands behind her back as she shrugged.

"Your friend?" surprised by the statement, considering the nurse seemed to keep the children on a leash, Al began to frown, "Where is your nurse? Is she allowed to leave you alone like this?"

"She's somewhere. And I'm a big girl, I can do lots of things all by myself," again, Nina shrugged in response to the line of questions.

Al wasn't given a chance to think on the issue much longer; a knock came to his door.

"Sir," one of Mr. Mitchell's security attendants peered into the room, "the telephone is for you again."

Al's company with Nina ended there. Getting up and leaving the room without a goodbye, he followed the attendant back down through the house, "Do you know who's calling?"

"It's Ms. Hughes again," the man replied as if Al had become more of a hassle than much else.

Sitting down at the table with the phone, Al watched over his shoulder and waited for the attendant to leave before he spoke.

"Hello?"

"Alphonse?" Ms. Hughes voice sounded through faint static, "I'm glad you picked up."

The side of Al's lips curled as he heard Elysia's voice call out a hello from the background. Despite his amusement, Al couldn't resist going straight to what had him tied up in knots, "Ms. Hughes, have you heard anything from Winry?"

"That's what I called to talk to you about."

Al's heart rate shot up as his body stiffened; so wrapped up in his own concern, Al did not notice the set of prying eyes watching him.

"Elysia and I took a walk this morning, we walked the path Winry should have taken between my house and Mr. Mitchell's. We asked some of the shop owners if they'd seen her at all. A gentleman from a flower shop had his window broken yesterday when someone threw a black case from a military vehicle that sped by," Gracia's voice paused on the other end, Al had nothing in his mind that he could provide to the conversation, "I asked to see it; it was Winry's tool case."

The millions of possibilities that ran through Al's mind kept him from forming a response to Gracia's words.

"Her shoes were thrown from the car too, I found one in the street. The shop keeper picked up the other when he cleaned up the broken glass."

The potential for the possibilities grew worse with each word.

"Al, did anyone see Winry in the house yesterday evening? Does anyone know what time she picked up the tool case?"

"I…" Al tried desperately to clear his head; "I haven't asked many people if they saw Winry yesterday," there weren't too many people within the Mitchell household for Al to ask, "I thought she said she was going to call when she found the tool case, and you'd come to pick her up. I assumed she never made it here."

"I saw your pretty girl friend yesterday."

Al turned over his shoulder, startled by Nina's voice.

"Al? Al what was that?" Gracia's voice called into the receiver.

The receiver in Al's hand slowly fell away from his ear, his eyes widening as he watched Nina speak.

"She found her tool kit and I told her she was weird. She talked to it like a baby and hugged it. She said 'Oh this is my favourite wrench set, my favourite bits, my favourite drill' and other stuff. She said she was happy to leave my house. I asked why and she said she was going to visit a friend instead. And then she left."

Crouching down, the receiver resting on his shoulder, Al's wary gaze took Nina eye-to-eye, "When did this happen? Did she say why she walked back?"

"Yesterday evening. My nurse was on the phone and your friend didn't want to wait for her, so she walked."

"Alphonse!"

Gracia's insistent voice from the other end of the line finally caught his attention and Al slapped the receiver back to his ear.

"Al, I'm going to call-"

"No wait," Al interjected suddenly, clenching his fist as he did so "let me see Mr. Mitchell first."


The phone echoed throughout the house; ringing two… three… four…

Ed poked his head out of his room, "DAD! Get the PHONE!"

Five… six… seven…

"DAD!" Ed rushed out of his room, nearly tumbling down the stairs as he tried to make it before the tenth ring, "Son of a…" he picked up the phone sharply, "Hello?"

"Edward! I'm glad someone finally picked up."

Ed narrowed his eyes, not recognizing the voice over the static ridden line, "Who's calling?"

"It's Dietrich you foolish boy," the man's booming voice tried to conquer the crackling noise within the phone line.

Ed rolled his eyes, he did not want to listen to this man go on and on and on. He hated the sound of the man's voice and hated even more how the man tended to talk down to him. Besides which, Ed had a shower to take eventually, couldn't this have happened up afterwards?

"Where's your father?"

Raising his right eyebrow, surprised by the lack of conversation Dietrich was holding with him, Ed glanced down the hall towards his father's study, "I dunno where the heck he is. Hang on."

At that, Ed let the receiver drop from his fingertips and swing wilding off the table as he marched into his living room and through a corner door into his father's study. He checked left, right, up and down; even went so far as to look behind the door. Ed stood silent in the study, casting his gaze around the room as if he expected someone to jump out and surprise him; but the room was simply a void. Frowning in confusion, Ed made his way to the patio door and peeked out into the yard, only to be greeted by the chirping birds and colour-drained fall leaves.

"Huh?" Ed pulled the door shut and looked back into the house with a wide-eyed and perplexed expression. Running past the phone, Edward poked into the empty kitchen before running back upstairs to pry into his father's empty bedroom.

Making his way slowly back downstairs, Ed eyed the entranceway to finally receive some answer to the puzzling question; his father's shoes missing. Scooping up the telephone to his ear, Ed did his best to hide the confused tone from his voice, "I think he went out…" concerning factor was: his father normally didn't go out on Sundays.

"Dammit all! When he gets home, tell him he must call me immediately! Understood?"

Holding the receiver out in front of his face, Ed's expression dropped; unimpressed by the order, "Yeah, okay, I'll do that."

"Good boy! Talk to you later," and the man hung up.

Edward's eyebrow twitched as he dropped the receiver back down onto the handles. Stuffing his hands into his pant's pocket, he turned to return to the second floor. Before Ed had been given a chance to climb three steps, the phone rang again. Storming his way back, Ed grabbed it before the fourth ring.

"Hello?" he said flatly.

"Good afternoon."

"… Good afternoon…"

"Is Professor Hohenheim home?" the male voice on the other end asked.

Rolling his eyes once more, Ed's monotone voice continued to drone on, "No, he's not. I think he went out, can I ask who's calling?"

"This is Friedrich Krohn, I need to get in touch with him as soon as possible. Could you please have him call me when he gets home?"

Unentertained by the desperate hint the man carried in his voice, Ed simply shrugged, "Okay, I'll do that."

The conversation ended at that, and once again the receiver fell from Ed's fingertips. Returning to his mission of getting up the stairs, Ed hadn't even reached the base of the stairs before the phone rang again. His eyebrow twitched as he did an abrupt about face back to the phone.

"… Hello?"

"Edward!"

Ed's head dropped forward, the receiver glued to his ear; this voice he did recognize, "Are you looking for my father, Professor Haushofer?"

"Yes I am! Can you put him on the line?"

"He's not home," Ed tried to put a feign of interest into his speech, he didn't detest Professor Haushofer as much as everyone else calling so far.

"That's no good. Can you get him to-"

"Call you the moment he gets home," Ed scratched his head feverishly in frustration, "I will do that."

"Thank you so much!"

Once again, another brief conversation ended. With slow and careful precision, Ed took the receiver in both his hands and placed it firmly down to disconnect the call.

And the phone rang once more.

Snatching it up once more with Neanderthal like care, Ed slammed the receiver to his ear, "Hello?"

"Edward, it's Rudolf."

The back of Ed's gloved mechanical hand rubbed over his right eye, "Hey…"

"Are you feeling better today?"

"I'm developing a headache right now," Ed rolled his gaze around the hall, wishing he didn't have to hold this conversation, "did you need anything?"

"Well, I hope you feel better soon. Is your father around?"

The little string of secretarial obedience snapped as Ed's grip on the phone turned his knuckles white, "Why the hell is everyone suddenly calling for him? Is something wrong?"

"Oh no no!" Hess's voice quickly dismissed Edward's question, "It's just some internal matters we need to discuss with him, and we need to do it right away. It's very important that I speak to him."

Giving a sigh, Ed shook his head, "He's not home. I'll tell him to call you when he gets in though."

Hess's voice sounded more desperate than any of the others, "Do you know where he is? I'll go pick him up."

"I don't know… sorry," Ed's displeasure fell away; there was something deeply concerning about Hess's determination to tack down his father.

"… Shit. Okay, please make sure he calls me the moment you see him."

"Sure thing."

Once again the conversation ended.

Folding his arms, Ed eyed the telephone with intense speculation at what was going on… and with general annoyance that he was playing secretary. Frowning, he tried to think of what sort of circumstances would cause an uproar on a Sunday. The majority of Thule meetings were held Thursdays or Fridays; which again struck Ed as odd since this world's day of religion seemed to be Sunday.

Then the phone rang; Ed screamed at it before picking it up.

"What?"

"… Is that how you answer my telephone?"

"… You…"

"Edward, can you check in the fridge and tell me what's left in the fruit drawer and also if there's any milk?"

"Where the hell are you?" Edward wailed on the phone, "hurry up and get home because I'm tired of being your damn secretary! I'm not going to answer this phone for you any more; it can ring and ring and ring for all I care. I have other, far more important things to do than to tell all your friends you're not home!"

"…" If the telephone receiver could have been sweating as Hohenheim had on the other end of the line, it would have.

"And you're the only one who drinks it, so you should know if we need milk; I'm not doing any errands for you! … A couple apples would be nice, maybe a pear… but get home before every person in your address book needs you to call them!" Ed threw the receiver down, plucked the cord out of the wall, and stomped upstairs amidst his childish tantrum.

Left standing at a payphone near one of Munich's outdoor markets, a bag of groceries tucked under his arm; Hohenheim slowly hung up the phone and backed out of the booth. His eyes wide and shoulders fallen in total confusion, Hohenheim examined the stall momentarily before turning back into the Munich market, "… Perhaps I'm destined to never understand."


"Sir, I am telling you, I cannot admit you."

Sitting on the middle of the outdoor staircase at what was once Central Military Headquarters, which now had become a combined structure of both military and government alike, Al watched the situation unfold over his shoulder.

"I can appreciate that if you were a family friend of Mrs. Mitchell's that she would have allowed you into those wings, but since she is no longer here you must go through the proper channels. Get in touch with the Prime Minister's office, get the proper documentation and clearance, and come back then. You will be arrested if you don't comply," the security officer stood his ground as he, and two accompanying guards, attempted to escort out the challenging, firmly built man and his nimble looking companion.

"Lyra and Aisa told us there would be no hassle! Why don't you be the one who picks up the phone and calls that bitch to get our clearance?" the smaller of the two men retorted.

Al's eyes flickered with curiosity.

Holding a steadfast gaze, the officer once again refused the man who's subsequent verbal shot was stopped by the larger man, who carried a far more ominous presence than the little one's bite, "We will get this required clearance, and when we return, we will expect an apology from your office. Let's go."

With that, the man had ended their engagement, much to the obvious relief of the security remaining at the top of the staircase.

Al turned to face forward, not wanting either man to be aware that he had been watching their escapade with the authorities. Placing his hands on his knees, Al waited as the men walked by; a shiver ran up his spine when one of them stopped after having taken only three steps past him. Glancing up, Al found himself swept into the cold, drilling eyes embedded into the suntanned skin of this powerful man's presence. The deeper Al fell into his gaze, the more it withered him up in submission. The feeling was more than intimidation; he knew this face from somewhere and the impression left in his memory was not a positive sensation.

"Hey!" the other companion called back, having already descended the stairs and trekked a path along the sidewalk, "you were the one who said we were leaving."

Turning sharply away from the young Elric at the prompt, Al caught the sunlight's reflection off of the man's two golden earrings; something so startling it brought the boy to his feet. Not being given enough time to sort the rushing thoughts, Al jumped at a hand coming to rest on his shoulder.

"Ah, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

Al turned his widened eyes to the head of security who'd stood in the men's path moments before.

"You're Alphonse correct? Mr. Mitchell was supposed to come greet you, but we insisted he stay in his office with those two trolling around. We'll take you to see him."

Al apologized for the inconvenience he was causing for them before following the man into the building. It was odd, Al thought, how absolute the division within the building was between government and military. He'd been made aware that one half of the building was still devoted to the military, while the other for parliament; yet as he followed his escort down the halls echoing with adult chatter, he did not encounter a single military official.

"Alphonse!"

Both Al and the security escort turned as the voice echoed off the walls.

"Sir, we asked you to remain-"

Mr. Mitchell waved a dismissive hand at his security chief; moving quickly to catch up with the pair, "I know you did, but I had to pick up a relay that came in."

Flicking his hair from his forehead, Al watched curiously; there was a hint of distress around the Prime Minister. Al slowly picked up how hard the man was forcing himself to remain composed.

"I'll look after Alphonse for a bit, but would you run a message to my Deputy Minister?" Al did not feel comfortable with Mitchell's firm business tone; "tell him to see me in my office immediately."

Al's eyes followed the man as he took off down the hall at the Prime Minister's urging, loosing him beyond a crowd of people exiting a conference room.

"I'm terribly sorry about all that," Mr. Mitchell tried to put his best face on, "things have just gotten a little hectic."

"That's fine," Al smiled his sweetest, giving an untroubled expression for the man as they continued down the hallway, "I shouldn't really be interrupting you at work like this."

Mr. Mitchell shook his head, "It's no interruption, I'd rather have you as a guest than deal with some other issues that are cropping up," reaching for the handles of a large set of double doors, he held one open for Al as they entered into the man's office; once home to the Fuhrer, "but I'm curious as to what could be so important that we couldn't discuss it over the phone?"

The topic made Al nervous. Everything about where he was made him nervous. His eyes ventured around the room, obvious that it was in the process of being remodelled from it's previous state, "My friend Winry…"

"Oh yes…" Mr. Mitchell led Al across his office. Al found himself taken aback by the dishevelled appearance of the room, whatever he'd envisioned the country's leader to have for an office, this certainly wasn't it. It was obvious that the room was undergoing massive renovations from it's previous state; the flooring was partially torn up, the walls were being repainted, the lighting was being redone, and the room fixtures had either been replaced, covered by cloth, or simply removed leaving gaping spaces where items once existed. It was, by no means, elegant or pristine quarters for the leader of the country.

"…did she finally make it to the Hughes residence?"

Al avoided eye contact, since he did not want Mr. Mitchell reading the underlying concern he carried, "No, she didn't. Ms. Hughes called this morning and said she hadn't…" he found himself trailing off in thought, recalling their earlier conversation.

Sitting down in his desk chair, the current office centrepiece obviously the only thing left untouched by the construction, Mr. Mitchell narrowed his gaze, looking unto Al with an expression defining him as the wiser man, "I know you said that she enjoyed traveling, but if you're concerned, you only need to ask."

He fidgeted at the statement, "It's just, I'm worried she might cause you some problems."

Mr. Mitchell raised an eyebrow, unsure where Al intended on taking the conversation, "More problems than the one she could be causing now?"

"Possibly," Al turned his cautious eyes over to the elder man, his words suddenly rushing out, "I'm just worried that maybe she had troubles with Central's law enforcement. If she got herself into trouble, and then people realized that because of me you were looking after some sort of fug..it…ive…" his voice trailed off; head tilting as his eyes grew skeptical. Suddenly, Al had preoccupied himself with the confusion surrounding Mr. Mitchell's sudden laughter.

"Oh dear, young Alphonse," the Prime Minister rose from his seat, "you're priorities are mixed up."

Al's eyes widened at the unseen truth behind the statement.

Stepping around his desk, Mr. Mitchell crouched down before Al, placing his hands upon the boy's shoulders; he smiled, "Wouldn't you think that I would have looked into Miss. Rockbell before letting a mysterious young lady stay at my home?"

"Well…"

"If the Military office of that Brigadier General wants to question Miss. Rockbell over what she may have seen in some petty robbery, so be it. They can waste their time on sad little incidents for all I care, but it is not something you need to concern yourself with."

Al's concern drained from his face, a profound sense of uncertainty replacing it, "… that was it…?"

Giving Al a firm pat on the shoulder, Mr. Mitchell rose tall once again, "It's not like I kept it a secret that she was staying with me, if they'd wanted to interview her, they could have come at any time."

Casting his gaze around the room as he slipped into thought, Al tried to remember if Winry had in fact said 'arrest warrant' or not, "… Oh." In addition to the uncoordinated statements between what Winry had shared and what Mr. Mitchell was divulging, another fact pestered Al; 'that Brigadier General' had known the entire time he had been together with Winry at the Mitchell residence.

Folding his arms over, Mr. Mitchell gave a sympathetic smile down for Al, "Now, do you want me to-"

"Sir!" the door flung open with the sudden appearance of the Prime Minister's Deputy.

The personality change was like night and day, Mr. Mitchell could change instantly from his compassionate tone to a strict and unwavering sternness, "What took you so long?"

Standing in the doorway, breathing heavily as if the man had run from one end of the compound to another, the man shook his head, "I apologize, but I got the message from General Hakuro the same time as your messenger found me."

"I need you to gather all my cabinet ministers-"

"I already did, that's what kept me. I sent out a wire, everyone should be gathering in chambers as we speak. I asked General Hakuro to join us."

"Good," in the moment it took for Mitchell to shift his gaze from his Deputy back to the distant expression of young Alphonse, he had dropped the harsh business tone from his voice, "Alphonse, I have some affairs to deal with. I don't know how long it will take, but did you want to find something to do in here? Or perhaps get a bite to eat in the cafeteria? Or if you wanted to go home…?"

Al couldn't go 'home', not yet, "Could I go to the cafeteria?" though he looked up at Mr. Mitchell, Al made no eye contact, "I haven't eaten yet."

"Okay," once again, Mr. Mitchell's hand came to rest on Al's shoulder, "if I take too long and you want to go, all you need to do is ask my receptionist and she'll get a driver to take you home."

A sudden thought struck Al; he spoke up quickly, "Is your receptionist's name Aisa?"

Pausing at the sudden question, Mr. Mitchell once again found himself laughing at something the young Elric had said, "God forbid there be two women in the world named Aisa," escorting Al out of his office, a frown fell onto the man's face, "but no, that's not her name, why do you ask?"

Glancing between the Deputy and Prime Minister, Al turned over his shoulder as he thought about the two men he'd watched outside, "The men causing a commotion earlier, they wanted to speak with you and mentioned that name."

Mitchell and his Deputy Minister exchanged a pair of puzzled glances as the Deputy spoke up, "Why would they bring her up? Aisa hasn't even been around the office since she brought Diana by the week Lyra passed away."

Receiving a few welcomed answers he had not planned on obtaining today, Al's eyes narrowed in thought once more before he finally cast a smiling face up at Mr. Mitchell, "I might have misheard; it didn't make sense that they'd be asking for someone who doesn't work in your office anyways."

Both men turned their puzzled gaze unto Alphonse who promptly excused himself from the topic of conversation, "Which way is the cafeteria?"


"Edward?" the sweet sounding voice whispered, "Edward… wake up for a minute."

Ed's eye cracked open, initially he thought his left eye couldn't see because his face was imbedded into the couch cushion; he soon came to remember there was a patch on his eye, "… What?" his groggy voice murmured.

"When was it you last saw that little miss Brigitte?"

"Tilly?" Ed pushed himself to his elbows, trying to rub the sleep from his eye, "what time is it?"

"Edward it's really important, you said that you saw her a few days ago. Was that Friday or Saturday?" Tilly kept her voice low; glancing back over her shoulder, "please tell me it was Saturday."

His left hand brushing his hair from his face; Ed glanced around the room, slowly coming to remember where he'd spent the night, "no, it was Friday," he rubbed his eyes, "Dad came home from school and started poking through my things, and I think Brigitte was in her uniform, why?"

"When I took her shopping and earlier in the week I left my number with the school. They tried to call last night when we were out, but got through this morning; she hasn't been at the school since a headcount was done Friday night," she sat down next to Ed on the couch as he straightened himself up, "did she tell you if she was going to run off somewhere?"

Ed shook his head, "It got late so I drove her back for the headcount or the nuns would strap her. Doesn't make sense that she'd run off if she was concerned about that."

Tilly sighed, clasping her hands over her mouth, "I hope she's okay."

Smirking at the comment, Ed flopped onto his stomach, burring his face in a cushion, "I'm sure she's fine, the girl's omnipresent. She's probably creating a nuisance of herself somewhere."

Glaring over to Ed, Tilly grabbed a pillow from the other end of her couch and threw it at his head, "There's a lot of nasty things you can do to a girl, you idiot. Those streets are not safe."

"I'm sore enough," Ed burrowed his head under the pillow he'd been hit with, "could I have things to worry about when I'm not feeling like you hit me with the shovel."

"Serves you right," she stood up sharply; latching two fingers through the back belt loops of his pants, Tilly pulled Ed to the floor with a thud, "hurry up and take a shower, my house smells like a lounge. I left your change of clothes in your bag by the door."

With his hand at his forehead, Ed sat up on the carpet, "That's your fault too."

"And look at me try and remedy that! I made Hermann take a shower already… granted I think he went back to sleep after… but still, if you don't hurry up and take a shower I'll wash you myself. Trust me, I have no problem with naked men."

Edward promptly stood up.

Clasping her hands in front of herself, Tilly swayed out of the room, "You're so cooperative Edward, thank you."

Doing as he'd been told, Ed snatched up the bag he'd brought over the day before and took the shower he'd been ordered to have. The shower ended up being a half conscious effort on Ed's part, spending more time with his tired cheek pressed into the tile to remain standing under the running water than anything else. The least amount of credit he could give the woman was that the shower did eventually wake him up; though he never fully recognized how long he was in there. Finally towelling off and zipping his trousers up, Ed combed back is wet hair into the ponytail. Making his way back downstairs as he buttoned his shirt, Ed blinked, eyeing Oberth standing at the door; jacket on, keys in hand.

"I thought you were asleep?"

"I have a wife who doesn't believe in the art of sleeping in," Oberth rolled his eyes, "even if I have the day off," he rose his voice loud enough to be heard in the kitchen.

"I love you too!" was all that came from beyond the door.

Oberth wrinkled his face in displeasure before turning his tired eyes over to Ed, "I'm suppose to drive you to the university, apparently."

Dropping his bag down, Ed slipped on his coat; all the while eyeing Oberth with a questionable gaze, "Why? It may be a long walk, but it's an easy one. I've done it before."

The kitchen door flung open as Tilly poked her head into the room, "Because there's a lot of nasty things you can do to a boy too, you idiot. Those streets are not safe," standing square in the door frame, her foot propping the door open, Tilly pitched two muffins across the room; both caught by her husband, "and have something to eat, men seem to forget to eat in the morning. It's not healthy."

Extending a bran muffin to his companion, Oberth's dead expression met with Edward's perturbed one, "Please, let me drive you."

With no further protest, Ed promptly snatched up his belongings and vacated the house; closely followed by Oberth.

The twenty-minute car ride was a silent one; both were tired. The night before Oberth's wife had insisted they go to a private club that she and her friends frequented after they'd already attended the live theatre. Oberth himself had provided much of the fine wine that night; a luxury he enjoyed thanks to a friend's vineyard. They'd lasted until nearly three in the morning when it was Tilly who gave out first; passing out at the table, having proudly out drank everyone there. Neither one of them understood why she was so perky before noon. Edward was thankful that this time he remembered how he got from point B back to point A.

He'd offered Oberth a chance to come into his wing of the school and enjoy the coffee, but he insisted on getting the errands done before his wife chose to deny him dinner. Ed left it at that, and marched his tired way into the university. He was reminded of how much he hated all the flights of stairs to the third floor; they seemed to go on forever, especially when he dragged his feet. The hallway was just as long, and his father just had to have an office at the end of the hall.

Finally reaching for the doorknob, Ed turned it, and walked right into the locked door.

His hand slapped over his face as a little vein popped onto his forehead, "Why's the door locked…" reaching into his pocket, Ed ripped out his keys and stuffed one into the doorknob to force the door open, "why did you lock the-"

Ed blinked at the empty room, "Oh."

Dumping his jacket and bag into a chair, Ed decided his father's vacant chair was far more comfortable looking than his was. Putting his chin on the Professor's desk as he sat down, Ed buried his face in his arms with a sigh. The quiet room was nice; the serenity lasted only a few relaxing minutes.

Ed picked up his head and glanced around the clean desktop. Narrowing an eye, Ed straightened up in the chair. He glanced over to the day-calendar that still had last Friday's date on it; he pulled off the pages until it came to Monday. Without hesitation, Ed's hand swept from the calendar to the telephone; tucking the earpiece between his ear and shoulder, he dialled reception and waited for someone to pick up.

"Good Morning, Sciences Division, Nancy speaking, how can I relay your call?"

"Nancy, it's Edward Elric from third floor sciences," he tapped a metal finger on the polished desktop, "did Professor Hohenheim come in this morning?"

"Good morning, Mr. Elric!" the perky girl's voice replied, "and I haven't seen the Professor in at all today. Usually he's in by seven thirty, coffee at ten; unless I missed him, he didn't pass by me. Maybe check with the Dean, he might have called in?"

Slouching back in the seat, Ed continued to tap his finger on the desk, "Thanks, Nancy." Dropping the receiver down, and promptly picking it back up again, Edward carried a disconcerted expression as he dialed home before anywhere else.


It was a welcome distraction; the phone call was, not the topic, which gave the Brigadier General an excuse to leave his house. Nothing about the topic was welcoming, inviting, or positive for that matter. He added it to the mounting pile of things he could not answer.

What in the world could have possessed the Drachma sympathizers to lay a strike down upon the barely rebuilt Ishibal settlement?

Mustang could not answer that.

Regardless of his immediate injuries after his unspoken battle with the former Fuhrer, the dismantling and reconstruction of the Ishibal policy had his fingerprints all over it. It was infuriating; why then was his department being shut out of these developments? Why did Major. Hawkeye and Lt. Havoc receive notice of the developments from a second hand source? Why did no one in a higher authority contact him?

Stopped at a red light, within sight of Central head quarters, Mustang's fist slammed into the rim of the steering wheel; inadvertently causing the horn to sound. It would be the only display of frustration he planned to give.

Given a few minutes, Mustang lurched his car to a halt within the parking lot. He used the wretched cane once again; though the inflammation in his knee was not quite as annoying as the situations he found himself wishing he could deal with.

The bitter man hobbled his way into the building through the closest entrance he could find, which was the entrance he'd wanted. As best he could, Mustang tore a strip down the hallway; giving little regard to the people he passed along the way. There was an office he was going to crash first, and with a firm palm of his hand, he forced the door open.

It was Lt. Ross and Sergeant Broche who looked up from their work in surprise at the Brig. General's intrusion.

"Lt. Colonel Armstrong is…?" Mustang's voice ripped through everything within the room.

Exchanging a nervous glance, it was only Lt. Ross who returned her eyes to the intimidating look carried on Mustang's face, "Lt. Havoc invited him to your office. I think they—HEY!" she stood up abruptly from her chair, following the man out of the office after he slammed the door behind himself.

"Sir!" her voice called out down the hall, moving much faster than the hindered Brig. General could.

"Why wasn't I contacted immediately," Roy barked in response to her call, "if it had just been myself left out, this would not be an issue. But my entire office?" his voice shot out, never once turning back to look at her, "there is no reason for that."

Maria shook her fallen hair from her face as she slowed to match the man's pace, "Sir, of all people, you should know how it works; it wasn't by our choice. Information was disclosed to divisions based on decisions made by higher authorities."

"Who's authority?" Mustang's bitterness echoed in the stairwell as he began the assent to his office's floor.

Lt. Ross followed his lead, her eyes closely watching the man as he fought to keep the discomfort of his leg from blatantly showing, "General Hakuro… Sir."

Mustang stopped in his tracks, his gaze turning harshly down to the Lieutenant; her jaw tightened in response to the angered look. He did not need to say anything, the displeasure in his eyes for the General had grown enough that no one needed to hear a word from the Brigadier General's mouth about him any longer.

Roy swung forward and returned to focusing on the climb he faced.

Gripping the handrail of the stairwell, Maria finally returned to tailing the man, "Sir, he may have received those orders from someone within the government."

"Lieutenant," Mustang did not wait for Ms. Ross to join him on the top step before addressing her once more, "I do know how the system works."

Frowning as the man tried to escape her company once again, Maria ran a stiff hand through her hair before continuing her chase down the hallway, "I had someone advise me to put more faith in the system," she lowered her voice to remain below the hum of vocal chatter within the hall.

"That was an ill-advised move. Faith is like respect and trust; it is something that should be developed and earned," Roy drew his words from a wise and buried soul that that had been punished a thousand times for a crime of blind faith, "your gut feeling… your instinct should be placed in higher regard. That is why Brigadier General Hughes touted you, is it not?"

"Sir," instinct told Lieutenant Maria Ross to stop.

The blunt voice and sudden absence of a matching set of footsteps grabbed Roy's attention, stopping him. The only good eye remaining glanced back to her; he carried a look of speculation as the Lieutenant moved slowly to join the man at his side.

"Instinct leads to faith and trust, they can work in tandem. You need a little bit of both in order to move forward with much success, don't you think?" her voice still held below the volume within the chatter.

"In a better society…" Roy's abrupt demeanour began to subside the longer Maria Ross went without responding to him; he eyed her waiting for a retort, yet she simply held her focus forwards. Finally the Brigadier General turned his attention ahead, only to be struck in the face by what it was capturing the lower officer's attention. His brow rose slowly with surprise and satisfaction.

"I will give you this, Lieutenant, it is easier to put faith into individuals than a collection of men."

With a smirk, the Brigadier General stepped forward down the hall, followed a step behind by the Lieutenant. Though the halls bustled with people, the most distinct noise was the echo of their feet as the pair marched.

As the footsteps of the military boots ground to a halt next to where he stood, Alphonse looked up to the two officers standing over him; towering a full head's height taller than himself. The three stood without a word to each one and other, Al's examining eyes drifting between the officers as he continued to stand outside the closed door of Roy Mustang's office.

"Sorry," Al finally took a step to square himself under the watchful eye of Mustang, "I asked one of the workers in the cafeteria to tell me where to find the office. I was going to knock, but I could hear voices coming from inside and I didn't know if I should interrupt or not."

"I don't think anyone in there would mind," Maria's firm military posture loosened as she spoke.

"Since…" Roy cast his fabricated melancholy expression to his sealed door, "since we are out here, and not interrupting what's going on within my office; rather than becoming an intrusion, I'd be interested in finding out what brought you up here."

Lt. Ross tossed a mused look Mustang's way.

The nervous downturn of Al's eyes caught both officers' immediate attention. Roy chose to remain silent, allowing the myriad of emotions within his steadfast gaze to be his response if Alphonse ever chose to look back up at him again.

Al granted the man his wish. Stiffening his posture, he turned the strong and inherited Elric gaze back to the imposing man's presence, "I wanted to know if you knew anything about what happened to Winry last night?"

The abstract question broke Mustang's composure, "Huh?"

"… 'Happened to Winry'?" Lt. Ross's surprised reaction did not quite match the curve ball that had caught her superior off guard; the words were not what either of them had been expecting.

Al clenched his fists; he knew instantly by their reactions they knew nothing. Though he had never entertained suspicion of them, life could have been made simpler if they had some involvement. His eyes fell away, "Winry was supposed to stay with Ms. Hughes last night but she disappeared. Someone saw her tool case and shoes get thrown from a military vehicle…"

"… What…?" Roy's composure returned as quickly as he could have set the hall ablaze.

"A shop owner gave the items to Ms. Hughes. She called me this morning and told me about," Al gave a discouraged shrug of his shoulders, "I'd sort of hoped that… maybe you knew something, since Mr. Mitchell said that you knew where she'd been staying."

Releasing his balance from the reassurance of the cane he unwillingly relied upon, Mustang took the object firmly in his hand and handed it sharply over to a startled Lieutenant Ross, "Hold this."

Firmly grabbing Alphonse's wrist in his left hand, Mustang hauled the surprised and speechless boy into his office; barging into the room without so much as an introductory knock.

Pulling his startled self away from Mustang's grasp, Al discovered he stood at centre stage in the office, only two steps behind the Brigadier General. His line of sight slowly canvassed the room; of all the men and women on their feet, Al recognized only half of the widened eyes looking back at him, recognizing them from weeks before in the hospital. Nothing else within the room registered for Al as he tried to organize the voids that existed for each individual; trying to absorb faces, expressions, heights...

Today, Al found himself an underlying confidence within this room of unfamiliarity. He knew he was going to change the way things were.

"Gentlemen," Roy's voice barked out, offering up his familiar commander's tone to his most trusted officers, "I need officers for a missing person's detail," Mustang's direction trailed from his officers down to young Alphonse, "Miss. Winry Rockbell has gone missing."


To Be Continued...


Notes:

Aisa is not a Japanese name. The spelling looks Japanese, but it's been taken from another language source.

I've realized I put both Roy's and Hohenheim's office on the third floor. I have no reason for this, other than subliminal messaging from my Japanese teacher, where she says anything of ANY importance always seems to be on that third floor haha.

Chapter 12: From Beyond the Looking Glass

Summary:

Mustang's party gets involved with Winry's disappearance. Ed tries to figure out where his father's gone.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

1915-11-30

Dear Sheska,

How's everything been over in Central since we chatted on the phone the other week? I'm down in Rush Valley again, so feel free to send a letter or a phone call this way.

First, I did get your package. Thank you for shopping for me, I really don't think I should be seen poking around Central any time soon. I've had some spare time since Wrath disappeared, so if you still want me to put together an 'oven' for you, let me know. Roze says that I should patent and sell my style of 'oven'; I'm definitely going to look into the idea. I can just imagine the stuff I could buy with the profits I'd make. I'll have such a good thing going for me and not even be 18!

Anyways, Al's been getting on really well. You need to come and see him! He's become something like a big brother to Roze's baby; I think he enjoys that role way too much. He's going to make such a wonderful dad someday; I can't wait to see him like that. The thought of watching Al grow up is kind of exciting. Izumi's still over protective of him whenever she stays for a weekend though; Al hasn't figured out how to react to her behaving like that.

It's gotten sort of uneasy to talk to him, but we're working through it; he seems really nervous when we talk. We have so little we can relate to each other, there's nothing he remembers that we can build a conversation on and the things he remembers I've forgotten most of. If he wasn't suddenly so much younger than me, I might have been able to talk with him more. I don't know how much the situation bothers him, some days I wonder if we even sound believable.

Granny says we should stop burdening Al with stuff he doesn't remember; we'll start all over, move forward from there and see where life takes us. If he wants to know something, he'll ask. I think it's easier on Al like that, rather than us upsetting him with stories about things and people he's suppose to know and doesn't. He was fascinated by everything at first, but now it just seems to bother and upset him. Izumi said it's probably like rubbing salt on an open wound. The only thing he's done is brought up ideas of what happened to Ed; Granny and Izumi are really trying to discourage him from doing anything about it.

Ed's still missing. When Roze told us what had happened we put it together with what Izumi had found and figured out what he'd done. Izumi continues to go off to look now and then; just in case, I suppose. For me, it's just easier to pretend he's not here. We told Al for a while that Ed was in Central, but we eventually had to tell him what happened. He was really upset with us; and he had every right to be. I think we lived in denial that Ed would go that far; and we didn't want to admit anything to Al since we didn't want to accept it ourselves. Admitting that Ed had died felt sort of like admitting Al wasn't human for all those years. If Al thought Ed was alive, things were somehow better.

But really, things have been better lately. We got over the rough part and things are moving on.

Anyways, Rush Valley is really nice right now with all the fall leaves, come out and see me sometime on a long weekend. I hear that the military is going through an overhaul, I can imagine that everyone is somewhat unsettled by the change in power and your job's gotten hectic. I hope the instability isn't causing too many problems for everyone. I've heard that the Ishibal Policy has begun to go through revisions. I think that's good, there's a couple of boys I'm hoping do really well.

How's Mr. Mustang doing? You told me a bit on the phone about his injury, but I'm still interested in knowing how he's doing. I actually want to know how everyone's doing, so keep me up to date. You can be my eyes and ears. Send me a picture of Elysia once in a while too.

Write me back!

Winry Rockbell

 


 

"Now Al," Sheska's hands fluttered in front of herself, "you have to remember that Winry wrote that letter last winter. You can understand how strange things were back then, right? And she told me things have gotten way better; we've had a couple more letter exchanges and chats on the phone. Please, please, please, don't take that thing out of context."

"That's fine," Al pushed his wooden chair away from the table as he stood up, "I know," he moved to Mustang's desk, and handed the letter back to Lieutenant Havoc, who'd managed to remain in Mustang's chair regardless of the man's presence. Al turned away from Havoc while he put the letter back into his chest pocket and then reached to answer the ringing phone.

Al's eyes scanned the room of men and women gathered, "So…" Al's face wrinkled slightly, "everyone's read that letter?"

There was a collective nod among the silent gathering within the room.

"Oh," Al scratched his cheek lightly as he moved to sit back down; positioned at Mustang's right and Sheska's left.

The silence was uneasy. Al could only guess at the multitude of questions running through everyone's mind; the moment he'd entered the room all eyes were on him. Mustang had been gracious enough to introduce the members within the room: Lt. Colonel Armstrong, Major Hawkeye, First Lieutenant Havoc, Second Lt. Breda, Sgt. Major Fury, Warrant Officer Falman. Along with himself and Second Lt. Ross, Sheska had come to join the gathering at Mustang's incontestable demand.

"Alphonse Elric," came Armstrong's powerful voice, "young Miss. Winry mentioned in her letter about your memory. How far back does it take you?"

Al shifted in his seat as he mulled over the question, "Um, I don't remember anything after we tried to bring our Mom back…"

It was only Roy, Riza and Sheska who picked up the true cause behind the growing looks of confusion and shock that left Al squirming in his seat over a fact Roy had never disclosed.

"…a little over six years ago."

"That was the spring before the boys arrived in Central," Roy's voice had come up quickly in addition to the statement, "I believe you were left in the same physical condition as back then as well."

Al slowly nodded at the statement.

Everyone took the underlying cue Mustang had given and wiped all reaction from their eyes. A collective realization fell upon the room: the aforementioned human transmutation was something the Brigadier General had known long before this young Elric had ever returned Central.

Havoc disconnected his phone call and glanced over to Mustang, "She's on her way up, Sir."

Glancing into the unspoken trail of knowledge shared between Havoc and Mustang, Al spoke up, "More people are coming?"

Folding his arms, Mustang leaned back in his seat, "Mrs. Hughes."

The name drew a distraught sigh from Al, "She was really upset last night when Winry disappeared."

Raising an eyebrow in distant thought, Roy's voice was solemn, "That's the parent in her."

"Alphonse," Hawkeye finally broke into the conversation, "you said that Winry's shoes and tool case were thrown from a military car?"

"Yeah," Al glanced over to the Major, the deep seriousness of her voice was in contrast to the cautious nature of all other questions given by the other officers, "Mrs. Hughes found them in a shop and on the street."

Her brow tightening, Hawkeye folded her arms across her chest, "Unless the vehicle was stolen, assuming that the car's occupants were officers, why discard those items?"

Sheska glanced beyond Al and Roy to the Major, "Winry probably tried to use them to hit whomever was in the car with her. That case would leave a hole in someone's skull."

"Shoes too?" Riza added flatly.

"Depends on how hard she hit'em."

"Then there should be a broken window," beyond the look Mustang carried, Havoc carried the most daunting expression within the gathering.

Al sat up in his seat, turning his attention over to the Lieutenant, "There was a broken window; the shop owner had his window broken."

"That's not what I meant," Havoc shook his head, leaning forward, "I meant, a broken car window. Was there glass in the street?"

Wrinkling his face, Al remained silent, trying to recall if Mrs. Hughes had specified.

"If you're trying to subdue your occupant…" Havoc verbally mulled over his train of thought, "where do you find the time to unroll the window and toss belongings from the car? Something like that would be the least of your concerns. Subsequently, if it is Winry throwing these items at her attackers, the window wouldn't be unrolled and her tool case would have broken the glass on the way out."

"If the attackers are military officers, they should be trained well enough that it should be common sense not to discard evidence so carelessly," Breda added, his frown matching the looks many of the officers had begun to wear, "Especially those sorts of identifiable items."

"Unless they were deliberately discarded in plain sight," Roy's posture stiffened at the direction the thought progression was traveling, "Then, we have either a stolen military vehicle out there, a vehicle with a broken window, or…"

Attention in the room turned over to the door as a gentle knock landed on the wood. The most amusing thing about the noise at the door was the young voice of Elysia that came with it.

Mustang glanced to the sounds, "Come in."

 


 

It was day two. This one was far more awkward than the previous. The day before, Edward's father had missed every appointment, every meal, every radio program; every habitual engagement the man went through in his daily routine. Edward developed a theory in London that he could time his pocket watch by some of the things his father did. For a second night in a row he had not even shown up to mess the sheets on his bed, nor had he been there in the morning when Edward woke up once more.

Sitting on his father's desk unable to concentrate on the mind-numbing task of sorting through a diminishing stack of paperwork, Ed had spent the mid-day on the phone. He returned the favour his father's friends had bestowed upon him over the weekend.

And so Edward called, and called, and called. Many numbers simply came with no answer, while other calls were only answered by wives and children declaring that their husbands and father's were not home or out of town.

As it was with every one of them…

Every one of them that had anything to do with this Thule Society, that is.

Anyone else not involved in this societal cult simply had no idea where his father had gotten to; just as devoid of knowledge and awareness as Edward found himself wading through. He would not have pursued the issue with much vigor if it had not been for the absence of all his father's Thule contacts, and only them.

Finally Edward said 'Screw it!' to the schoolwork and left the university swelling with his discontent.

He drove the car his father had left behind into the heart of the city, glaring off into space. Ed eventually gave up on the joy ride; leaving the vehicle in a lot, he adorned his coat and took a trip with the fall breeze through the open market. The groceries his father had gone shopping for days ago did not end up in the house. He eventually ventured out to the Oberth's to return some papers, but declined the invitation to stay for dinner. The sun was setting earlier than previous days and had left nothing but fading twilight as well as a sore leg by the time he had returned to the car.

Taking himself back home, Ed stood silent at his front door beneath the darkened porch light, bags dropped at his feet. The door was not closed. He clearly remembered locking the door because he had to run back inside to get his keys; this was not his carelessness. A weak light filtered out from beyond the kitchen and study windows. He knew better, if his father were home and Edward was not, the porch light would be on. Ed took his shoes off at the doorstep, and left them there.

He was glad the front door didn't creak as he pushed it open into the silent house, the only source of light coming from within the living room down the hall. His father's shoes were not on the mat, nor was his coat in the open closet. Ed's hand slipped into his jacket pocket as he moved his socked feet silently along the floor. Cupping his hand around his keys to keep them silent, he flipped out a small key from the bundle in his pocket and stepped up to the table the phone sat upon. His eyes focused down the hall, listening intently for any sounds as he opened up the drawer beneath the tabletop and slowly produced the handgun from within.

The thud he heard come from down the hall added caution to the approach Ed made. The closer he came, the quicker he realized that the sounds of movement were not emanating from the living room, but from his father's attached study.

Edward held to the wall as he stalked his way towards the wide open door leading into the study. Leaning against the wall, he could make out clearly that someone was going through the desk drawers with little care. Scowling, he adjusted the gun within his left fingers and took a deep breath.

"Hold it!" Ed squared off in the doorframe, his jacket flaring out around himself as he held his left arm firmly out in front of himself, a cross expression on his face.

"Good lord!" Hess' arms shot up and away from anything he was touching.

"What are you doing…?" Ed's expression lifted in surprise.

"Put that down!" Hess chirped back at him.

Ed's armed hand swung down at his side, "What do you think you're doing in here? How did you get in my house?"

"Your dad gave me his keys," as if nothing had just happened, Hess returned to rummaging through the desk once again.

Edward narrowed an eye somewhat annoyed, "And why are you here and he's not?"

"He asked me to pick up a few things for him," Hess' hand came down upon a stack of papers upon Hohenheim's desk.

Glancing to the side in confusion, Ed began to scratch his cheek, "And he had to send you to do that? Where's he been anyways?"

"He said he didn't want to leave, he didn't trust Max enough to – ah! There it is!" Hess added another set of papers to the pile.

"So… where is he?"

Hess momentarily gave his attention to Edward, "Hohenheim said you probably weren't going to be worried about him."

"I'm not worried about him; he's a big man, he can take care of himself. I am just curious why he'd take off and why every other Thule member seems to be missing as well. It looks suspicious," Ed's gaze narrowed back at Hess' mused look.

"Lets see," Hess tapped his chin as he ran his wording through his mind, "some internal matters came up, we required everyone to join us at the cathedral, and we've been there debating our internal matters ever since. Nothing too serious. Everyone took a few hours later in the afternoon today to go home before we reconvene for the night, Hohenheim said he wanted to stick around but asked me to get some things for him."

Raising an eyebrow, Ed decided to test how far he could get into the waters, "What sort of internal matters?"

"Well now," Hess scanned over the spines of the books on one of the shelves along the wall, "I'd like to tell you, but you're not internal. Sorry Edward."

Seems he wasn't going to get too far. Edward shrugged at the answer and turned out of the room, "Whatever."

"Oh hey! These two are side by side, great!"

Ed glanced over his shoulder at the sound of Hess' voice as he wandered to put the firearm away, "Let me know when you're done pillaging my house, okay?"

"Done right now, actually," Hess called back as he stuffed the two books and papers into his bag to follow in Edward's wake out of the study.

"Good," he muttered under his breath while locking the drawer. He turned his attention to Hess as the man swiftly made his way past Edward.

"Didn't mean to startle you so much Edward," Hess said as he turned back in the front door, "when I get a chance, we'll get some people together for drinks, okay?"

Ed waved his hand dismissively, "Make sure you shut the door on your way out."

The sentence had barely finished before the door swung shut in Hess' rushed exit. Ed shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling generally annoyed, and marched back towards the study, "He didn't even take off his shoes."

At his own words, Ed did not loose a stride as he spun on his heels to retrieve his shoes and bags of groceries. Slipping back through the house, he left his baggage in the hall and moved into the doorway of the study once again. Ed looked around unimpressed at the minor mess Hess had not bothered to clean. Holding a firm scowl, he never made it far enough into the room to deal with the open boxes and displaced clutter. Ed stared out from the corner of his eye at the space left by the two missing books Hess had taken.

"Why these…?" he turned to face the string of alchemy texts that had been picked from.

 


 

The collective emotions of the sweating faces and shaken heads at the Magic Flowers technique passed down through the Armstrong family for generations could not challenge the delighted squealing of young Elysia Hughes as she stood on her chair next to the towering Lt. Colonel Armstrong.

Swinging his massive arm around, bouquet in hand, Armstrong turned the flowers over to young Elysia, "For a beautiful young lady."

Roy rubbed his temple and Riza's narrowed eyes monitored the vein developing on his forehead.

Elysia's voice squealed as she gleefully took them into her arms, "Thank you, Sir!"

Obscuring if she felt any embarrassment or not, Ms. Hughes plucked her daughter off the seat and held the imp in her lap, "I think that's enough, Elysia."

"Mummy…!"

"We should let Mr. Armstrong help Mr. Mustang and Alphonse find Winry. It's important that we find her," Gracia's eyes shifted from her daughter to the Brigadier General, "glass in the street?"

Eyes glanced over to Havoc who filled the remaining empty seat at the table, "Not from the shop window, but in the middle of the street," the Lieutenant was finally able to add, "like from a broken car window."

Shaking her head, Gracia thought back to earlier in the day, "No, the streets were clean. The shop owner didn't mention anything either."

Armstrong folded his arms, wrinkling his shining forehead; "It is a bit much to expect the city to have cleaned up the street by the morning if there had not been an accident of some kind."

"Falman, Breda," Mustang's ensuing words had already been interpreted as the men rose from their seats, "see if this shop owner has anything more to offer us."

Pulling at her mother's fingers, Elysia finally slipped from her lap. Ducking under the table of curious onlookers as the two officers ducked out of the room, Elysia reappeared between Mustang's wary gaze and Al. She pulled her way onto Alphonse's lap.

"You have a bad face again today."

"Huh?" Al raised an eyebrow at the seriousness Elysia spoke with, "I'm just thinking about where we might find Winry, that's all."

"Thinking makes bad faces like that?" the little girl wrinkled her nose.

"Sometimes."

Elysia huffed, folding her arms as she turned in Al's lap to look up at him squarely, "Then don't think!"

Al gave a laugh at the sincerity behind her off-the-wall statement, "Well, I have to think. Its just lots of bad thoughts that make bad faces like that."

There those eyes were again, watching him. The feeling was far gentler than the piercing curiosity of an hour ago. He couldn't help but wonder what they thought of him.

"Hmm…" a proud grin suddenly grew across Elysia's face, "congratulations, congratulations, congratulations!"

Roy pushed out of his chair; Al glancing over as he did so, only to catch the subtle concern in Hawkeye's gaze as she watched the Brigadier General walk over to his desk.

Al looked back to Elysia, "… Congratulations?"

"Daddy told me that the more someone said 'congratulations' to you, the more good things will happen to you. Even Winry knows that!"

Al lifted his eyes from Elysia, looking across the table to Mrs. Hughes. Her gaze had softened, turning her eyes away in thought; a distant smile developing across her face as she leaned back in her seat. Al finally scanned the expressions upon the faces of the officers Elysia had sombered.

"Sgt. Major Fury," like a thunderclap, Mustang's voice broke the silence, "head downstairs and get vehicle information from the logs. See if anything matches up with last night's incidents. Lieutenant Ross, please return to your duties. Lt. Colonel, escort Alphonse, Mrs. Hughes and her daughter back to their vehicle. Mrs. Hughes, we'll keep you advised with what we turn up. I don't know if it would be appropriate for anyone in my office to relay information to Alphonse directly, so if you could remain in contact with him?"

Al's brow knit together at the sudden declaration of orders, "I'd actually been thinking about asking Mr. Mitchell if I could stay with Mrs. Hughes."

Roy's expression began to lift as Gracia stood up from the table, "I don't mind at all, we have a spare room and Elysia would have some more company."

The little girl's arms flung into the air, "Yay!"

"Perhaps time will have softened the Prime Minister's stance on Alphonse's observation," Roy said in thought before the stern tone returned to his demeanour, "Lieutenant Havoc, would you continue to warm my chair. Major, you're with me. Something should be done with our evidence before too much time elapses."

Alphonse's wary eyes followed Mustang as the man blew past where he sat, barely giving Major Hawkeye enough time to get to her feet and follow in stride. Like a gust of wind, the door blew shut behind the two as they abandoned the office.

"Sir?" Riza moved swiftly to catch up with her superior, "you left your–"

"It's not needed," Roy said harshly as he began his decent down the stairs without his cane.

Matching his hindered pace two steps behind, Riza withheld her disapproval of her superior's stubborn insistence that he could manage just fine in his current physical condition.

"Major," Mustang's poise never waned, "we'll re-evaluate Mrs. Curtis' case until something can be uncovered with Miss. Rockbell. Two missing people is excessive for that young Elric."

Riza's footsteps vanished. The sudden absence of her echo brought Mustang to a halt.

"You didn't ask…" her voice unsettled him; a long sigh escaped from his lips as Riza's footsteps began to echo from her own decent, "… about Ed."

"Miss. Rockbell and Mrs. Curtis are higher priorities," Roy's decent down the flights of stairs resumed, his jacket floating out behind from a weak updraft within the stairwell, "it seems FullMetal's given us a great deal of time to discuss his circumstances at a later date."

The echo of Hawkeye's footsteps began to move in time with Mustang's. The silence she left him with became a worse entity than the echo of any words could have been.

Roy's voice called back, wanting to step out from the looming cloud, "How many times did Elysia convey Maes' 'well wishings'?"

"Three," the officers took the last step from the stairwell.

"Very well then," moving down the final stretch of hall before the building exit, a formidable grin crossed Mustang's face, "let's see if we can't find three things to give that boy some answers."

"I'll guarantee one, Sir," Hawkeye did not even have to utter the words; there had come a point in time when the information had become crystal clear in the Brigadier General's mind, "whomever drove that vehicle is steering us astray."

 


 

"You performed… a transmutation?" Ed slit his eyes, grossly unimpressed by the tale, "a transmutation with that?" Ed's finger shot to the etched centrepiece of the Thule Society hall as his disgust rolled off his tongue.

The emphatic disbelief in his voice was disregarded by the man, "Dietrich bought me dinner that night, and the first words out of his mouth to your father when he arrived was 'I told you so!'. Hohenheim's been such a grouch ever since, he doesn't want to believe me."

"Mr. Amann, your story is ridiculous," Ed snorted, looking directly at the man who'd allowed him access to the Thule hall. He'd given himself a day to mull over Hess' words, behaviour, and anything he could connect into the situation. He had no reason to doubt Hess, however he could think of no reason Hohenheim would request knowledge from an alchemy book that should be in his head already. By the next evening Ed decided to venture out to the old part of the city where the Thule hall stood. Within the main church hall, Edward had found Max Amann sitting alone, his hands clasped as he prayed in thanks to whatever God he thought he should believe in. He came to learn quickly that Amann was the only one around during this evening hour; he could not bear to part with his 'gift'. Not caring enough to want to know why, Ed asked the two most pressing questions on his mind:

What was going on?
When did the vandalism to the cathedral windows happen?

According to Amann, Ed was supposed to be in awe of the story he was told; the one about how he created life from within the confines of the defunct alchemy circle. Right. He wanted to be regarded as some sort of God. The longer Amann carried on with his tale, the quicker Edward discovered that the transmutation story was more desirable than anything the man added after the fact.

Straightening his jacket, Ed continued to shake his head as he walked the parameter path around the circle. He gave no response; he simply absorbed the fresh air leaking in from the shattered windows.

"Deitrich, Adolf and I were on the mark when we drafted that design," the pride danced about in his voice.

Looking down from the corner of his eye into the engraved cement, Edward's eyebrow rose as he knelt down, "Do you smoke, Mr. Amann?"

"I do, did you want one?"

Ed ran his pinky finger along the etching, picking at the grooves, "Do you smoke in here?"

Amann rolled his words out slowly, "Many do…"

Sitting back on his knees, Ed sniffed the pinky finger and cast his distrusting gaze up at Amann once again, "Do you know what this stuff is in these grooves, Mr. Amann?" the blank look on the man's face was sufficient, "this is magnesium powder."

"What's so special about that?"

Ed rolled his eyes muttering something about how any 'alchemist' should know what he's talking about, "You know… magnesium gets used in bombs, for fireworks and flashy things at carnivals. That match you use to light your cigarette could do pretty decent damage to the room."

Amann's nose curled up, obviously insulted by the statement, "Are you implying something, Mr. Elric?"

"Not really," Ed stood up, a half smile on his face, "just sharing some alchemy hints."

"I'll have you know there was not enough magnesium to fill a salt shaker," Amann folded his arms, his voice growing aggressive from Ed's visual amusement.

"So, you did have some around?"

"No, that trespassing little girl taking photographs had the magnesium."

"…What?"

"She was using it for her camera flash."

"She what…?" the startled tremor in Ed's voice had been unintentional.

"Some child with some fancy photography setup," the man's eyes narrowed as he watched Edward tense, "she broke in; she was an intruder. No one accesses this place without permission. Not only was she taking pictures of our most sacred location, but she vandalized the church property to get in, she lied when I questioned her about her actions, and… what right does any woman have coming in here? I shot the wretched thing where she stood; obviously her parents give no care for her. We can't allow a girl with such a disrespectful disposition growing up in our Germany, she had no idea where her place was."

The voice absorbed through Edward's skin, standing within the room numb as the remaining echo scattered around him, "I told her not to…" his voice too shallow to be heard.

Pointing up into the cathedral dome, the man's smirk widened, "barely moments after the girl collapsed…"

Edward's gaze could have killed.

"… every one of these sigil lines glowed such a powerful white no electrician could have matched the intensity. No magnesium powder could have come close. The energy began to electrify the poor thing; the current was so strong you could clearly make out every strand of conduction flowing within the chaos. I remember I could see how the current conducted through her veins; it lit up her teeth and fingernails, the whites of the girl's eyes were shining through her eyelids. The winds began to circulate as the current intensified and it began to deconstruct the girl before the explosion blew me from my feet. Those windows all shattered from the explosion; it was so powerful not a single shard of glass remained in the frame. So much of the tapestry has to be replaced."

Ed's good fist clenched so hard his knuckles whitened; he tightened his jaw, slowly making his approach with a darkening shadow growing over his face, "You… disgusting…"

Max Amann read Edward's intentions like an open book, taking a defiant position against his advance, "Oh Mister righteous defender of the dignity of life, grow up for me please. I'm tired of listening to you dispute, challenge and moralize the things I've done these last few days. Not only did I perform a transmutation, I performed a human transmutation!"

"You… murdered that girl!"

"I performed a human transmutation on that girl. I created a Goddess from that dead body, she came back to life after I stole her from heaven."

"Like hell you did! You shot that girl, for WHAT reason? Cause she invaded your little party?" his enraged voice tore out to fill the room; yet, it had been the gun holster he'd spotted on the man earlier that kept Edward from charging forward fist first.

Ed threw the man's attention the circle within the room, "Alchemy is just another code name for magic here; it has no power. That circle is an eyesore and you are still standing. Do you have any idea how a human transmutation works? Where's your sacrifice, your personal sacrifice?"

The darkened shadows upon Amann's face lit the whites of his eyes with rancour at Ed's ranting. He did not respond to the provocations.

Ed finally scoffed at the man's silence, "This is a sacred place for you and your friends; these people's thinking is so backwards of course they'd buy a Goddess story from a waste of space like you. How dare you claim your society to be some superior echelon of humanity when you unload your gun on a child."

"Watch your tongue, boy, it's liable to be cut out," the man's eyebrow twitched under the shadows of the hall, "your father has seen my Goddess; I cannot say that any one man's profoundly overwhelmed expression has ever given me such pleasure."

"Shut the hell up."

"I want to capture that same look in your eyes," the man turned, reaching for a door handle along the parameter of the hall, "a boy as smart as you believe you are should know better than to turn his back on this opportunity."

Ed read into the underlying threat within the statement, casting his bitterly curled gaze towards the now smirking man.

 


 

"Alphonse?" Gracia's soft voice drew his attention, "are you okay? You haven't said a word the whole car ride."

Al shrugged lightly, tilting his head back against the headrest, "Today was weird, I was thinking about it."

"What was so weird about it?"

Frowning in thought, Al twisted his face as he tried to form an explanation, "I don't know, maybe it wasn't what I expected. There were a lot of people in the room and no one really asked too many questions; they just sort of… stared. It was awkward."

Surprising Al, Gracia started to giggle, "I think everyone's just trying to get use to your blonde hair and grey eyes. I'm sure once everyone gets comfortable with this, you'll be able to ask some of the questions you have of them, and they can ask you things in return. Equivalent exchange, correct?"

Al's sheepish grin swept across him, "I suppose that's true. It did take a while to get comfortable around people in Resembool too. At least we did some talking before you arrived."

Taking a moment to glance over her shoulder to make sure her daughter was still wrapped up in the colouring book, Gracia pulled her attention back to Alphonse, "What did you talk about?"

"Well…" Al folded his arms, "I guess Mr. Mustang and Ms. Hawkeye have been trying to find Sensei even without me asking. He said that the police do have jurisdiction, but he was conducting a private investigation. I asked him if he'd found anything helpful but he didn't share too much, he said Klose's father had been difficult when he gave statements, so there'd been problems. He didn't have much to tell me."

"I have no doubt something will turn up," Gracia's soft voice emerged as her hand brushed his hair smooth, "I cannot think of anyone better than the Brigadier General and Major Hawkeye to help you find Izumi and Winry."

Al nodded slowly, drifting into a thought that lingered above all else; beyond finding Winry, beyond finding Sensei, the task of finding his brother laid waiting.

"You'd better get going," Gracia broke Al's concentration, "Mr. Mitchell is a nice man, but when I spoke to him on the phone, he seemed a little upset that you'd disappeared and not come back to his office for anything."

Pushing the car door open, Al spoke as he stepped out of the car, "Don't worry, I'll apologize for worrying him."

Gracia dispensed the mothering finger of insistence as she pointed at him, "Make sure you do that."

"Yes ma'am."

"Bye bye Al!" Elysia poked her head out the open car window, an arm waving frantically.

"Bye bye Elysia," Al's amusement with her brightness never vanished. Taking the handle of the car door, Al hesitated before closing it, "Mrs. Hughes, " he looked back to her in the car, "I'll find a good time to talk to Mr. Mitchell about staying with you."

The most rewarding point in Alphonse's day was the warmth Gracia's smile filled his body with, "Give me a call whenever you need to."

"Yep," Al shut the car door and turned into the courtyard. His ears listened as the car's wheels spun away. Al couldn't figure himself out, the best way he could describe his day so far was 'uncomfortable' and 'uneasy', so why did he feel lighter with each step. The comfort in that sensation made him smile.

"Couldn't you cooperate in the slightest way?"

The bitter little voice stopped Al in mid step. The moment he turned to where the noise had originated from, his eyes fell upon the two children playing in the grass. Holding his hair off his face as the light breeze swept by, Al finally associated the voice with the child in red shirt and jean coveralls: Nina. He watched as little Nina tossed the rubber ball into the air, only to have it bounce in the grass for her companion to catch on the hop.

"Now, bounce it as high as you can," Nina's finger pointed high in the air, "we don't go back inside until you do something right."

Al watched as he crossed into the soft green grass towards the pair. Slowly growing confused, Al focused on the girl, obviously several years older than Nina and maybe even himself, dressed in a plain knee length orange sundress. She simply extended her arms and dropped the ball into the grass in front of herself.

"You're doing this deliberately, aren't you?" Nina rolled her eyes as her hands came to rest on her hips.

"Miss."

The nurse's voice was loud enough to catch both Nina and Alphonse's attention. Al stopped, glancing into the overhanging shade of a tree within the yard, where the woman sat upon a blanket, a book in hand.

"Young Alphonse is here to join us."

Nina looked out towards Al, swaying her hips from side to side, "Hi Alphonse."

"Hi," he began to move towards the pair once more, his feet leaving imprints in the golf course perfect grass as he walked, "what are you playing?"

"A girls game," Nina ran the few feet forward to pick up the multi coloured ball, "no boys in this game."

Al's eyebrows rose at the unwelcoming statement, quickly turning his attention over to Nina's playmate, realizing she was watching him. Why was it every bone in his body told him to disregard everything the little girl said? He eyed her playmate curiously; her short blonde hair hung around her head in waves of washed out curls. The potent hue of her blue eyes shone out despite how badly she squinted under the sun. Something bothered him and he thought perhaps it was how heat stricken she looked.

Her hand came up slowly as the two shared the gaze with each other, wiping the sweat away from the sides of her face.

"Are you okay?" Al asked, stepping closer.

The girl stiffened where she stood, her nose wrinkling as an indignant look crossed her face in disapproval of Al's approach.

"She was running to catch the ball earlier, that's why she looks tired," Nina's voice shot out, stiff and cold, "and she doesn't want boys in this game either, just look at her face!"

"She looks like she needs a drink," Al glanced between the two girls, his voice strong in his challenge to the child's persistence, "shouldn't she go inside and get something?"

"No, she shouldn't.  We can't play inside, the other adults are bothering us and they upset her and she makes a fuss," Nina huffed.

"There's probably a reason for that..." Al mumbled to himself and turned back to Nina's playmate, "do you want something to drink?"

Again, there was no response, just the defiant glare the girl continued to defend herself with.

"She has a condition and cannot communicate properly to answer you," it was the nurse who stepped up to join the children, her book held firm in once hand, a glass of juice in the other, "she seems quite content to be outside in the sun without something drink, despite how it may look." Extending her hand, the woman placed the glass under the girl's nose, an action that promptly had the girl slapping the glass to the ground.  "See?"

Bending down to pick up the glass, Al gave a harsh look to the nurse as he straightened himself, "Maybe if you didn't hold it under her nose, she'd drink it."

"Does not matter where I put it, the reaction is the same," she took the empty container away.

"And she was playing ball with me, but now she won't do that either," Nina turned her nose into the air, "and I thought we could be really good friends too."

    "My nurse is busy doing things with Diana and my friend. I was helping them, but all the other adults got in the way, so I came here."

Slowly shaking his head at the sudden memory, Al turned his attention to Nina's 'friend'. Making no attempt to lessen the concern written across his face, Al added a soft touch to his voice and smiled, "Did you want to go inside? You look really hot. Maybe you'd rather have some water instead of juice?" he extended a hand for her to take, only to have his wrist sharply snatched up by the nurse.

She spun Alphonse on his heels to face her, firmly placing his arm down at his side, "She has been placed in my care. I would suggest–"

Al startled as he suddenly felt a hot and sweaty palm close around his right hand. Turning slowly, his peripheral vision caught the new girl standing at his shoulder.

Looking out from the corners of her eyes, the girl made sure she caught and held Alphonse's gaze as if to communicate. Cautiously, she turned her attention towards Nina and the nurse once more, examining the startled reactions the two displayed by her acceptance of Al's presence.

"Entschuldigen Sie… wenn ich unterbreche."

"… Huh?" Al turned over his shoulder, eyes wide with confusion, instantly oblivious to the startled expressions upon the other's faces. "What did you say?" Al did not let go of her hand, he could feel the tremble within her touch and connected it to what lay beyond the deliberately stiff expression.

"Los," she took a step back, looking over towards the house as she pulled on Alphonse's arm, "wir wollen gehen."

Nina's arms folded across her chest slowly as the nurse's hand came to rest on her shoulder. The little girl's voice swept out in a whisper, "Is that it…?"

Alphonse ran what he could for her 'words' through his head, standing silent under the sun as he tried to see through what was going on. It wasn't until her free hand came up and flicked him on the cheek that Alphonse found himself moving towards the house with her.

"Na los," her voice lowered as they walked, a cautious glance given back to the remaining pair standing in the useless afternoon breeze.

"We're going inside," Al announced, glancing back as well and eyed the unnerving sight of the nurse's frozen gaze looking down at Nina, "she doesn't want to be out here."

Nina shrugged, brushing her hair off her shoulders after she bent down to pick up the ball once more.  Any charm she had left drained from her face once she began her saunter towards the house.

 


 

It was like no sickness he'd ever experienced, his stomach felt as though it could tear itself apart. His heart raced so quickly and his breathing dipped so shallow he thought he might pass out. The feeling numbed Edward to the world around him.

"She's perfect," the man's words rang from his mouth like a poorly tuned instrument, stinging within Edward's ears, "God gave her back to me better than how she was before."

The door clicked shut. Upon a table in the corner of the room a tiny candle tossed the pale resemblance of light around, emitting distorted patterns as it passed through the half full glass of water next to it. Amann passed Edward by with a nipping breeze, moving within a room tucked away in the cold basement cave of the Thule cathedral.

She was a doll.

A doll dressed in a white cotton gown and nothing more.

At the left corner of the room, she lay on her side atop the bed sheets; she was turned away from the room to face the wall, showing now interest in their intrusion.

Amann sat down at the edge of the bed; his eyes held a corrupted admiration of a father looking upon his newborn child, "So perfect; her skin is unblemished, a perfect shade of ivory white," Ed could not subdue the uncontrollable twitch that overtook his fingers as he re-clenched his good hand; watching as the man's fingers reach beyond where he could see clearly and brush over her cheek. Finally the errant hand swept over her neck to her shoulder, brushing the long strands of hair from shielding her arms, "this hair she hides her shoulders behind is like touching the silky lengths of what I would find on an infant's soft scalp. I wish I could never let it go. It shines like white gold." The carefree hand slipped uncontested under her arm; trickling down her side as he traced her outline, "she has such a perfect curve for such a young woman…"

So wrapped up in his own words and what he held in his eyes, the man never heard the sound of each approaching step Edward made.

Just simply be a doll.

The hand finally came to rest at the highest point on the curve of her hip before sweeping out of Ed's sight once more, "She's well endowed and her hips are so strong; she's built perfectly to bear children…"

Amann's eyes finally lifted as Edward's hand reached out and closed a ruthless grasp around the man's wrist, preventing him preceding any father. The man allowed his arm to be limp in Ed's hold as he stood in contest of the man's violation; the gold in his eyes set ablaze with a rage that refused to form words.

"What?" the cockiness of the voice curled the hairs on the back of Edward's neck before he felt the muscles stiffen in the arm he held, "are you still in awe of the Goddess I created from that budding girl or do you want to–"

It was a move made faster than Edward himself realized he could have accomplished; Amann suddenly finding himself flat on his back upon the bed, Ed's knee on his chest at his throat, pinning the daring right hand into the mattress.  A quiver traipsed through his harsh words, "Did you hurt her?"

Please be a doll.

"What sort of question is that?" a mused grin grew across the man's face realizing how easily Edward could be provoked. Realizing any answer would upset Edward further, his words leaked out with malicious undertones, "And if I did, do you think there'd be anything you could do about it?"

As Ed drew back his mechanical arm, the figure upon the bed moved suddenly, sliding along the mattress away from the pair; her sudden movements diverting Ed's attention. The opening Ed had allowed was instantly taken, and Amann ripped his hand free of the grasp as he tried to force his oppressor away. The moment Edward felt the man's fat fingers reach up to grip around his neck; he reared the fisted right arm back once more and crushed it down with every bit of boiling rage that had spilled over. He paid as little attention to the sound the man's face made upon connection as he did to the snapping sounds of fingers on his metal hand.

The room fell silent in wake of the echoes.

The moment the hand dropped away from his neck, Edward shoved the limp body unceremoniously off the end of the bed and stepped off the mattress into the chill of the basement room once again. His shaken gaze ventured back to a figure he begged would vanish if he simply shut his eyes. It was so foolish of him to even try it; but for a moment, he thought 'why not?'

He watched her, huddled up in the corner of the bed against the cement wall; her knees pulled up under the white gown, bare toes pinching the end of the gown beneath her feet. Her arms wrapped around her knees pulled tight against her chest; head buried in the confines of those arms, untied lengths of blonde hair flowing down around her.

"… Winry…?"

Not a doll.

Slowly, a tired set of clear blue eyes lifted to peer out from beyond the concealing arms.

His shoulders sank; the broken look that bled out from her gaze allowed the sick feeling to sweep over once more.

"… How?"

Edward's feet scraped forward across the cement floor before he came to sit on the edge of the bed in front of her. A thousand questions clouded his thoughts, obscuring some of the most burning questions churning between his ears…

Except one, "Are you okay?"

Her head slowly lifted from the protection of her arms; she did not reply.

"You're not hurt anywhere?" Edward's head ached, "no one's hurt you at all…?"

The moment Ed's hand reached out for her, Winry's shrill scream tore out, echoing within the dampened acoustics of the cement walls.

"Don't touch me!" she slapped Edward's startled hand away, "go away! Don't touch me!"

It was then he understood his mistake; so shaken he had not even realized what he'd done until she'd spoken. A nervous smile pushed onto his face as he spoke in clear English for her, "Sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"Shut up!" the shrill pinch of her voice was sharper than the chill of the cement walls, "don't talk to me. You're not real," her trembling hands came up to grip over her ears as she did everything in her power not to make eye contact, "you're not real, this isn't real."

"Winry…"

"Go away, I have to wake up," the palms of her hands slapped her cheeks, "I'll wake UP!" the scream pushed Ed back, far more disturbed by her behavior than he had been by the other occurrences in the last hour, "I'll wake up eventually, I swear I will. I'm going to wake up and stand under the sun for hours, because burning under the sun is a far better fate than freezing to death. I refuse to freeze to death."

That's right, the room was cold, even for him; and he'd spent five years getting use to the chill of the world.

Ed's hand swept his bangs from his face, holding them at the top of his head. He tried to think, he needed something to say, something to calm her down. Nothing Edward thought of sufficed; it almost felt nostalgic, she was such a struggle for him to talk to.

"Just go away."

"Winry," Ed tried to extend his hand again, "I promise you this nightmare is a lot better when we're not down here. We can have some hot soup to warm you up and go shopping for stuff for the shop; it'll be my treat, just like always," he watched as she unsuccessfully tried to burry herself father into the corner of the bed, "come on, let's go somewhere else."

"GO AWAY!" again she slapped at his reaching hand, only to find herself screaming in fright at his sudden grasp around her right wrist.

"Stop screaming Winry!" Ed yelled back at her in protest of the piercing voice she used as a defence.

The back of her left hand struck sharply across Ed's face, jarring his head awkwardly to the side, "You're NOT Ed!"

No sooner had the words left her lips than Ed's hands had gripped her at the sides of her face. Winry's screaming stopped the moment her hands gripped his intruding reach; the texture of an AutoMail arm, regardless of quality, was not something she could mistake.

"Look at me!"

Winry's eyes continued to scan what she could see of his false arm. Though the metallic hand gripped her left cheek, she could not help but concern herself with why she could hardly feel pressure from the fingers.

"I said look at me!" a desperate commanding voice called out from Ed's throat. His thumbs hooked under her chin, snapping her head up so he could look at her straight on. The twisting feeling returned to the pit of his stomach, unable decide which hurt more; the sound of her scream in fear of him, or watching the tears run down her cheeks while she looked back at him.

"Edward Elric, what do you think you are doing?"

His head shot over his shoulder towards the door, he had missed the sound of it opening.

"What on Earth…?" Hess pushed past the other Thule members standing around the doorway and rushed to the pile Amann lay in upon the floor.

Ed cautiously returned to his feet, shifting his gaze between Winry and the gathering of men.

"What the hell do you think you are doing, Edward?" Dietrich's raging voice commanded the Elric's attention, "who let you down here and how did you get into this room?"

"What are you doing with her down here?" Ed's voice carried steadily and emotionless as he pointed to Winry. The longer Ed waited for a response, the more the silent answer annoyed him.

Hess glanced up from Amann, being the only one to carry an astonished tone to his voice, "He's unconscious. Edward, what did you hit him with?"

"My fist," Ed's response carried no compassion.

"Hohenheim get over here!" Dietrich bellowed over his shoulder, "get your son out of here before I rip that arm out of his shoulder."

"I'm not leaving without her," Ed stood squarely in the middle of the room, defiance written clearly across his face.

"Are you an idiot?" Dietrich raged, "God graced us with such a beautiful young woman and you think I'm going to just let her walk out with the delinquent son of the only man in our membership who still doubts what Amann and I accomplished…" Dietrich's eyes shot to Hohenheim as he stepped up next to him, "… I should have you shot for even being down here."

Wrapped in the same black robe as the others gathering at the door, Hohenheim's cold gaze fell upon Dietrich, "But you're not going to do that," the look drifted over to Edward who continued his defiance, stiffening his posture as his father's angered gaze cut into him.

"Get out Edward."

"What is wrong with you? How long has she been here?" Edward's bitter stance felt insignificant compared to the power in his father's words.

Hohenheim's jaw tightened, "Speak in German, your English is going to cause more problems."

Ed's eyes narrowed with insolence, "Didn't I tell you to go to hell not too long ago?"

Hohenheim's response was held back by his own pause while he scanned the occupants of the room, "It isn't a stretch for me to say we're already there," he watched his son's stance loosen at the words.

Dietrich swung his raging voice into Hohenheim's face, "It's not that hard, just grab him by the hair and haul him on his ass out of the room," though he tried to storm forward, Hohenheim's hand gripped tightly at Dietrich's upper arm to hold him back. Further enraged, he whipped around to counter Hohenheim's unwavering poise, "Unhand me, I'll deal with your boy like the man he thinks he is; especially if he thinks that metal arm can put me down too."

Ed turned his wrinkled nose into the air as he narrowed his eyes, "Let's find out."

"Edward!" Hohenheim's voice snapped.

"Done," Dietrich turned sharply to face Ed, snapping his gun out from beneath the black robe he wore.

"Dietrich stop!" Hess yelled out.

It was not Hess's words that stopped him; it was Dietrich's sudden realization that Winry was standing behind Edward. Her hands resting on his shoulders, the chill from her touch seeped through the fabric of Ed's shirt to send shivers running through his skin. He found himself frozen where he stood, suddenly oblivious to the lowering handgun that had been pointed at him.

The animosity within the room evaporated instantly as the curious Thule eyes watched their guest move about; something they had not witnessed her do since the initial hours of her arrival.

"I have no idea what everyone's yelling about," the only one close enough to hear her whisper clearly was Ed.

"That's alright. It not very interesting," his lowered voice mirrored the pitch Winry had used.

Slowly, Winry walked a circle around him, her bare footsteps softly clapping off the cement, "Why are you so much taller than me?" she had to look up to meet his eye.

"I had to grow eventually," neither knew the reason why the statement seemed so amusing; the corner of Ed's lips curled up at Winry's choked giggle.

Winry finally stepped back, a hand coming over her mouth as she turned away from Ed to see the gathering of men within the doorway. Scanning Dietrich, Winry's examination moved over the marvelling expression he wore and stopped at the lowered gun dangling in his fingers. The moment Dietrich realized that's what she was looking at; he quickly slipped it back under his robe.

Blinking at the swift action, Winry's gaze slid to Hohenheim. She knew his face, she knew who he was; she had even seen him within hours of being locked in the room after she'd tried to run away. He had not said a word to her the entire time; he'd only peeked in from time to time and kept the water in the glass full. There was no other set of peering eyes that interested her.

"Ed," his name had been the only thing she'd said that any of the Thule men had understood since her arrival. Turning an accusing gaze upon him, Winry watched as Ed's eyebrows rose at the sudden change in disposition.

"You've been doing something dangerous again, haven't you?"

It was a scripted response he'd always given her; it came in a package consisting of Ed's nervous grin and the raising of his hands in denial.

"It's nothing like that."

In Resembool, in Central, in Rush Valley, in Dublith, in all of Amestris… that's how the conversation went.

Winry would accuse.

Edward and Alphonse would deny.

Winry would sigh.

And life would go on.

This time, Winry would cry.

And Edward would have no idea what life thought it was doing.

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


Notes:

Originally, everything spoken in English was going to be in italics on Ed's side, but that looked hideous. So, I used italics to distinguish when people were switching languages (unless I specified) or when I wanted you to know it was English without typing "… said in English…". Sorry it's very muddled.

I think Winry is the best thing Ed could have around as Germany picks away at his sanity; there's only so much Hohenheim can do and there's a LOT his German acquaintances would never understand. Ed needs a fresh shot of something. Besides which, I just mucked up his crappy AutoMail; someone's gotta fix it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Finding new Thule members to throw into the story is proving difficult… information on anyone except the people I've already introduced and people who had left Thule by this time is really hard to come by. I couldn't find much on Max Amann, other than he was important and had strong ties to Hitler, so this works.

Chapter 13: Contrast Blue

Summary:

Winry adjusts to her situation while the mystery surrounding Brigitte grows.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Edward," Trisha's voice called out, "make sure you hold Winry and Alphonse's hands tight, okay?"

"I wanna hold Winry's hand too," Al pouted as he toddled alongside his brother down the gravel path beneath the brilliant mid-day sun. The warmth of the summer rays filtered down through the forming shapes of puffy white clouds; pure white light drifting throughout the farm fields below.

"Well I don't wanna hold a boy's hand," Winry scowled over to Ed, her face scrunched up tight in protest, "She didn't say I had to hold Al's too."

Ed's pudgy face grew extraordinarily cross, scowling fiercely at Winry's teasing, "Don't be mean to Al."

Winry shot her head away from Ed and turned her nose to the sky, "all boys have a boy disease and you're going to give it to me and Al 'cause you're holding our hands."

"Brother, I dun wanna boy disease," Al's little voice continued to pout until he fell silent, once again distracted from the ongoing debate.

"Winry!" Ed picked up his squeaking voice in protest, "there's no such thing as a boy disease."

"Nuh'uh, you lie!"

"Brother!" Al suddenly bounced at his side, his voice squealing as he pointed out to the trio's right, "an octopus cloud!"

Ed's eyes widened as he followed his brother's pointing finger, "It is…"

"Wow, an octopus cloud," Winry mirrored Edward's gaping enthrallment of the sky. The children fell into silence, watching as their cloud paraded its solitary way across the crystal blue southern sky.

"I bet it tastes like marshmallow…"

 


 

Bacon?

She didn't notice the mid-morning sunlight until her eyes cracked open. She didn't remember the quilt over her shoulders until she shifted beneath it. She didn't confirm the bacon and eggs scent filtering into the room until she sniffed the air again.

Winry rolled onto her back, her arms sprawled out limp at her sides; tired eyes staring up at the ceiling. Her head rolled to her left to cast a weak gaze out into the clear sky washed with an ill grey. Her head rolled to her right to send the gaze into the room with its dresser, night stand, throw rug, desk, and partially opened door.

This was different, wasn't it?

She rubbed her eyes, hooking her toes into the edges of her wool socks to pull them off; her feet were hot. Casting the blue and green quilt aside, Winry pulled herself up and once again cast her eyes out the window. She was met with the sight of shingled brown roofs, smoke stacks, a church steeple with bell, orange and brown falling leaves.

Munich, huh?

Winry ran her fingers through the matted mess of hair falling around her; she couldn't remember how long it had been since she'd last had a shower. The weak eyes turned their attention back to a partially opened door. Pulling out from the relative comfort of the bed, Winry felt the baggy shirt and sweatpants flop around her body as she moved to the curious calling of the hallway beyond.

"Edward?"

"What?"

Winry stopped at the voices echoing from the floor below.

"Would Winry prefer apple or orange juice?"

"Orange. Dad where do you want me to put your handouts for those missed Monday and Wednesday classes? Straight into your bag or just in the folder on your desk?"

"My desk is fine. But make sure you're picking up your mess in the living room too. It's about time those papers got off of my coffee table and couch cushions. Dust the mantle above the fireplace while you're at it."

"Okay already, for the tenth time I'm doing it; your stuff just happens to be on the same table as my stuff. If you don't believe me, stop playing chef and look for yourself."

Winry's head tilted in confusion at the unusual pair of voices carrying on a conversation. Moving to stand at the white rail along the hallway she could see downstairs, almost far enough to catch the front door. Slowly, holding her hand firmly on the railing, she made her way down the stairs. She could smell it, it was bacon and eggs; it was so obvious. She could hear it sizzling on the pan, but what was lacking? As Winry reached the final step, her mind tried to figure out what was wrong with the aroma. It did very little to encourage her appetite. The more she thought about it, the more puzzling it became that she hadn't felt hungry in days.

With a cautious hand placed on the doorframe, Winry's face peered into the kitchen. Her eyes slowly embarking on an adventure around the room, gathering details, sensations, smells, colours, and locations. Winry almost disregarded Hohenheim's presence within the room as she absorbed the surroundings.

But he could feel the eyes. Placing his pan of bacon down upon a cooled element, Hohenheim took the dishtowel into his hands and turned. The mixture of confusion, fright and wonder within her preoccupied gaze left him nothing but amusement. He couldn't help but smile, "Did you sleep well?"

"Huh?" Winry blinked back to him, suddenly startled as she sheepishly slipped into the room, "… I guess so."

"Don't be shy, sit down," his focus returned to the task at hand, though he wasn't about to let her stand dazed in the middle of his kitchen, "it's closer to lunch than breakfast, but it's always good to start your day properly."

Winry moved cautiously to the kitchen table; a white tablecloth draped over the surface, cutlery already set out, glasses filled to the rim, napkins folded at the center of the table flanked by the salt and pepper shakers. She blinked in confusion at the quaint little setup before looking to Hohenheim; she watched as he moved from the stovetop, a steaming plate in hand.

"If memory serves me right, Trisha and Sara would make bacon and eggs at one of our houses on Sundays before Sara would take you three into town," he placed the plate organized with scramble eggs, bacon and hash browns on the table before Winry, "it's not Sunday, but I thought you'd like it anyways."

"Thank you," Winry searched in her mind; she could barely remember those Sundays, they stopped happening a long time ago.

Sitting down upon one of the table chairs, Hohenheim kept a gentle touch about his voice, "the food isn't going to taste that good. It'll be quite bland from what you're use to. There's nothing I can do about that, that's just the way things are here," from the undivided attention she had given him, Hohenheim carefully monitored her perplexed facial expression "same goes for your drinks and most smells; you senses aren't as heightened here as they were back home," picking up the fork from the table, he placed the utensil into Winry's uncertain hand, "you're also going to find that your appetite isn't very good, this doesn't mean you aren't suppose to eat. If you eat three meals a day, even if you're not hungry, you aren't going to feel as lethargic, and you're not going to starve. Alright?"

Winry's fascinated expression drooped as she sunk back in the wooden chair, her fork poking at the eggs, "That's a strange set of rules…"

Giving a laugh, Hohenheim stood back up, "Yes, I have to agree, it is quite strange."

Winry returned her attention to the wise, old man as he drifted back to the stove to sort the rest of the breakfast; slowly chewing on what was confirmed to be a tasteless mouthful of eggs.

"This is your house?"

Not deviating from his task, Hohenheim found himself smirking at Winry's question, "Yes, for a couple of years now."

Her attention trailed back to the kitchen exit; her fork balanced between her teeth as she spoke, "Does Ed live near by?"

It was innocent enough, but her questions continued to make Hohenheim's lips curl in amusement. He placed an additional two plates down at the table, "Very close. In fact, if you head back up those stairs you will find his room right by yours."

Winry's fork fell from her mouth as the statement blew by, snatching it quickly up off the floor as she turned her startled expression towards him, "You two live together?"

"Yes we do," grinning, Hohenheim snatched the fork from her hand and returned a clean one into her fingers, "and we're having breakfast together today too," his voice rose as quickly as Winry's eyes widened in reaction to it, "Edward, come and eat!"


"Aisa, what were you thinking? Why am I hearing about this from my house staff? This isn't an orphanage…" Mr. Mitchell's hand held up at his forehead as he looked back into the meeting room, momentarily trying to figure out what Alphonse and his new guest were doing, "I can't take in every lost child off the street. Even if she has special needs, I'm running a country, not a daycare."

"Sir," Nina tugged on his sleeve, "she's really sweet sometimes, can't we keep her?"

Mr. Mitchell knelt down and scooped Nina's tiny fingers up into his strong hands, "I'd like to Nina, but I'm not sure if it's such a good idea just yet. It's not like asking to keep a puppy. I'll see what I can do for her, though."

The Mitchell's nurse, Aisa, held an unwavering focus upon the Prime Minister as he rose to his feet once again, "Social services are currently in the process of trying to locate her family, they were displaced during the March raid that Drachma laid out in the northern cities. Perhaps her stay with us can shed light on her situation and a reunion will be easier with the publicity, given her condition and your position."

The excuses were not sitting well with Mr. Mitchell, "And I need to focus my attentions elsewhere Aisa, my job is something a bit more serious than that; it's not like Lyra is here to help with any of this. And it makes it even more difficult to send the poor girl back given her condition; your intentions will make me look terrible in the public eye. I've been having enough problems trying to gain the country's respect," his attention redirected towards the meeting room adjoined to his ministerial office, his shoulders falling in dismay of the situation he did not want to be in, "what was her name again? Bernadette?"

Nina tiled her head to the side in confusion, "Alphonse said it was Brigitte."

"I was going to tell you last night, Sir," Aisa continued on, stepping up next to her employer, "but you did not return home."

"The Ishibal situation was too important, General Hakuro and I had a great deal that needed to be worked on; I couldn't leave," feverishly scratching his head, Mr. Mitchell sighed heavily, "Why did you have to bring her to my office? Couldn't you have told me this last night when I called?"

– –

"Do you feel better now?" Al held in his giggles, watching her inhale a third cup of water and return the empty container to the glass top dining table the pair sat at. Al kept his attention on her as the shining blue eyes took in all that was to be had within the grand dining hall; the crystal chandelier hanging at the center, the oversized paintings and their elaborately decorated wooden frames, the spotlessly polished glass table on a black base and the twelve chairs surrounding it. Sheepishly, Brigitte took a napkin from one of the holders on the table and wiped the ring her cup left on the glass.

"Um…" Al swung his feet freely off the end of the chair as he glanced around, still puzzled by the incomprehensible words she'd spoken to him outside, "I don't suppose you can tell me your name, I don't want to ask those two."

"Huh?" was all she could give Al as he watched her eyes widen with uncertainty.

"Your name… what's your name?" he persisted anyways, watching her visually dissect of every word coming off his lips.

"…Name?" the moment she caught Al's realization that she had picked the key in his sentence, a smile of delight grew across her face, "Ich heiße Brigitte! Wie heißt du?"

Al slouched in his chair, his hand coming down over his hair as the momentary relief at communication flashed away, "… Oh boy."

Twisting her face in recognition of Al's confusion, she leaned over across the table to drive home her point, "Ich heiße... Brigitte! Br-i-gi-tte!"

The determination carried in her indecipherable tongue managed to draw Al back, "It's Brigitte? Your name is Brigitte?"

"Ja! Darf ich erfahren, wie Ihr Name ist?" Brigitte's hand reached out and snagged Al by the front of his shirt, realizing her words were a far greater puzzle to him than his English was for her. Her enunciation was precise, the free hand poking him square on the forehead, "Name."

"Ah! My name is Alphonse," he repeated the sentence key for her, "Alphonse."

"Alphonse?" sitting back down, Brigitte folded her arms across her chest, giving a firm nod of acknowledgement and eventually joining the laugh Al's nervous giggle spawned.

– –

"Okay, so this game is called 'Cat's Cradle', I don't know if you play something like this around here, but let's see how we do."

At some point in time between that afternoon and the next, both Brigitte and Alphonse had surrendered to the idea that neither of them had any idea what the other was saying, beyond a few words of Brigitte's German that were also found in English. Though, it was Brigitte who felt more comfortable around the English language spoken by the 'victors' of the war her country had lost than Al did around a language never heard by anyone.

"What are you doing?" Al tilted his head, holding his hands out in front of himself as she weaved a ribbon around his fingers.

"SO!" Brigitte raised her hands next to her head, pinching her index fingers and thumbs together, "you take these fingers and pinch the X's here and here, pull up, pull it around, put it back through and voila!" she pulled the ribbon from Al's puzzled grasp to show him the new design she'd created, "see?"

"Interesting…" Al's face scrunched up as he examined what she had done. He straightened in surprise when she wiggled her fingers to discard the pattern back from her hands.

"You're going to try in just a minute," Brigitte took a sharp step, spinning to stand tight to Al's side; catching Nina, the nurse, and Mr. Mitchell enter the room from the corner of her eye.

Al watched as Nina crawled up into one of the soft cushioned chairs, her nurse sitting down in the adjacent seat. His attention refocused on Mr. Mitchell, sitting upon the arm of a chair before the two older children.

"What do I do with you…" he rested his arms on his knees, examining the suddenly nervous Brigitte as she wound the ribbon up around her index finger, "that's such a stunning shade of blue you have in your eyes Miss. Brigitte, I bet they're your mother's."

Quickly exchanging a jittery glance with Alphonse, Brigitte forced out a sweet smile for the man.

Slowly shaking his head, Mr. Mitchell turned his growing displeasure unto his nurse, "I'm not impressed with the situation you left me with Aisa, and I can't send her away. I know you were a good friend of my wife's but if you overstep your bounds again I'll terminate your position. Is that understood?"

"I'm terribly sorry, Sir. I did not mean for this to turn into such a situation for you," she lowered her head.

"Ah, dammit, I can't keep everyone in here, I have a meeting scheduled in fifteen minutes and Diana is still being passed around the office," his hand slowly returning to his head in an attempt to cradle a headache, Mr. Mitchell glanced back to the door, "Aisa, why don't you take the children around the displays the museum director has been setting up in the main rotunda. It'll keep the children occupied until I'm done, the meeting shouldn't take long. I'll get Diana back from my grabby staff for you."

"Thank you, Sir. My apologies for the inconvenience."

"Ugh…" Mr. Mitchell grumbled as he hauled himself out of the room, "I'm going to need another nanny, too many kids in my house."

Cupping her hand over her mouth, Brigitte leaned over to whisper into Alphonse's ear, "Who's that guy and what's going on?"

Even if Al could have answered, his wide-eyed shrug of confusion sufficed as an answer for Brigitte. No sooner had she accepted the confusion than her attention quickly refocused to Nina, the child's eyes having not left her since she had come into the room. Brigitte wished she could escape the shiver it left her with.


"I'm some stranger in another life," Winry stared back at her reflection in the mirror. Grabbing a towel, she polished the mirror thinking that perhaps it was dirty. When it didn't come clean, she concluded that her eyes, complexion, skin tone, and hair, that everyone seemed to marvel over, were just as dull and faintly coloured as everything else she set her sights on.

"What am I doing?" it was like the homesick feeling brought on by summer camp, except summer camp eventually ends. With more precision than she'd ever bothered with at home, Winry folded the towel over the bar where it had been hanging. She stuck her head back out into the hall before turning out of the washroom and sauntering, hands behind her back, into the living room.

Looking up from the paper he read, Hohenheim watched as Winry slowly made her way around the room into the chair farthest from where he sat. Her eyes switched from the curious examination of Hohenheim to analyzing the rather quaint room everyone had been gathered in earlier. The grey, brick fireplace, the scenic oil paintings on the wall, the white drapery around the windows and back door, the soft plush couches, the hand crafted tables... it was so… homey.

"Where did Ed go?" the sentence should have continued on to include 'it feels like he's avoiding me' but Winry could not force herself to get that far.

"He's outside with Dr. Oberth. Edward helped you understand everything Hermann was asking you?" Hohenheim's eyes watched her with masked concern from beyond his paper.

"Yes, he did," the conversation evolved no further, Winry could feel the unease within herself knowing Hohenheim waited for her to ask something else; she let time lapse and he drifted back to the newspaper in his hands.

"Why does Ed live with you?" Winry had not intended for the question to come out as directly and poorly timed as it had; she glanced away at Hohenheim's obvious surprise.

"He's my son…"

Apparently, that answer made sense to him, so it was going to have to suffice, "Okay." Winry's fingers fidgeted in her lap, the conversations were so uncomfortable; she tried to extend the discussion to ease the feeling, "I don't understand. You said you lived in this house for two years, but I saw you in Resembool last summer."

"We lived in a city called London for three years before coming here," a smile grew across Hohenheim's face at the horrified reaction taking over Winry, "when Edward came to this side of the Gate, I had already been here for well over a year. We ran a theory that the Gate has a poor concept of time, but to be more accurate, time runs at a different pace than back home." Hohenheim moved next to the chair Winry sat in and crouched down; her overwhelmed reaction did not let him go, "do you remember the date you left?"

"Um… it was the end of May," Winry frowned as she drew a blank on the exact date.

"What was the year?"

"1916."

Hohenheim put the paper up onto the arm of the chair and used his finger to underline the date, "On this side, today's date is Friday, September 24, 1921."

Her hand coming up into her hair, Winry wondered when she would stop spinning out of control, "That's a long time… is it 1921 back home now? Does that mean I'm 22 now?"

His amusement was inconceivable; Hohenheim couldn't help but take a wonderful pleasure in answering every question she had to ask. Her situation was drastically different from Edward's, and it allowed the opportunity for this conversation to take place, "No, it's still 1916 at home. Time moves faster over here, for every year we experience, only a couple months pass back home. And you're still however old you were before. I'll adjust your birth year to make it accurate on this side, like I did with Edward."

She was so dizzy from this. Why did she want to cry again? Her eyes should be out of tears by now. She was so tired of acting like a baby but there was nothing else she could do. The misery brought on by the displeasure over her own behaviour was only compounding the devastated feeling she was fighting.

"Do you want to lay back down?" Hohenheim read the clear emotional swing in Winry.

"I think I should," she wasn't expecting the hand Hohenheim gave her as he helped her to her feet; it shouldn't have been so embarrassing.

"We'll go back upstairs; sleep does help. Edward slept quite a bit when he first got here."

Winry accepted the escort back to her room, though she wondered how pathetic it looked having an escort take her snivelling self up a flight of stairs, "Ed probably dealt with being here a bit better than me."

Hohenheim drifted off into silence as the pair reached the top of the stairs, Winry finding her pace faster than his. Her foot touching down onto the top step, she turned back to see in his eyes how distant his thoughts had become.

"No, I think you're handling the situation a bit better than he did. Though, given the circumstances, he had a fair bit more to deal with; your transition has been much easier."

Winry's eyebrows knit together as she dragged her feet into a bedroom that was to become hers, wondering how the last week could be classified as 'easy'.

"The evenings and nights have been chilly lately, did you need another blanket?" the old man slipped his hands into his pockets, watching her sulk through the room.

Lazily throwing herself on the bed, Winry tugged at the edges of her quilt, "No, Ed got me this sometime in the middle of the night. It worked just fine."

"Edward brought you that last night?"

"Yeah," she turned her head over to watch Hohenheim enter the room, brushing his hand over the quilt as he sat down for a moment. She kept the story going, something was sitting uneasily within the situation, "Ed was up doing something, I don't know what. The floor squeaks a bit and he said he heard me moving. He came up and asked if I was okay, I told him I was cold. Ed wandered away and came back with that."

"Did he really?"

Winry's head tilted at the introspective voice drifting through the room, "Shouldn't he have?"

Hohenheim quickly drew himself away from his thoughts with the shake of his head, "It's fine; it's his, not mine. I just didn't think he would pull it out of the closet."

Winry watched as the odd conversation ended at that, the father she'd spent an awkward 24 hours getting to know pushed to his feet. He reached across the bed and pulled the curtains for her before turning a comforting smile towards her, "If you start to feel sick, or need anything, you know where to find us."


"Your daddy's funny! He makes things with alchemy like Al does!" Elysia giggled, walking hand in hand in conversation with Nina.

"I know, he made something for me too one day; he wanted to show me how good he was at it," Nina raised a poignant finger, "but he's not my daddy, he's my guardian."

"Nina," Mrs. Hughes crouched down behind the two girls, "doesn't Mr. Mitchell want you to think of him as a father?"

Nina turned back over her shoulder, finding that she was face to face with Mrs. Hughes, "He does. But it feels funny to say that, cause I know he's not my daddy and I have a real one somewhere."

Gracia's hand slowly came together, her eyes shifting from her own daughter back to Nina's conversation at hand, "When was the last time you saw your daddy?"

"A long time ago when I was really little!" her free hand resting on her hip, quickly turning to Elysia as she piped up.

"I haven't seen my daddy since I was really little too!"

Gracia forced herself to disregard her daughter's comment; for today, the moment the thirty-second phone call from Alphonse had ended, other things had been planned. Turning over her shoulder, Gracia looked to the crowd gathered around Aisa at the secretary's desk; employees huddled around the woman protectively holding the Prime Minister's baby girl. Once 'coincidentally' meeting within the rotunda, Gracia found herself invited up to the Ministerial wing of the building.

Remaining upon her knees by the two little girls still holding hands, Mrs. Hughes began to unzip her purse, "Was his name Shou Tucker?"

Nina squared herself silently in front of Gracia, watching as she pulled a letter envelope out from her purse. With the sudden snap of her tiny wrist, Nina withdrew her hand from Elysia's grasp, "I don't know."

"Well, is your last name Tucker? A girl of your age who can remember her father should have a first and last name."

"No, I'm just Nina."

It had bothered Gracia since the day Alphonse had brought it up, about the Mitchell girl who looked like the Tucker child who'd died. It made her sick to discover the reasons behind his State Alchemist title when she'd gone into the library's newspaper archives and found information concerning him. The final article she read on the issue pertained to what had happened with his daughter. Gracia could remember vividly Maes' insistence that the circumstances around Nina's death were something she did not need to know. It was the rare seriousness of her husband and the amount of time she knew he had spent on the case that made this final article unsatisfying. As ghastly as it was, this was simply not the story of some father's mental instability leading to the disappearance and suspected murder of his only child, as the article claimed. Gracia was certain that she had once overheard Maes mention the man had been executed for something, but there was no information to be found in regards to that. Some part of her wished she hadn't gone in search of the last moments of this Tucker family, because it left nothing but questions. Finally, today, at Al's prompting, Gracia arrived at the headquarters under the pretence of visiting her late husband's co-workers.

"But you said you have a real daddy somewhere, right?" Gracia pulled a service record photograph she'd been able to obtain from the envelope and placed it into Nina's palms, "many years ago I met a little girl you remind me of, this little girl disappeared one day and the father was blamed for her disappearance," it was as simple as Gracia could make the story out to be, "I don't know when you last saw your real daddy, but I wondered if this picture looks like him."

"That's not him," the suddenly cold eyes engaged the photograph, the decision only given momentary consideration, "my daddy's different than that."

Gracia could not explain it, how someone so little could emit such a furious aura; it did not dissipate when she took back the photo.

Al watched the situation unfold, his elbows latched onto the ledge of the window as he leaned back against it; his focus on the scene drifted as he lent his ears to a forlorn voice.

"How come your sky is such a light blue? It's so full of sunlight, it makes it look really white; it's hard to look at," she did not expect an answer from her softly voiced statements, she simply kept her nose pressed against the window; absorbing the township, "the white clouds are so bright and solid. How are clouds bright? They look like I can stand on them. Everything's so colourful, all the houses and people and clothes and streets. How come the cement was so hot when I took my sandals off? Why is it warm like this in September? I thought everyone in Europe had fall season at the same time…" Brigitte's fingertips pushed against the glass window as she struggled to find a word the situation, "I sound like a four year old, but I don't understand why everything's just so…"

Turning to face outside, Al's hands came to rest on the window frame, his eyes watching Brigitte as she strayed away from the one sided conversation to absorb the fourth floor view of Central city. Her eyes followed the shadow patches beneath the clouds as the bright sunlight tumbled down from the sky around the growing puffs of clouds.

"You sound like you're either confused or daydreaming," Al tapped a knuckle off the pane of glass, inadvertently taking Brigitte's attention, "it's really nice out today."

Dropping the hefty black bag from her shoulder, Brigitte turned it on it's end and stood on top of it; pressing her forehead against the window to get a slightly different view of the streets below "Is this what places are like that are rich and don't loose wars?" she turned the wondrous expression down upon Alphonse who could not provide any sufficient response, "is this England?"

"What's an 'England'?" tilting his head as he watched her stand tall on the bag, Al narrowed an eye at her; curiously continuing on the unanswerable conversation, "Why do you keep talking on and on when you know I don't know what you're talking about?"

Something about the interrogating gaze Al gave her caused Brigitte to giggle, "You look funny when you're confused, you make silly faces like Mr. Elric does, I want to take your picture and put it with the collection in my bag!"

Al's hand reached up and quickly pulled Brigitte off her perch, his voice dipping to a whisper, "How'd you know my last name?"

Unsure how to respond to Al's startling behaviour; Brigitte simply remained wide-eyed.

"Don't say that name around here; it'll get a lot of people in trouble if someone finds out," Al waved his hands in a negative gesture to what she'd said, hoping to get a point across.

"Did I say something wrong?" Brigitte asked, uncertain to Al's negative tone and sense of panic.

The entire gathering turned their attention down the hall at the echo of footsteps and an accompanying voice, "Mr. Mitchell wanted to let everyone know he will be finished with his engagements shortly. I'm dreadfully sorry that I've left you with all these children Mrs. Hughes, the office has kept me far too wrapped up with Diana."

"No that's fine," Gracia returned to her feet, sweeping smooth her long skirt, "everyone loves babies."

Coming to stand next to Nina, the young Diana in her arms, the Mitchell family nurse turned a warmer gaze than Al was accustomed to down to the girl, "You've been good for Mrs. Hughes, Miss?"

"I have."

"She's been quite wonderful, she's a well mannered young lady," stepping forward towards Aisa, Gracia peered into the light baby blanket wrapped around baby Diana in her arms, "I can't imagine anyone giving her up for adoption, she's such a beautiful baby. May I hold her?"

After being forced to give into the office employee's demand to cradle the baby all afternoon long, Aisa once again found herself in a position where she was unable to retain her hold on the child, "Of course."

"There we go…" Gracia's warm smile grew as she tucked the bundle into the natural cradle within her arms. The expression softened and her voice cooed as she came to realize the child had been in one too many arms today, "oh dear, I didn't mean for this to start. It's okay baby… it's okay…"

The Mitchell nurse suppressed a satisfactory smile that wished to emerge as the baby began to cry in Gracia's hold.

Al's eyes suddenly turned back to the window, he'd been the only one to hear Brigitte gasp. Slowly as he turned around, he watched as Brigitte's trembling hands came up to grasp her ears. Her voice choked as she found herself suddenly short of breath, "Just like what I heard in that dream…"

"Brigitte?" Al's hand reached out and took a light hold on a wrist, "are you okay?"

"I can't make it quieter no matter how hard I hold my head," the only step backwards she could make placed her back against the window; she held herself there, fingers digging into her hair as she tried to drown out the voice, "just like when I was flying in the dream, the crying wouldn't stop… it was so loud. I couldn't go anywhere to make it stop…"

Al looked to Mrs. Hughes as she began to hand the howling infant back to Aisa, wondering if she was noticing the situation, only to rip his attention to Brigitte as she tore off down the hall.

"Wait!" Al called after her, snatching the attention of the others. Without hesitation, he bolted down the hall in pursuit, leaving the remainder of the party in his wake.

"Nina!" Gracia's fingertips only grazed the girl's arm as she joined the precession of children running through the government building. It was startling to realize she was the only one who'd made any effort to stop the little girl. Taking Elysia by her hand, Gracia's head shot over her shoulder, "aren't you going to–?"

She was silenced by insensitive eyes worn by the Mitchell nurse; baby Diana in an arm, she merely walked down the path the children had taken without a word.

"Mummy?"

Picking her daughter up, Gracia joined the pursuit; ignoring Elysia's attempt to draw her mother's attention to the black bag Brigitte had left behind.


Winry pulled the quilt tight over her shoulders, pinning the ends into her lap. Her chin resting on the windowsill, she again stared into the rows of brown rooftops and smoke stacks deprived of any vibrancy. The mundane view was fascinating in all its depressing glory. Where was the personality in this scenery? Winry sat up straighter on the bed to see if she could see anything more, only to catch a reflection off the glass; she turned around sharply.

"The door wasn't shut," Ed pointed at it in defence, "I was about to knock, but you turned around."

Winry wrinkled her nose, "You better not turn into a peeping tom or I'll beat you senseless."

Ed gave a nervous laugh as he walked across her room, "That's not going to happen."

Winry turned away from the intrusion and simply returned her chin to the windowsill. She slid her cross-legged self over from the centre of the frame when she realized Edward had crawled onto the mattress to join her. Taking the left pane of glass as his vantage point, Ed followed her gaze out the window, trying to see if there was anything worth looking at along this city horizon.

"Dad said you went back to sleep yesterday before I could tell you that Hermann said you were just fine, other than some strained muscles."

"That's nice," Winry's response was flat with little care for the observation; the conversations still felt uneasy, even if the unease was less with Ed than it was with his father, "Does that mean your dad's going to stop asking if I'm feeling sick? He's done that a couple times, I feel like I'm waiting for the roof to fall in."

Ed rolled his eyes, instantly railed by the statement, "Stupid old man."

Lifting her chin, Winry glanced over in surprise at his suddenly harsh disposition, "I didn't mean it like I was ungrateful, Ed."

"Whatever," waving a dismissing hand, Ed tried to discard the displeasure and annoyance, "just ignore him Winr—ow!"

Ed jerked away from the poking finger grazing the corner of his eye.

"Your eye cleared up a bit overnight, it's more white than bloodshot today. Some of that purple is gone too, but I bet you wouldn't look so funny if you weren't developing circles under your eyes," she grinned in contrast to Edward's defensive glare, waiting until he'd straightened himself before continuing her train of thought, "What did you do to it anyways?"

"I got hit with a baton."

Winry's reaction was deliberately distraught, "You got beaten up by a cheerleader?"

"Dammit Winry," Ed did not realize how quick his voice was to snap, "I got blindsided by a police officer!"

"You what?" she wasn't in the mood to be snapped at by a cranky Edward, she felt miserable enough for the both of them, "You idiot, what sort of trouble did you get yourself in to?"

Ed bit back; sticking a finger into her face, "I didn't ask for any of this trouble you know!"

Winry slapped his hand away, "No, I didn't ask for any of this trouble; you–"

The conversation halted abruptly; Winry withholding her poorly conceived 'you did' retort. Regardless if she'd spoken it or not, Ed knew it was coming. Wishing she'd never thought of it, and Edward wishing he didn't deserve it, both returned their attention out into the dirty blue expanse beyond the window. Letting the quilt fall off her shoulders, Winry folded her arms in the window and returned to her interrogation of the sky.

Ed glanced over for a brief moment before training the silent vigil into the town once more. He found himself drifting away with a thought, wondering if he could pinpoint what it was that held Winry's fascination for hours on end. Absorbing the undesirable sensation he slowly became wrapped up in, Edward never meant to sigh aloud. Why only now did he realize how desensitized he'd become to the misery soaked into the grey sponge of the European sky.

A weight crippled Ed's posture as he sank in dismay of the forgotten crystal blue sky he had once held up in contrast to this shade lacking radiance.

"I like your quilt."

Ed blinked over to Winry as she smoothed it out over her lap, "That's nice."

"It looks sort of like one my mom made. The one we would all wrap up in to watch thunderstorms on the porch," she gazed only to the faint reflection of herself in the window while stepping through the memory, "Al would sit in the middle or else he'd cry because the loud thunder would 'get him' if he didn't."

Slow to respond to a past he'd had spent years treating as a forbidden secret, Ed forced through the feeling burdening his shoulders and poked a stiff mechanical index finger at the quilt, "Well, this one was a gift."

"Who'd you get it from?" A childish curiosity had suddenly over taken her enthusiasm.

"Some lady who was friends with my dad back in London," Ed narrowed an eye as he thought about it, "she called it a 'comfort blanket' or something like that."

"I know what that is," it was a refreshing feeling; something… anything of familiarity, "my parents had those around the house from time to time. I helped Mom make them when she was home. They were for the really sick children in the hospitals they'd go to."

"Yeah, apparently it's for something like that. Someone told me what it was supposed to be for long after I got it," Ed turned his nose up, a bitter sarcasm emerging in his voice, "So, thanks Mrs. Churchill, I'm glad you thought so highly of me."

"Ed, I doubt she meant it anything by it. The general purpose behind a comfort blanket is to make you feel better; sick or otherwise," Winry's unimpressed response to his behaviour simply lead to a scoff on Ed's part.

"I suppose."

Sighing heavily at the re-emergence of the stubborn behaviour, Winry dropped her chin back down onto the windowsill, "But this is Munich?"

"Yeah, this is some of it," Ed glanced to the leaves scattering across the rooftops once more.

"Leave it to you to end up somewhere ugly."

"Obviously you're feeling better today," Ed's eyes slit as he grumbled, "Trust me, there have been times and places that have looked a lot worse than this. And I didn't get much choice in what house we lived in."

She rewrapped herself in the quilt, reinforcing the unrelenting confusion and curiosity, "and this country is called Germany? And they speak German here? And you learnt this German?"

"Yes, yes, and yes," Ed nodded at each affirmation.

"And we decided I was gong to be 17 now cause it's September and not May, I'm born in 1904, not 1899" Winry scratched her head vigorously in confusion, "And you're… how old again?"

"I'm twenty-one."

"Lovely," her voice dripped with discontent at the entire situation she was having to rearrange in her mind, "not only has my seventeenth birthday been skipped, you're something like four or five years older than me." Sinking into the bundle she'd wrapped herself up in, Winry surrendered to the situation, "Well, that's not as weird as meeting Al as a ten year old, so I guess I can cope with this."

Not until she turned in confusion to the non-responsive Edward did she realize how strongly she'd crushed him into silence. Even as she watched the swell of emotions take him over, Winry never realized he'd been afraid to bring it up; it was the reason behind why it felt like Ed had been avoiding her since they left the Thule hall. He'd been afraid to ask, it made his heart race too fast. For the two days she'd been living beneath this roof he couldn't bring himself to entertain the thought; what if she didn't say Al was…

"Al's what?"

The change in Ed's voice made it uncomfortable to respond. Winry didn't even have to look at him to realize the wave of emotion that had pulled him deep beneath a fully coherent surface.

"When we found Al…" Winry felt pinned beneath Edward's demanding eyes, "… he was only ten years old."

"Winry…" ten years old was inconsequential; he didn't bother to absorb any information beyond that which he begged to hear.

"Al's alive?"

Winry suddenly found herself removed from the depression brought on by the grey world, only to be placed before the firing squad held by Ed's desperate voice, "Yeah. Isn't that… why you're here?"

It was, wasn't it?


"That child was very… persistent," Roy's gaze followed Brigitte as her fascination with what was to be seen in a bright world beyond the panes of glass continued, "both girls were, in fact."

"Yeah…" Al sat himself down at one of the vacated chairs within Mustang's empty office, "I didn't think Brigitte would have so much objection following Mrs. Hughes back to Mr. Mitchell's office without me," Al sighed and put his chin on the desktop.

Dropping his black trench coat over the back of a chair, Roy again straightened the polo shirt, his expression still twisted out of shape; again his eyes followed Brigitte, "I assume that language she rambled on in was supposed to be an apology for trying to run me over in the hallway?"

"Yeah, I think so," unable to do much beyond frown, Al looked beyond the out of uniform officer to Brigitte once more, "sorry about her, I don't know what upset her."

"That's quite alright," perhaps, if things had stayed the way they had the first few minutes of their encounter, at the moment Mustang had been knocked clear off his hindered feet and Brigitte landed in a heap on the floor next to him, he'd have more interest in discussing the issue of this barely teenage girl and her inability to communicate. It wasn't until a childish and forgotten face he'd concentrated on years ago entered into their equation that he could have cared less how impossible Brigitte was to understand. The absence of an innocence he could clearly remember kept him upon the floor; he challenged the bone-chilling gaze Nina silently bestowed upon him until Mrs. Hughes arrived to cut the connection.

"This young lady did not seem to take well to Mrs. Hughes' arrival and even worse to that family's nanny… your suggestion that we go for a walk to calm her down made perfect sense given the circumstances," Roy's eyes narrowed as he again glanced back to Brigitte, "I'd like to know why that child was so adamant that your friend have nothing to do with 'someone like me'."

"Sir," Al's voice broke into Roy's concentration, "did you recognize her? Nina, I mean…"

Al knew the answer, he'd known from the moment the Brigadier General and Nina had made contact. It was like a silent conversation of bitter willpower; one set of eyes aggressively challenging for answers, and the other countering with a cold barrier towards intrusion.

Roy's eyebrows finally rose from the tight frown he'd locked himself into, "Why do you ask?"

The information flowed easily from his mouth; it had been a scenario he'd mulled over for far too long. Perhaps it had been Mrs. Hughes insistence that Mustang was someone he should trust that made the story all that much easier to tell, "Winry and I have been thinking… perhaps she was Nina Tucker," he had expected the look he received in response to carry confusion or distress towards the name, yet it simply narrowed in question; requesting continuation, "Mrs. Hughes showed me a picture of my brother that had Nina in it, and we were certain this girl was Nina. But the Nina in the photo would be around 10 years old today; this Nina is only around seven or eight. Mrs. Hughes told us that Nina had died, but…"

"Nina Tucker's father, Shou Tucker, was given the title 'Sewing Life Alchemist'," Roy's hands slipped slowly into his jean pockets as he leaned against his office desk. His low voice left no echo within the walls of the barren room, "both Hughes and Armstrong were assigned to the Fifth Laboratory case you and your brother were involved in…"

Al's eyes slowly widened as he focused his attention upon Mustang. As Mustang saw it, there was no harm telling Alphonse something he had already once known.

"… Hughes thought it best to keep much of the information to himself rather than disclosing information to me, so I don't know as many of the details as I'd like to. Shortly after the works within the laboratory were revealed, Fuhrer Bradley labelled the incident as classified. When the government was instated, it was discovered that a great number of military records had been destroyed; the Fifth Laboratory case was among them."

Glancing from child to child, not only did he have Alphonse's curiosity wrapped up around every word, but the intriguing eyes of Brigitte as well.

"As much as I came to understand, the Fifth Laboratory was used to facilitate a great number of alchemical 'experiments'. Only later through Lt. Col. Armstrong's work with Archer did we discover that Shou Tucker had been working to create chimeras within that building. From a laboratory we investigated beyond the city of Lior, my office later discovered that much of Tucker's chimera work had gone on at the Fifth Laboratory. Beyond creating chimeras for the military's purpose, he had been trying to create a chimera to replace his daughter."

Al turned in his chair, his hand gripping the back of the seat, "You can't… recreate someone by making a chimera."

"No, you can't," turning back, his gaze held seriousness, "but many of his failed experiments were uncovered when the Fifth Laboratory was torn down," lingering in the back of the officer's mind was the astonishment he felt at carrying on a conversation of this magnitude with such a young boy. Roy again reminded himself how old Ed and Al had been when their journey with the military commenced years ago.

"Something's missing…" Al found himself phasing out from his surroundings, trying to dissect what had been told to him.

Roy's attention refocused on the curious expression of Brigitte, standing against the office window looking back at him while he'd been speaking, "Your friend's name is Brigitte, correct?"

Too wrapped up in the thought to return his attention to Mustang, Al simply nodded. It was Brigitte however, who reacted to the calling of her own name, staring up into the single eye of a curious man slowly crouching down to an eye level with her.

"What language does she speak?"

"She doesn't," Al gave a shrug, looking from the corner of his eye to her momentarily, "the Mitchell's nurse said she has a neurological condition that makes it hard for her to communicate, so she talks with her own made up language."

"I've never heard of such a thing happening," Roy's nose wrinkled as he again cast a curious eye upon the figure at his window. The appearance of this child appropriately named Nina had been unsettling enough; the subdued viciousness within the eyes of the young girl compounded the feeling. Her attachment to Brigitte refused to relinquish his curiosity.

"Sir?"

Mustang's attention returned to Alphonse, narrowing his eyes at the stiff face the boy held. It was still odd to hear the voice address him, only to look up and see a young man rather than a towering suit of armour.

"Can you help me find this Shou Tucker?"

Something suddenly rewarding existed within the conversation; it was something Edward had never allowed: Mustang's direct involvement with their affairs.

"Why would you want to?"

"I think that girl is the same Nina who died five years ago. The only person with any reason to bring her back would be him. If he's found a way to perform a successful human transmutation–"

It was then that Mustang became gravely concerned for the direction that the conversation was headed, and whom it would imply, "Don't consider taking that path, human transmutation is a taboo you know isn't to be crossed."

"I'm not looking to perform a human transmutation," Al's voice was abrupt; from the moment he'd left Resembool his intentions had been far greater than the Brigadier General could ever have considered.

"If this man knows how to perform a human transmutation, he might know how to access the Gate."

"Gate?" from then on, Alphonse's conversation moved a step above the State Alchemists concept of what he understood alchemy to be; he absorbed every word.

"The Alchemy Gate, I guess you can call it. Sensei said it was like looking into hell, but she also said my brother once called it a wealth of knowledge."

Reaching out, Roy lowered himself into one of the office chairs, his attention never wavering from Alphonse's voice.

"Sensei and I weren't looking to perform a human transmutation when we set out on this journey, she would never allow that. But we were looking to study alchemy so we could find a way to access the 'Alchemy Gate' and take something from it. I'm not going to resurrect my brother, because he's not dead; I'm going to take him from the gate, like what he did for me." Al brought his hand to his chest, "Unlike our mother, I wasn't dead; I was kept as payment to the gate for access to our mother's life. That's why my brother could complete the process of bringing me back without the Philosopher's Stone. In order to perform a transmutation of a dead human body, you need the Stone; but not if your making an exchange with the gate."

"Ed didn't use the Philosopher's Stone to bring you back?" Roy's head shook slowly in confusion, "then where did it go? We assumed that's how you…"

"I'd already used the stone to bring back my brother."

"Wait," Mustang's hand came up to stop Al, "…'bring your brother back'?"

Al nodded, "He died; he was killed; that's what Roze told me. But I used the Stone to bring him back and vanished into the gate when I did that."

Roy's hand came to his temple as he slumped in the chair, slowly exhaling at the wealth of information, "Go on…"

"Sensei and I talked about it for a while before we left for Dublith. When a human transmutation is performed, the alchemy circles and ingredients alone are insufficient; you need to offer a personal sacrifice to access the person's life; that sacrifice is kept by the gate as a 'right of passage'. I guess you can look at it as a toll. In order to recreate life from death you need the Philosopher's Stone, because an alchemist's own will power will never be enough. But you don't need the Stone to retrieve your toll… even if your toll is life. I'm proof of that."

If his mind could spin any faster he would loose it. Were these Elric brothers always this far ahead with what they knew?

"You only get to see the Alchemy Gate when you're looking to request something from it, like a life, any of the three components to existence: mind, body and soul… or your 'toll fee'. My brother's leg and my whole body and soul were the gate toll only for 'access' to our mother's life, my brother's toll to retrieve my soul from within the gate was his arm, my brother's whole self and everything my armoured self had become were the toll to retrieve me from the gate as I am right now. My existence as armour was given up so my soul could be released into my body from the seal my brother made. If that hadn't happened, the mediation between the armour and my soul would still exist. I would have come back with only my mind and body; I'd be a lifeless doll. That's what Sensei and I were theorizing before we left. Some of those heavy books in Mrs. Mitchell's collection I read when I first got there helped clarify some of that. I'd like to know where she got them from."

"In order to recreate life, you require toll payment to access the contents of the gate, then the Philosopher's Stone to recreate the dead life," somewhere in the back of his consciousness, Roy thanked Maes' discouragement of his study of human transmutation, "but you do not need the Philosopher's Stone to access this gate and retrieve items given up as 'toll payment'?"

"Exactly, you just need to find the entrance and a key," Al nodded to affirm the question, his eyes still holding determination firmly at the throat, "the only thing I want to do is take back from the gate my brother's toll fee; himself."

"Edward is not dead?" it boiled his blood beneath the calmed exterior. Everything he had allowed those boys to go through, everything everyone had encouraged them towards; there had been another way all along. It was so excruciatingly vivid… what their collective ignorance cost everyone…

"Edward?" Brigitte murmured to herself, picking out a familiar name from within the conversation as she turned to gaze back out the clear window.

 


"Al, let's bring Mom back."

"All is the world! One is me!"

"The world is constantly flowing. A person dying is part of that flow, that's why you must not think of reviving the dead."

"I'll give you my leg, arms or heart. So give him back. He's the only little brother I have!"

"Tell me what you are going to do with that body? I'll find a way to return your normal bod–."

Edward gasped so sharply he choked from the startle the hand resting on his shoulder gave him.

"I didn't think you heard me come in," Hohenheim stepped back from his daydreaming son beneath the setting sunlight flowing in from the gaping windows of the empty Thule cathedral, "I was almost hoping you wouldn't come here so soon after everything."

A worn out gaze was returned to Hohenheim. Unresponsive, Edward's lethargic expression eventually turning up into the dome ceiling he stood beneath.

"Are you sleeping, Edward? You're still up when I go to bed and you're awake before I am," the question was poised regardless of the fact that he realized there would be no response, "every time I step out of my room there's a light on downstairs and Winry's said you've been up at night. I know how hard it's been for me to sleep, but I think it's time you came home and reacquainted yourself with your bedroom before you make yourself sick."

At the centre of his great mystery, Ed abolished the words of concern as though they had never come into existence, "A trace of magnesium shouldn't have made any difference," he tapped the tip of his polished shoe against the engraved cement as his vision slowly fell from above.

"No, I doubt it did."

Letting himself fall back onto the dark shade of his shadow, Ed sat down upon the etching; crossing his legs as he slouched over in the silence that existed beyond his own voice, "And I watched Hess kill people before at the centre of this thing, and still nothing happened…"

"Edward," Hohenheim reached an aged hand to the cement as he joined his son upon the floor, legs not strong enough today to stand up under the weight of evidence, "that night a few weeks back when I came home late, I'd stayed at the Thule hall because something happened in this room," he waited while Ed gathered together what there was to be had of his undivided attention, "I had wanted to bring it up earlier, but more important matters came up."

Hohenheim wondered just how tired Edward could have been to allow the old man to sweep aside his curtain of bangs and brush a thumb high over a cheekbone that was still discoloured.

"I have no idea why, or any explanation how, but this sigil had a power flow. I've seen a lot of disturbing things in Germany, but that one was beyond my comprehension," human behaviour could be explained even in the cruellest of fashions, it was the impossibility that broke nature's laws that Hohenheim struggled with, "I didn't dare come within two meters of the cursed thing, but anyone who walked across it did so without any problem. By the end of the night the circulation had dissipated and I asked Dietrich to go over the original layout plans for the hall with me, but nothing stood out. I have no idea why it suddenly reacted at that moment."

"Do you believe him?" Ed turned an eye down to a semi functioning mechanical arm that he'd not asked anyone to deal with yet, "What he said happened to Brigitte… how Winry got here."

"Do you?" it was a rhetorical question, Hohenheim knew both of them had no choice but to accept the underlying circumstances, "We both know that what Max did was not a human transmutation, but he did take Winry out from the… other…"

Hohenheim's voice trailed off, listening to the subtle laughter Ed indulged in, the voice barely holding enough energy to fill the room with the sound.

"He opened the Gate, somehow, from this side… and of all the people in the world he could have chosen, he took Winry," Ed's amusement subsided as he shook his head in disbelief, "I don't buy that," Ed pulled himself to his feet; his mind returning to a distant thought, "… I wonder what happened to Brigitte."

"Have you talked to Winry about what she knows?" Hohenheim followed suit, rising up.

"I wanted to wait until she felt better before asking too many questions. It didn't feel like she was really coming to her senses until today," Ed gave a lazy shrug before turning curiously to his father, "Have you said anything to her?"

"Now and then when she's out of her room. I talked to her today to find out where you'd gone, I didn't expect to come home and find her by herself," Hohenheim watched as his words lowered Ed's eyes until the younger of the two took a step away.

"I just needed to go for a walk."

"This is a long walk to make."

"It wasn't bad."

The remnants of Ed's voice trailed off into the silence left behind. As though waiting for a cue, Hohenheim held his distance from the wandering son until a moment emerged where he could again invite him back home. The opportunity was delayed when Ed turned back, his expression held sternly.

"Why haven't you ever brought Al up?" Ed caught the old man's eyebrows rise, "you told everyone when I first came to London that I was your only child. You've never asked me about him or wonder how he'd dealt with being sealed in that armour for so long. I've never heard you wonder if he's alive, if I'd failed or not, how he might be doing if he were around… you just add your two cents worth into whatever I would have been thinking and are done with it."

"Edward, he's my youngest son, of course I think about him," as preposterous as the question was from a parent's point of view, Hohenheim knew Ed had every right to ask him, "and I think about what you boys did, and what you did in the end. I can empathize with it far too well. But, what do you want me to say?"

It left Ed to wonder; what was there to be said? There had always been an unspoken acknowledgement his father gave of Alphonse; he was the reason Ed was there. Alphonse was his son too; the younger son, younger brother, in what felt like a different life. A life the man had no part of. A life Ed knew his father would not go back to.

"Dad…" perhaps it was not the opinion on the younger son which Ed sought, "…everything I've done here has really had a purpose. I brought Al back; I believed in it before but now I know," and it made him feel light as air, "I know it worked, that changes everything somehow, I know I didn't just…" a sharp exhale transitioned Ed's thoughts, "after five years of this, I know he's there, he's living, he's breathing, he's eating, Winry said he's searching for me and I just need to–"

His father's hands were silencing, holding him mute once they'd come to rest high on his shoulders.

"I think you've been punished enough by now," Hohenheim felt the strained muscles beneath his hands give way, "Relax in the justification Alphonse has given you of your presence here, consider it his gift of peace and tranquility within mankind's hell, and make sure to thank Winry for delivering the message later. Exist in the moment before the feeling passes, and then build off of it another day. Get some lemon tea, take back that blanket from Winry for the night and fall asleep in front of the fire place like you use to."

The hands pushed off of Edward's shoulder as Hohenheim created a breeze while passing his son. He slid a single hand into a pocket; he made no attempt to soften his footsteps on approach to the exit, the tip of his ponytail flipped with each step.

"Dad, I –" Ed turned over his shoulder, only to be stopped by a silencing finger held high at the man's side.

"Look at my foolish son: Edward."

The set of questioning eyes widened at the booming sound of a father's voice. A voice calling out as if it were critical, yet blowing whimsically around he who stood in silence at the centre of the chamber. The sole of the son's shoe pressed into the cement while pivoting towards the calling; turning himself to watch the waving coattails of someone always a step ahead.

"Look at what he's done for himself, shame on him. He succeeded where his old man once failed and returned to him a child for a life that was, and for life that is. What's this world coming to when a son surpasses his father?"

The pale evening sunlight stretched Edward's solitary shadow long across the floor.

.
.

Brushing the soiled flesh palm on the brown coat hanging from his shoulders, Ed followed in the preceding footsteps back to a street where his ride home waited; uncounted minutes having passed since the walls held him silent within an unyielding echo of the lingering voice.

 


To Be Continued...


Notes:

RE: Human Transmutation. Human transmutation from a resurrection standpoint requires the Philosopher's Stone because an alchemist isn't powerful enough to complete the transmutation. Without the Stone you are only granted ACCESS to the person's life, you aren't handed the life. Ed did not require the Stone to retrieve Al's body because Human!Al was held as payment for the access privileges. Think of it like: Ed is at the front desk inside a building (the Gate) asking for his deposit back (Human!Al) which he paid to access the rest of the floors, but he was not asking for anything from those other floors, just the deposit. If Ed was asking for something from within the other floors of the building (IE: Trisha) that would be human transmutation.

Al said you need a sacrifice for 'right of passage' then the Stone to recreate the life, but when Tucker brought back Nina he didn't have to offer a sacrifice to get her? - Al's still missing a lot of information at this point, so his theories tend to be a little wrong (not his fault). Al doesn't know that the Philosopher's Stone is a door key and toll-exempt as well. Also, Al's never told that he had become the Philosopher's Stone; he was only told he was in possession of it. The family chose to tell Al this because they wanted to discourage him from thinking of going after the Stone during his quest.

In episode 51, once Al had used the Stone to resurrect his brother, he vanished into the Gate. Al didn't die; he just vanished to the Gate (Philosopher's Stone voodoo plus his mind and body were already stuck there). The Gate reclaimed Al's soul when he resurrected Ed to reclaim the initial toll from when the boys tried to resurrect their mother.

"So then… you need to pay a 'toll' to get your toll back?" - Yes, and Al wants to find a way around that. He said he's going to "take" Ed from the Gate. Ed's line of thinking when he got Al back was "exchange my life for his". Al's upping the ante. Equivalent exchange isn't as black and white as the boys once thought.

Didn't Izumi say at the end of the series that Ed offered the 5 years of memories up along with himself to get Al back? - Yes she did, and I'm expanding on it. Thank you episode 51 for cramming 7-some months into 10 minutes.

Chapter 14: Flow of Changeover

Summary:

Ed tried to help Winry adjust to her new surroundings while Roy and Riza escort Al on his search for answers.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Leaving the wives and remaining children behind, Hohenheim picked up the son that followed him out the shop door and placed him at his rightful spot: atop dad's shoulders. The warmth of the midday sun wrapped the earth below in a cozy lounging blanket on this peaceful day. As the father walked the path through town, the little son on high leaned into his father's head while he maintained his vigil. Hohenheim didn’t mind; he was used to it by now, even if his wife would nag him that their song was old enough to walk on his own two feet. Up there, it was guaranteed the boy wouldn’t scamper off.

"Daddy," like a kitten kneading a blanket, Ed's fingers played in his father's hair, his wide eyes examining the activity of the Resembool town, "where are we going now?"

Hohenheim glanced up to his son behind his field of vision, "Did you forget? I needed to go to the post office. That phone call yesterday told me a box with my name on it had arrived."

"Really?" Ed curled his lips with excitement over the potential of what could be in the box, "maybe someone sent you chocolate."

Clearly his son’s mind was still in the candy store and Hohenheim did his best not to laugh, "Perhaps someone did send me chocolate. But I'm going to guess it's a book."

"You have lots of those already," Ed's nose twisted, "mommy said that she's going to bury them in the field if you get more."

"Did she really?" Hohenheim's brow rose at what he suspected was an idle threat, "well, we'll have to have a talk with mommy and tell her that my books make poor fertilizer."

Though restrained by his father's hands, Ed still made the attempt to swing his legs as his voice sang, "I already told her you'd say that!"

"I'm sure you did," Hohenheim laughed.

 


 

"Ed?" stifling the concern within her voice, Winry lifted her eyes from the mess of paper thrown across the kitchen table and spilling onto the floor. "Ed!?" she pushed back her chair, careful to not disturb the organized disaster that had been growing over a string of days. Straightening out the oversized nightshirt swallowing her, Winry perched on the highest points of her toes and stepped through the chaos, holding several key pages in hand.

It was a pile – no, a mountain of research Ed had amassed in colour-coded folders. If she thought about it hard enough, Winry started to realize it would make her sick to her stomach to try and digest just how much effort Ed had put into all this, because he’d obtained so little in the end. The research organized in the blue folders had been all the brainstorming he and his father had come up with for the AutoMail. A far thicker stack organized inside a series of white folders had been the work he'd done for getting home. It was reassuring that Ed could still be relied upon for paperwork when it came to something he studied something he deemed to be of great importance. All of his work was numbered, dated, tabbed, sorted… though only in an order he himself understood.

Winry had asked again a week ago when it was that Ed had arrived in London – the answer was September of 1916. That date wasn’t sitting right with her; the first date in the AutoMail folder was over half a year later in May of 1917, the first date in the collection of white folders that would get Ed home was for December 1917.

She struggled to believe that Ed had put off his quest to return home for over a year.

Ed had eagerly spent days going over every bit of the ink he'd scrawled on all these papers. Ed’s highlights tended to focus on the alchemy side, but Winry’s interest gravitated to the AutoMail designs. She itched to get her hands dirty. What a formidable challenge: starting from absolute scratch. Ed promised to take her to the science and medical wings of the university when opportunity would allow for them to dig around the institution in peace.

AutoMail work was something comfortable she could bury herself in, because everything else Ed talked about made her head spin. The quest to get home filled Ed with a childish delight each time he went on at lengths about what he had learned with alchemy and the things he'd never dreamed he could understand. He was honestly happy to ramble on about alchemy to someone who’d listen, so Winry didn’t have the heart to tell him she didn’t understand most of it.

Ed had asked her if she remembered how he'd mentioned that he could see all the information he desired beyond the Gate, but could not reach it. It was suddenly there for him to touch, to read, to dissect, to interpret and then understand. The months Ed had spent on an adventure to Greece and the mountain of paperwork he tried to explain to her were mind-boggling. Not only was he talking in this foreign alchemy language, but he’d added mythology to the mix, and that seemed far more complex than alchemy could ever have been. Ed tried to explain to her how Amestris alchemy had some roots in ancient Greece, but he was a long way from figuring it out and Winry had no hope of understanding any of it by this point.

For all the intricate details and the amount of delight Ed revelled in, Winry struggled to swallow the idea that, as they were now, all this information was useless to them. Ed must have been aware of it – there was no way that he couldn't be. If Winry could see that, then so could he, so she figured he must be ignoring it. From the ancient Greeks to the Thule hall floor and back over to the Munich university, Winry wondered how hard it was for him to accept the impossibility of it all. Every path he’d invested in pointed him to an answer beyond his capabilities or his reach. The more time she spent with Ed, the more Winry started to lose interest in the useless facts and just focus on how it was affecting him. She was a little afraid to look too hard into his eyes... afraid of what she'd find.

"Dammit Ed! What are you doing?" dancing out of the kitchen to avoid displacing any of the precariously placed work, Winry had clear footing in the hallway and stormed through the house. Cutting into the living room, she could hear sounds beyond the back door. Throwing a curtain aside and jerking at the stubborn door handle until it opened, Winry stuck her head out into the yard.

"Ed! Wher… what are you doing?"

"I'm raking the leaves," he swung the rake over his left shoulder and cast a casual look her way.

Leaning up against the doorframe, Winry’s slippered foot propping the door open and she narrowed her gaze suspiciously, "That's nice of you."

Ed scoffed at the comment, "Better than waiting for him to tell me to do it," with the twist of his wrist, the rake was flung into the layers of crunchy leaves, "every year that old bastard goes 'Edward, can you rake the leaves in the yard?' like he can't do it himself. Then he nags. I tell him to screw off and he nags more. It's annoying. I'll do it before I have to listen to his nagging again."

Winry's posture slouched as she thought over his declaration. She considered telling him that the entire point of disobedience was to not do as his father was asking, but it seemed more amusing to let him think that he was somehow obtaining the upper hand in the situation this way. Winry giggled to herself, wondering how Hohenheim managed to train him so well.

"Now what?" Ed's shoulders fell as he watched her giggle.

"Do you want me to get those two fingers moving again?" a bemused grin ran across her face while changing topics, "I think I figured out an interim fix without having to re-do the internal mechanism."

"Yeah, whatever you think will work. You're the expert," Ed dusted his bare hand off on his slacks and made his way towards her, "have the notes been helping at all?"

"This place is so primitive! I can't believe you and your dad managed to get that much movement out of your arm. I need so much equipment from back home. I’m going to have to come up with substitutes for micro pinchers and clasps and binders for nerve endings – nothing here even comes close," rolling her eyes in despair, Winry sighed, "and those schematics for your arm are a nightmare, you're a disgrace to AutoMail makers everywhere."

A little vein pinched on Ed's forehead, "Gee thanks."

"But…" she'd not gone in search of Ed to discuss the issue of his AutoMail, "I'm still trying to wrap my head around all that research you had on Greece and alchemy, it was kind of interesting," she watched his expression change with surprise at her interest in the topic, "can I ask you something about your notes?"

More than happy to talk about it, Ed joined Winry to sit on the steps of the back porch, "Yeah, sure."

"That symbol that was on both Roze's baby and baby Diana…" from the few AutoMail papers she had taken with her, Winry produced the transmutation circle that haunted her, "you said this links to the Gate. Then you started talking about how the Greeks thought that there was a 'God-figure' who looked after the Gate, but there wasn't actually anyone there when you went. What was that God's name again?"

"Hermes. And it wasn't so much that he looked after the Gate, more like he helped guide people across the Gate or 'boundary' to the 'other world', which would be our world. There's a syncretistic alchemy term called 'Hermes Trismegistus' that is derived from that. It's sort of convoluted, why do you want to know?"

Winry laced her fingers, "What were his kid's names again?"

"Pan, Abderus, Hermaphroditus, and—"

"That one!" Winry interrupted him, "What did you say was wrong with him? Hermafrodidis?"

"He was fused into a hermaphrodite, because of some love story with a fairie… something like that," Ed answered.

"Okay, so…" Winry addressed the unsettled feeling in her stomach, "what's a hermaphrodite?"

The expression on Ed's face began to twist, "It's like a man and a woman fused together."

Winry reached out and plucked a fallen leaf from Ed's hair, "Can you do this with alchemy?"

Ed blinked, "… Why would you want to?"

Tossing the crusty leaf into the trampled brown grass, Winry hands clasped in her lap and she simply shrugged her answer.

"I… guess," Ed's nose wrinkled at the thought, "it's just as taboo as all other types of human transmutation though."

"But what if someone did?"

"Then they'd have a hermaphrodite."

The words of a frightening voice still haunted Winry's thoughts when she closed her eyes and she needed to know, "Is that something special? Like, for alchemy?"

"It might be?" Ed blinked, scratching his head feverishly as he wondered about the bizarre line of questions, "it's like some messed up combination using the principals of chimera creation and human transmutation. I've never seen any research on it at home – even our taboos have limits, I guess. I've seen it alluded to here on occasion, but I've never read into it. It's perverse alchemy, Winry."

Her shoulders fell, "Oh…"

 


 

"Do you have everything?"

Al glanced up to the brigadier general, "I think so," he shifted the backpack on his shoulders before returning to study the crowds.

A bell at Central Station began to sound and the steam from their locomotive’s engine let off a deafening whistle – ten minutes until departure. Al wiggled a finger in his ear and turned his attention to the send-off party converse with each other around him.

With a flick of his wrist, Mustang slid a card into Havoc's shirt pocket, "Where we can be reached."

"You betcha," Havoc patted the spot securely.

"Sir, are you certain that you and Major Hawkeye do not require additional escorts for your journey?" Armstrong's concerned expression fell over everyone.

"I'm still considered off duty until I receive my medical clearance," Mustang's hands slid into his pockets, "and I don’t want to risk rousing suspicion if I take too many bodies on a personal venture right now."

Folding his arms across his chest, Havoc rolled his cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other, his words toiling with trouble, "It looks 'suspicious' enough that you're taking Major Hawkeye away with you on a personal venture, don't you think?"

Both Lieutenant Ross and Lieutenant Breda found themselves biting their cheeks and they quickly turned away in search of something else to do.

Havoc merely shrugged and didn’t back down from his quip.  Holding his poker face as he spun the cigarette, he grinned at the two vicious gazes he was getting from the two people in question, "I'm just saying… because the major is not on leave anymore."

"I'm using my holiday time," Riza smacked him with blunt words.

"Ohh… okay, holiday time."

If looks could kill, or if Mustang's gloved hand would have not made a scene, Havoc would have been dead already and he knew it.

"Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong," Mustang redirected the conversation, "put your concerns at ease.  The two of us will be fine accompanying Alphonse on this trip," he gave a light laugh to an afterthought, "I don't think Mrs. Hughes would have allowed him to leave the house otherwise."

Al started to giggle nervously, remembering how strongly Gracia had objected when he had insisted on joining the officers out to the laboratory where Shou Tucker had begun his studies almost ten years ago.

It had been almost a week since he'd shared his goals with Brigadier General Mustang, and three days since Mr. Mitchell had reluctantly turned Alphonse over to Mrs. Hughes after his relentless requests. He'd pestered the man relentlessly to allow him to stay at the Hughes' residence, and he could certainly tell that Mitchell was disheartened by the requests. But Al knew that he needed to be out of that house and in an environment where he could move forward.

He couldn’t help but think it felt as though Nina and her nurse were glad to see him go, but Brigitte picked up that Al was leaving and promptly unpacked his bags the night he was to leave. After she was caught, she was escorted into the depths of the house in a frantic fit, and that was the last time Al had seen her. He hoped she was doing okay.

Mustang snapped open his briefcase, "I would request that you and Lieutenant Ross continue the investigation into Mrs. Curtis' disappearance, then try and locate where that damned stubborn officer was transferred to and clear up his statements about his daughter's activities," from the briefcase, he produced the envelope containing the case report and interviews from the marketplace incident.

His eyes widening, Armstrong took the report into his hand, "Isn't this… what Lieutenant Havoc misplaced?"

Havoc began to shake his head, "Thanks for getting me out of all that shit I wound up in."

"Keep a close eye on it for me," smirking, Mustang turned the grin onto Havoc, "and if you want to be a little more useful, see what you can find about the older girl the Mitchell family just adopted."

"Oh hey, speaking of the Mitchells," Havoc took the cigarette from his mouth, "I still have that black bag with all that photo equipment the runner from Communications left in the office. I know you said it wasn't yours, but I caught up with the officer who dropped it off and asked why he thought it belonged to you. Apparently the girl you and Alphonse were with that day had been carrying it around, and he thought she was your niece or something. Didn't you say that girl was staying with the Mitchell's?"

Al's eyes widened, "That's Brigitte's!" he turned to Mustang, "it's full of camera equipment. She lost it the day she ran into you."

"Oh, is that that what that is?" Roy raised an eyebrow.

Havoc popped the cigarette between his teeth, "I don't know why she'd want to drag that around everywhere, it's like a lead weight."

Folding his arms curiously, Mustang glanced down to Alphonse, "The non-communicative girl carries photo equipment around?"

"Mostly photo equipment. The Mitchell's nurse tore the bag apart the first day I met her. She dumped the equipment all over the floor and started manhandling it. I think she might have broken some of it because Brigitte threw a screaming fit until she stopped. A bunch of the house staff showed up to find out what was going on and the nurse left without helping clean it up," Al looked off in thought as he tried to recall what had been inside, "there was a white paper bag with some old 1800's photographs. Um… a bunch of papers that looked like basic math formulas, I don't know what that was all about. A couple black boxes that held equipment pieces, a bag of powder that made everyone sneeze…"

Again the train bells sounded and the whistle from the train's front car drowned out all other noises, including Al's voice.

Hawkeye's hand came to Al's shoulder as she motioned to the train steps, "We should take our seats."

"Havoc," Mustang narrowed his expression as he recalled the questionable child from a week ago, "see if you can't use that bag as leverage somehow."

"I'll do my best to be sly and conniving like you, Chief," Havoc saluted.

Stepping up the stairs into the train car, Al glanced back over his shoulder at the officers who'd remained to see him off. He offered a wave, then picked up the pace as passengers flooded in. Al dashed into the train and spun into the private cabin Mustang had arranged. Dumping his jacket and travel bag into the corner, Al bounced himself up onto the seat and folded his arms on the windowsill while he looked out onto the platform. His eyes continued to scan the platform swollen with people while Mustang and Hawkeye settled around him. Watching the crowds full of families, military officers, and passengers preparing for arrivals and departures, Al felt a pang of disappointment hit him.

"It's too bad Mrs. Hughes wouldn’t come to see us off," Al turned around to face the two officers, "do you know why she didn't want to come?"

Hawkeye answered slowly, "Superstition, I would guess."

Mustang distanced himself from the question and snapped open the day's paper instead.

Al looked uneasily between the two before returning his attention out the window, wondering why it felt like a question he should not have asked.

 


 

"AH! Edward, thank you so much for letting me dress Winry up," Tilly's grin ran from ear to ear as she hung over the back of the couch in Edward's living room, "some of my clothes look better on her than they do on me!"

"I'm afraid to see what you did with her," Ed narrowed an eye at the flamboyant woman while she clapped her hands.

"I don't understand why she wouldn't let me cut her hair. I don't know any girl who has her hair past her shoulders. She looked so plain with her hair down, so I pinned it up on the back of her head. She looked far better that way."

Ed glanced over to his father sitting on the chair at the corner of the room. Peering over his paper, the old man adorned the same concerned slightly worried expression as his son carried.

"Let me show you!" like a giddy child, Tilly spun on her toes and darted out of the room.

"I claim no responsibility for the things my wife does with your friend," Oberth said flatly, folding his arms.

"Yeah, well, I'm holding you responsible if I go to bed with a black eye tonight," Ed's hand came to his cheek at the thought. Rising to his knees on the couch, Ed peered over the back as he heard the pairs of footsteps descending the stairs.

"Don't look yet!" Tilly ordered.

Ed sat back down and waited. Folding his arms, he listened to the sounds of their footsteps as the women came up behind him.

"Okay!"

The two men on the couch, and the one pretending he was engrossed in the newspaper, peered over at Winry.

With a decorative hat on her head, Winry's hair had been curled and pinned to the back of her head. Her body stood draped in a pale green, sleeveless, straight-line dress with straps that pinched at the shoulders and a length that stretched long past her knees. A wide ribbon belt, tied in the back with a bow, was wrapped around her hips. Her legs were concealed by stockings and on her feet were a pair of silver, pointy-toed, heeled shoes.

Ed blinked, raising an eyebrow, "Yeah, Winry does pull off your clothes better than you."

Hohenheim suddenly choked back a laugh, "Edward, if you're brave enough to say that in English, then say it in German so Tilly can understand you."

"What? I'm just saying it looks nice," he protested, momentarily switching to German for the other companions, "it looks good on her, Tilly."

The woman grinned, as though she had never had any doubt of that.

"It looks very nice, Winry," Hohenheim nodded, though he gave a cautious look when he caught the twitch in her eyebrow.

"Yeah, I've seen lots of girls wear those over the summer, it looks pretty good on you," Ed folded his arms over the back of the couch as he looked her over.

"E-Ed…" using her sweetest sounding voice, Winry's grin grew wide as she wobbled in the shoes, "it's hideous."

Edward tilted his head, frowning, "No, it looks alright."

"Ed," Winry fought to keep her voice as pleasant sounding as she could, "it has no waist line, there's a big bow on my backside, this tie feels like it's going to fall off my hips at any moment, and it hangs off me like a rag. It is the most unflattering and hideous piece of cloth I have ever put on."

"Then change," Ed sunk back down in the couch, "I'm not going to stop you if you don't like it, but it looks fine."

"How can you sit there and say that! This isn't attractive at all. I won't believe you for a minute if you say this looks fine," glancing to Tilly quickly, Winry shuffled up behind where Ed sat and crouched down, her chin resting on the back of the couch, "all the dresses look terrible like this. That woman was showing me pictures in the magazines when she was curling my hair. The things they wear are so uncomfortable and make them look years older. It's bad enough I didn't get a seventeenth birthday, now I look like I've skipped all the way up to twenty-five!"

"I can't do anything about that," he grumbled in frustration at Winry's displeasure, "I can't change what people wear. That's just the way it is, you're going to have to get used to it," it was becoming a phrase he'd use several times a day.

Her fingers digging into the back of the couch in frustration, Winry scowled down at him, "Since when were you such a pacifist? I just want a skirt like my old one. These are all itchy and even the stockings are itchy… everything makes me want to scratch my legs."

"You won't be able wear anything like what you wore back home, Winry," Hohenheim's paper came down into his lap – he would end the complaining and snap the rising tension with a decisive blow, "fact of the matter is, you cannot wear a skirt that short in public.  A woman's skirt doesn't come up above her knees and that's a rule you'll have to abide by."

His petrified eyes quickly away, Ed gave thanks that it was his dad who'd said that and not him.

"Gah…" turning her downtrodden expression away from Hohenheim, Winry poked Ed to regain his attention, "okay, so if I'm going to be forced to wear this uncomfortable getup, could… you ask your friend… if she can help fix the, um… top half of the dress?"

"What's wrong with the top half of the dress?" Ed titled his head in confusion of the question.

"It's uncomfortable," Winry's fingers ran over her shoulders.

"You need to tell me where it's uncomfortable, so I can tell Tilly how to tailor the dress."

"Please don't tell me you're that stupid! Couldn't you tell when I was standing there?"

"Winry," frowning sharply in frustration, Ed rose up to challenge her, "I do not know what is wrong with your dress!"

"It needs a bra , Ed."

With the flick of his wrists, Hohenheim brought the newspaper back up in front of himself and continued reading.

Ed found himself sunk into the cushions of the couch, staring forward into the unlit fireplace. A wrench upside his head would have done less damage than her statement did. He hoped he hadn't turned any shade of red and quickly touched the back of his hand to his face to make sure. This was quickly becoming a conversation he'd never wanted to carry on with her.

"Ed…" Winry whined as she slumped into the back of the couch, "please just ask her for me. I don't know how to ask, she's not wearing one, and I don't think anyone in the magazines had one on. I can't even point it out to her if I wanted to."

"Why didn't you need one before now?" the monotone question dropped from his mouth.

"I was hiding in your shirts and sweaters," she reminded him in a hoarse whisper, "it's not like anyone was going to see me in public! Those Thule-whatever people took everything I was wearing before I got into that white thing."

Ed's hand slowly peeled down his face – his intuition had been right, having Tilly over to dress Winry up was a bad idea, "Why did I have to know this Winry?"

"Who else did you want me to discuss this with? I'm not going to ask your dad."

"He's sitting in the room," Ed quickly side glanced over to his father who held the paper high in front of his face, "he can hear you."

"Ed…"

Giving a reluctant sigh, Ed shook his head and looked over to a very concerned looking Tilly who'd sat herself down on the arm of the couch next to her husband.  He took a deep breath, "Winry wants to know if you have a bra for her."

"A what?" Tilly folded her arms as she frowned at the question, "what's that for?"

His expression collapsing, Ed wondered how he wound up stuck in a conversation like this, "Um…"

"A brassier, Tilly," Hohenheim put the newspaper back down in his lap.

"Oh…" she blinked at the enlightenment; "I don't think you can get those here. I saw some in a fashion magazine, but I haven't seen them for sale anywhere."

Nodding slowly, Hohenheim glanced over towards his narrow eyed son and Winry hidden behind the back of the couch, "I didn't think she would be so lucky."

"Perhaps she should have a corset though… she's pretty well endowed, it'd probably be more comfortable than having everything bounce around," Tilly tapped her chin in thought, "but for that she won't fit into anything I have.  I can take her out another day to find something if she'd like?"

Ed paled as he shifted in the couch cushions, "I don't want to tell her that."

"Winry," Hohenheim's voice rose to draw her out from behind the couch, "I'm afraid you're not going to find something like that here."

Her cheek twitched a little as she looked on at Hohenheim; it was even more uncomfortable discussing this with an 'old man' than it was with Ed, "Why not…? Aren't there stores that sell them?"

"It's not something that's common place and is more of a fashion trend. Germany is a very poor country right now, I don't expect you'd find anything. Besides which, I've heard that they don't work very well, are somewhat uncomfortable, and will be nothing like what you're used to. If you're insecure about it, you can either tie yourself down or wear a corset like a lot of other women do."

Winry responded with silence, horrified by what she'd been told.

" Why do you know stuff like this?" Ed's voice squeaked, unable to disguise the discomfort he was having with his father's involvement in the conversation.

Somewhat unimpressed, Hohenheim stood up from his chair and approached the withering young adults around his coffee table. He was a little more worldly than his son was giving him credit for. Tossing the newspaper down on the table, Hohenheim made sure the look on his face conveyed his general displeasure over the lack of maturity his son had been showing over the last ten minutes, "There are some women in the University, Edward. When an American or British magazine shows up in the department I usually get the honour of translating it."

"Oh…"

"Besides which, you forget how old I am and how many years I was together with your mother…" Hohenheim narrowed his eyes, courting a slightly wicked thought for his uncomfortable son, "…buying clothes with your mother, doing laundry with your mother, sleeping in the same bed as your mother, doing 'adult things' with your mother. If you think that I don't know what Trisha wore under–"

It took Ed's mind a moment to process what he was hearing before the blood-curdling scream tore out. 

The moment the sound emerged, Winry shrieked with laughter.

Both of Ed's hands suddenly shot out in front of his body, "That's enough, no more, I don't want to know ANYTHING about you and mom, EVER."

"Edward…"

"I don't even want to THINK about it…" Ed quickly flung himself to his feet and made his way around the couch, "this conversation is never coming up again."

"Ed!" Winry's voice perked as she hopped onto the back of the couch, "how old are you? Adults actually do discuss these sorts of things."

Ed's arms flailed in the air, "Yes, Winry, I know they do… but this is entirely different."

"How's that?" her lips curled up in amusement.

Firing an unsettled eye back at her, his brow twitched as he pushed the words out from between his teeth, "Because it involves my parents, and I . do . not . want . to . know ."

Edward vanished from the room before Winry was able to take a deep enough breath to reply.

Tilly and Hermann exchanged glances before looking around the room uncertain of what just happened.

Hopping down from the back of the couch, Winry folded her arms as she frowned, "How does Ed think he was born?"

Snatching up the newspaper again, Hohenheim settled back in his chair and began flipping through the pages to find the spot he'd left off at, "He better not think the stork brought him, he won't be too happy when I tell him how it actually happened."

A moment of amused, thoughtful silence passed before Winry burst into a fit of giggles and scampered out of the room after Ed, leaving Hermann and Tilly behind to wonder what on earth they had just been witness to.

 


 

"Still holding?"

Havoc's forehead smacked down on the desk, the phone pressed tightly to his ear, "I'm still holding…"

Breda laughed, patting the top of the zippered black bag, "You're a lost and found service now."

"This sucks," Havoc whined, "I have a thousand other things to do than sit on hold waiting for the Prime Minister's calls to clear up, just so we can tell him that we have that."

"It'll be the same tomorrow and the day after too. You need a direct line like Hakuro," smirking at the thought, Breda hooked his index finger through the loop on the zipper and opened the bag, "did you ever get around to looking through all this?"

"Yeah, I got through most of it," Havoc sat up, watching as his friend peered inside, "looks like the camera my grandmother used."

Lifting the heart of the equipment out from the bag, Breda whistled, "Cripes, why would some little girl tote this around?"

"Beats me," Havoc returned to swinging the telephone cord around in boredom, "someone should buy her a new one, I don't think something that old can even take pictures in colour."

Breda's arm burrowed into the bag; one by one, the lieutenant began pulling out the pieces of Brigitte's tripod, flash stand, and camera set up. A little white paper bag was set down amongst the chaos. Setting a few square black boxes down, Breda opened each one to find many of the smaller pieces embedded in cloth-filled velvet-lined cases.

"It’s sure fancy and she definitely took care of it," he admired as he shuffled the boxes on the desk.

Examining a heavier piece from one of the velvet-lined cases, Havoc's brow rose when he attempted to return the part, but discovered the cloth bed had a hard, unforgiving spot. Poking at it, Havoc lifted the velvet layer away to see what was tucked away under the soft bed. Between his thumb and index finger, the officer pulled out a child sized animal-hide wallet.

"Interesting," Breda snatched the brown wallet out of Havoc’s hands, "I wonder what girls keep in their wallets now-a-days."

"Breda…" Havoc rolled his eyes.

"What? My sister use to write love notes and keep them there, they were priceless," a malicious smile grew across his face as the officer started to investigate the contents, "if she's got the wallet hidden away like that, then I bet there's something good inside."

"Mustang said that the girl doesn't even speak normally, how do you expect… her…" Havoc's voice trailed off as he caught watched Breda’s brow crunch with confusion, "what?"

Placing the wallet down, Breda slid a hand-written note across the desk, "What the hell does that say?"

Havoc straightened in his chair. Taking the paper in his hand, Havoc leaned into the note as he tried to break down the English looking letters into some coherent form, "Well, they did say she made up her own language… maybe she writes that way too?"

Removing the paper from Havoc's fingers, Breda opened a card that had been folded in half and placed it into the Lieutenant's hands, "Yeah, and this one is typed."

"What the hell?"

Havoc's eyes repeatedly scanned the document while Breda continued pulling out untranslatable objects: ticket stubs, store receipts, hand written notes, postage stamps, foreign bills and coins…

"Looks like this is an information card of some sort," Havoc placed the document down, "the top line has the girl's name in it. How the heck do you pronounce this? Shmittenhelm?"

Setting the wallet down, Breda dumped the coins in his hand onto the table, "I've been stationed in some pretty remote places but I've never seen coins like this. Where's all this shit from?"

Havoc's finger came to rest at a date on the card, "That 1908 date had better not be her birthday… she's a hell of a lot older than that."

"What the hell is that warped looking B?" Breda's eyes narrowed as he spun the information card around.

Balancing the phone receiver on his shoulder, Havoc shot out of his seat and began extracting the remaining contents from Brigitte's bag, "Breda, see if you can't find a manufacturer's label on some of this stuff."

"Woah, Havoc," from within the wallet, Breda unfolded sheet of white paper, "… Did Alphonse make this for her?"

Havoc watched wide eyed as his companion placed a sheet littered with hand-drawn transmutation circles down on the table. This just kept getting weirder and weirder. Studying the creased piece of paper, Havoc slowly shook his head with uncertainty, "We'd have to ask him…"

Setting the paper aside, Breda began inspecting the pieces of equipment he'd pulsed out, examining each one for some indication of its origin. Across from him, Havoc yanked the bag around closer to him and his hands dove in like he was searching for contraband, patting down the inside and pulling out anything he found in the pockets. The more papers he found, the worse the two officers' confusion grew – there wasn't much more by way of alchemy, but it looked like there were a lot of unfinished rudimentary mathematics equations.

"… I don't get it.  This doesn't make sense," Havoc sank back into the chair as he scanned the confusion laid out before him. Taking the white paper bag from the table, the lieutenant shook the contents out into his hand and unwound the ribbon haphazardly tied around the bundle. Photographs – nothing but black and white photographs. There was countryside scenery, unfamiliar structures that seemed hundreds of years old, people in clothing that people in his grandmother's generation had worn. Havoc couldn’t help but question just how old these pictures were and where they were fr—

"Good Afternoon, Prime Minister Mitchell's office, are you still holding?"

Havoc fumbled the things in his hands to the floor, startled by the sudden voice coming from the receiver on his shoulder.  He scrambled to attach the phone to his ear as he bent down to pick up the images from the floor, "Yes, I'm still holding."

The white paper bag tipped off the edge of the desk, popped off the back of Havoc's head, and landed in the mess.

"Were you holding for Prime Minister Mitchell or General Hakuro?" the sweet little voice asked.

Havoc wrapped the cord around his arm so the receiver would stop slipping, "I didn't realize this was a dual line."  He snatched up the paper bag and flicked it open to shovel the photographs away.

"The Prime Minister and the General have been in conference all day…"

Havoc squinted.

"… calls for both men have been redirected to this line."

He flicked the edges of the bag, "There's something stuck in here."

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Sorry, I guess that explains why I waited so long for the Prime Minister, huh?" Reaching his finger in, Havoc plucked a photograph off of the inside of the bag, stuck face-first to paper by a sticky thumbprint.

"I can put you directly through to the Minister now if you wish?"

Havoc shook the single photograph out from the bag, "That would be gr—"

Breda looked up, wondering what caught Havoc’s tongue.

"What was that, sir?"

Breda peered over the desk, "Havoc?"

"I'll call back," Havoc's hand blindly slammed the phone down.

"What're you doing!?" Breda squawked, questioning the lieutenant as the taller man rose to his feet, "you were on hold for nearly an hour, why'd you hang up?"

Straightening the mess of photographs in his hand, all sense of whimsy in Havoc's character had vanished. He sharply looked over at the clock, "Do you suppose they've passed through their checkpoint yet?"

Spinning around to check the time, Breda raised a single eyebrow, "Nah, we just missed them."

"Shit, I'll have to leave a message at the hotel," an aura of grave seriousness absorbed the officer as his hand darted into his pocket, "they have to get on the next train back to Central."

Breda was at a complete loss over what was going on, "What? Why?"

With the flick of his thumb, Havoc set the solitary, sticky photograph from the white paper bag down on top of the entire menagerie.

 


 

"What is she doing?" Albrecht scratched the back of his head, sorting through the growing confusion around why Winry, still dressed in her long brown coat, black high-heeled boots, and bucket hat was sitting on the table, rather than in the chair.

"Winry!" Ed called to her in English, "get off the table and sit like a lady."

The slits of Winry's eyes glared her reply, "What did you just say?"

"Girls don't sit on the tables, they sit in chairs. You have to act…" Ed scratched his cheek uncomfortably at the statement he was making, "dainty around people."

"Dainty!?" the word disgusted her.  Not that she didn't believe girls could act dainty at times, but just the idea that it was Ed of all people telling her this, "I'm in an engineering workshop; I should be in overalls, not fancy pointy boots."

It was supposed to have been a private, secluded venture: Ed taking Winry into the engineering lab during the morning lecture blocks. He'd literally snuck her in like it was some kind of stealthy break and enter operation, but he didn’t want to gamble with how the dean, program chair, or any of the other professors or executives would react to his attempt to bring a woman into the engineering labs. He'd taken the keys from his father, who'd reluctantly borrowed them from an associate, since the labs were never used during lecture hours.

All the sneaking was for not – just before 9am, the locked door to the lab had opened. Nearly killing Ed with fear, he'd actually been relieved to see that his guests were Albrecht Haushofer and Rudolf Hess, escorted by his father. At least it wasn’t anyone else. Ed learned that Hess had been late for class and spotted them. He'd approached Hohenheim in Karl Haushofer's office after class had let out, and though Karl himself had a lecture, Hohenheim was left with little choice but to take the other two younger men to visit.

The moment the men had entered the room, Winry scrambled to put her long jacket back on and she wrapped it tightly, refusing to let anyone stare her in the hideous dress. She sat herself back on the table, where she had been while stripping the wire's she'd use to thread Ed's somewhat broken hand, and buried her nose in his AutoMail documentation and her notes. Everyone in the room heard Ed’s hand slap his forehead when she refused to get off the table and the two unfamiliar faces in the room laughed at the antics going on in a language they could not understand.

"She seems brave and has character. You know what Ed," Albrecht grinned, "you should let me take Winry-Goddess out to dinner."

Hess laughed at the way Albrecht phrased her name.

"No," Edward replied flatly.

"Oh come on," Albrecht coaxed, "I'm studying English, it would give me a chance to have someone to practice with. Besides, not too many guys get to walk around town with a girl who looks that nice."

Ed cleared his throat, "No."

"I think Edward is being a bit over protective," Hess smirked, his voice playing with devilish undertones, "either that or he's selfish and doesn't want to share the wealth."

"You're disgusting Rudolf," Edward's flat response only made his company laugh more. Ed shot a vicious glare over to his father who was deliberately paying no attention.

Albrecht's hand came to rest on Ed's shoulder, a sly grin on his face, "You keep saying it: she's not your girlfriend, so you have no reason to object to me taking her out for dinner."

"Albrecht…" Ed's eyes narrowed.

Hess laughed, "I think you're making him mad, Albrecht, he didn't call you 'Hoffie'."

"… last time I checked you had a girlfriend."

Albrecht's lips curled up in amusement as the arm that once rested on the shoulder now wrapped around Ed's neck with a deliberately devious laugh, "… So?"

Ed let loose a disgruntled sigh, shoving the arm away, "Yeah, well unfortunately Winry's going back home soon, so you'd better not get too attached to her," he widened the line between the German men and Winry.

"That's right," Hohenheim’s words were stiff as he stepped into the conversation, like he was bracing himself, "Edward and Winry are heading back to England right away."

"I'm what?" Ed blinked over to his father.

The two men turned, raising their eyebrows at the statement, "Really? How soon?"

Nodding affirmatively, Hohenheim advanced the conversation around his dumbfounded son, "Winry needs to visit her parents and Edward offered to take her on the trip. I don't think she'll be traveling alone after what's happened."

"I did what?" Ed switched to English, picking up Winry's attention, "I'm what !?"

"That's such a shame," Hess' expression fell sharply, "we're organizing a get together to celebrate Adolf's release soon. I'd hoped the both of you would be in attendance. When is everyone departing?"

Ignoring the noise behind her, Winry's hand came to her chin as she glared down at the pieces of paper before her.

Frowning, Hohenheim dressed his ‘disappointment’ with a sigh, "If I remember right, they depart a few days before Adolf's release, unfortunately."

"What… the… hell…" Ed's English words fell slowly, bitterly, and meticulously off his lips, again collecting Winry’s unimpressed gaze.

"That's disappointing. For all the trouble that there was, Adolf told me he owed Edward a tall glass of 'Marianna's Finest' red wine."

"… do you think…"

An unexpected swell of alarming concern rushed into Hohenheim's voice as he addressed Hess, "Excuse me…?"

"… YOU ARE DOING!!?!?" Ed's strong left fist came crashing down onto the counter.

"Shut up, Ed!" Winry barked, her voice echoing in the room as she traced her fingers over the schematics.

Exchanging a concerned glance with Albrecht, Hess stumbled through his sentence while his eyes darted from Winry’s sudden outburst, to the louder English outburst from Ed, and back to the unexpected concern coming from Hohenheim, "Yes, he wanted to treat Edward to some drinks as an apology."

Hohenheim's hand came up into Edward's face before the younger Elric could continue his ranting, "No, that's not what I'm asking, I—"

Ed slapped his father's hand away, "I am NOT taking Winry to London."

"Ohhh… damn," Winry's teeth teetered on the knuckles of the fist she’d brought to her mouth, her eyebrows knotting together as an epiphany struck her over what she'd figured out in Ed's AutoMail documentation.

"I didn't think you were stupid enough to think I'd been KIDDING when I said there was no way in HELL I'd—"

The room of men gave a collective yelp – in the blink of an eye Ed was down on his knees, forehead to the ground and hands clasped over his head.

No one had seen what struck Edward on the side of his head, but they heard the noise it made, and heard it land, and two pairs of wary male eyes turned horrified expressions over to the cross look Winry wore.

"What the hell is wrong with you Winry!?" Ed screeched, clawing at the spot where a screwdriver rattled off his skull.

"Stop yelling at your dad like a banshee!" she screamed back and everyone except Ed paled at her vicious sounding retort, even if they couldn’t understand it. Winry's finger shot to the chair her feet were on while her expression threatened vicious repercussions if he didn't listen, "sit yourself down in this chair and shut up. "

Ed got to his feet. Much to the surprise of everyone, especially Hohenheim, his son scowled his way over to the indicated seat.

"You're screaming over London like some spoiled brat. What would you do if I wanted you to take me to London?" Winry lifted her chin high as she slid off the table; like no one else was in the room, the two transplants from Resembool entered into their own little world.

"What do you even know about London?" Ed bit back as he sat down sharply, "has that stupid old man been talking to you about going to London?"

"Yes," the palm of Winry's hand came down between Ed's shoulder blades as she thrust him harshly against the table's edge, "and don't talk about your dad that way, he's taking care of us – could you even afford to put a roof over your head on your own?" Sitting down on the table top again, Winry took the pins and stripped wires she'd been working on and began to thread his fingers like a master seamstress. "He said that they speak English in London, so I don't know why we're still here when we could be there."

"The Thule hall and transmutation circle are here."

"Yeah, and like you keep saying, the hall and circle are not going anywhere or doing anything," a malicious curl came across her lips as Winry spoke through a toothy grin, "I think that you, your dad, and I should go to London."

"Then the two of you can go, I don't care what you do," Ed bore his teeth and scowled back to challenge the deliberate attempt to aggravate him further.

Hopping off the table, Winry released his hand and issued inarguable instructions, "Unbutton your shirt, I need your shoulder."

Completely tuned out to the silent observation two absolutely flabbergasted German men and one very intrigued father figure had placed them under, Ed started unbuttoning his shirt and Winry unwrapped herself from her jacket.  Dropping it in a heap on the floor, Winry popped the pins that kept her ‘waistband’ from sliding off her hips, let it fall around her ankles, and she kicked all the fabric at her feet away. Snatching up scissors from the table, Winry unwound a double-arm length of red wire they were helping themselves to for repairs and snipped it from the wooden roll. Firmly tying the wire around her waist, Winry hiked the dress up above her knees before crouching down to unlace the boots. Without enough dexterity in his right arm to get it out of the sleeve on its own, Ed took his dress shirt off and let everyone in the room see what they could of his crudely mounted AutoMail arm visible around his undershirt. Kicking the uncomfortable, high-heeled boots she'd been balancing on into the pile of clothes, Winry picked up a replacement screwdriver from an adjacent shelf and stomped back over to Ed as he leaned over the table and laid his arm out for her. Winry collected an extra wooden chair, whipped it around next to him, and promptly hopped up onto it to stand on the seat.

"You know what, Ed."

He choked when her kneecap came down between his shoulder blades.

Shifting a her weight over his upper body and pinning Ed against the table top, Winry's sassy smirk curled, "I was looking over your AutoMail notes a couple of minutes ago and I realized that I had missed something when I was thinking about getting your fingers going," her left hand felt around his shoulder where flesh became metal but found her best grip was going to have to be his neck. Winry locked the fat screwdriver into the system notch at the back of his mechanical shoulder, "it was easier than I thought – all that I needed to do was re-thread your hand after repairing the broken parts. But, the big hurdle is figuring out how to get the current flowing to your hand again, so your fingers will regain their movement, and I think the best way to do that…"

With the sharp twist of her wrist, Winry turned the notch counter clockwise.

Eyebrows in the room rose as Ed's head jerked at the action and Winry re-gripped the screwdriver, wrenching the tool around in a nearly complete clockwise circle.

Ed screamed.

A whole-bodied, excruciating scream sent shivers rippling through the spines of the observant German men watching the escapade, their eyes forced wider than they’d thought possible by the sound. Winry used her body weight to hold Ed down when he involuntarily, but violently lurched at a merciless feeling she had not warned him to prepare for. Once the physical reaction passed, Winry tossed the screwdriver onto the table next to Ed's head and she hopped down from her perch. Dusting her hands off before slapping them down on her hips, Winry turned a haughty, narrowed gaze over to the two German men standing slack jawed and mortified over what they’d just seen. She watched Hohenheim hastily leave the room to intercept any concerned party arriving to investigate a man's scream and then peered down at Ed’s heavily breathing, but otherwise limp body lying over the table. 

"Is to disconnect and reconnect the entire nervous system operation of your whole arm."

"You…" his voice shaky, a pained and unsteady eye opened to look up at her, "could have said something."

Winry smiled sweetly down at his horrid discomfort, "It's fixed now."

 


 

Two sets of eyes kept watch up and down the platform.  But, when one would sigh in frustration or displeasure and choose to look off into the wilderness beyond the train tracks, the other remained vigilant as ever.

Roy's hand clawed over his face while his head rolled back uncomfortably over the top of the bench, "How long has it been?"

"Ten minutes since the last time you asked," Riza answered.

"Dammit…"

Riza's dutiful eye kept young Al in her line of sight while he picked away at what he wanted to eat from a family cookery down the platform, "Should we join Alphonse, Sir?" an eyebrow rose in thought, "we haven't eaten since this morning and it's almost dinner hour."

"When I finally see smoke rising from that engine car, then I'll be hungry."

They'd been stuck at this station for hours.

The train they had arrived on rolled in with time to spare, but the connecting train had yet to receive clearance for departure. Twenty minutes after an initial denial due to inclement weather, the phone lines between the city and station had gone down. The next station still hadn't been able to relay an okay.

They could see it in the east: the towering storm clouds that billowed up into the far reaches of the sky, stretching from one end of the skyline to the other. Lurking out in the distance, but drifting north to south rather than east to west, the storm was a tease for anyone who actually wanted it. But, for the trio who wanted the storm gone all together, it was infuriating. If any of the valleys that surrounded the town had been washed out, not only were the phone lines inoperative, but the train would not be able to pass. The idea of slower, less reliable, and far less direct transport like a car or a van was starting to enter the debate over what they may have to do next. 

Nothing was being accomplished at the moment, however. Before her superior's doldrums could infect her, Riza rose to her feet, brushed her beige skirt smooth, and wandered in Al's direction, leaving Roy behind to manage his misery on his own.

Al greeted her with a smile; his arms folded over the edge of the counter and his chin resting in them while he teetered around in a chair at the elder baker's stand, "The cinnamon buns are really good!"

"I have fresh soup buns that'll be ready in about five minutes!" the old man brimmed with amusement at his young customer's endless appetite, "did you want some soup and buns after the cinnamon rolls, young man?"

Al gave a vigorous nod as he popped the remainder of the cinnamon bun into his mouth.

"Don't eat us out of house and home." Riza felt like laughing – there was no way she could forget the kind of boy Alphonse Elric had been alongside his brother, but this younger, solo, less burdened version of him had a way about him that both she and Roy were still trying to wrap their heads around. Ed didn't respond well to gentle treatment or what he viewed as coddling, he liked firm words, but once Riza tried dropping the military firmness from her voice during the train ride, Al started to open up. He was far more receptive to a softer approach and easier tone of voice.

Swallowing his last bite, Al sheepishly grinned his childish smile as Riza pulled a chair up.

"So, what are we eating?" she mused over Al's enjoyment of the simple, rural food stand.

"Mister," Al perked up and called for the chef, "what kind of soup will it be?"

"Cream chicken is alright young man?" the elder voice called back.

Al turned to Riza, "Is that alright?"

"That’ll be perfect, thank you," she called out, clasping her hands over the handbag resting in her lap.

Turning over the back of his chair, Al looked down the platform scattered with tired, wearing, and increasingly impatient travelers that were gathering. He focussed on Roy scowling and tapping his foot on the platform boards while he lingered behind on the wooden bench. "Is the general going to join us?"

Taking a look over at what caught Al’s attention, Riza simply rolled her eyes at the stubborn man, "Brigadier General, you mean," she wasn't used to having correct Al's recognition of ranks; she had to remind herself he hadn't had much exposure to them, "and no, I doubt he is. He's sulking."

Al kind of wanted to start sulking too, but he was eating his troubles away instead, "Ma'am, do we have any idea when we'll get going? I'll end up spending all of my money here if we don't go soon," he wiped his fingers off in a napkin.

Her shoulders softened, "You can call me Riza, Alphonse, I don't mind. You don't have to be formal with me."

Al gave an uncomfortable shrug at the suggestion, "Winry called you Miss Hawkeye or Lieutenant Hawkeye or something like that. Everyone in Central called you 'Ma'am' or 'Sir' or 'Major'. The brigadier general doesn't use your first name, it'll be weird if I'm the only one who does."

Raising her eyebrows in recognition of his problem, she tried to coax him out of his worries, "I told Winry to call me Riza and she wasn't too fond of the idea either. But, we're going to be together for a bit, much longer than the time I spent with Winry, and it's too formal having someone your age address me as 'Ma'am'. It makes me feel old."

An innocent question was asked in response, "How old are you?"

"Alphonse," the military tone smacked him over the head, "it's rude to ask a woman her age," and as quickly as the voice had blindsided him into retracting the question, Riza's reigned in her voice and casually added, "I'm not old enough for you to call me 'Ma'am'."

"Excuse me?"

The verbal interruption wasn't directed at either of them, but the call from a young boy caught their ears anyways and received the full attention of the elder baker being addressed.

"I'm sorry," he tangled his fingers together anxiously, "I'm wondering if you can tell me if a gentleman has come by your stand?"

"Of course," the elder baker placed his tray of freshly baked buns on a ledge to cool, "who can I help you find, son?"

"I'm looking for a man with an eye patch…"

Riza abruptly gave this boy her undivided attention.

"… he's got short black hair, average height. He's traveling with a blonde woman and a boy a bit taller than me."

Now this kid had both her attention and had set off all her suspicion sensors. Glancing down the platform, Roy was obscured by the crowd of people looking to board the next train back to Central City.

The baker slowly shook his head, "I'm sorry young man, I can't say that I've served anyone with an eye patch."

"Why are you searching for a man with an eye patch?" Riza quickly stepped into the conversation before the boy could leave.

Expelling a heavy, frustrated sigh, the boy turned to his questioner, "I have a very important message that I'm supposed to relay. And I need to find him and his travel companions before this train to Central leaves."

Not oblivious to what was going on around him, Al added his own question, "Why the Central train?"

"Woah…"

If the boy had held anything in his hands, he would have dropped it. The conversation stalled in favour of a wide-eyed, utterly fascinated look given to Al. 

"You're…" the boy's voice sounded lost in wonder, "is this what she meant?"

Riza began to rise up from her seat, alarms firing in her head.

"At ease, Major."

Roy's order stalled the nerves of everyone present.  All focus was diverted to the stern expression on the officer's face and the unfamiliar young man walking smugly next to him.

"You found him!" the boy's with Riza and Al squeaked in delight.

"Sure did!" the elder of two mysteries swung in next to Al's seat, his whimsically entertained look curiously examining the Elric boy, "you know, Mugear told us that both Elric brothers had gold eyes. Guess the old fool never did know what he was talking about."

Al leaned away, caught surprised and off guard by this person who acknowledged who he was.

The young man in Al's space exhaled a laugh and grinned at the uncertainty of the boy's reaction, "You know what, you don't really look like Ed. You're sitting down and you still look taller than he ever was!"

The younger of the two boys folded his arms to scold the other, "You're going to get in trouble if you keep that up."

Firing a poignant look of concern Roy's way, not interested in his dismissive waving hand, Riza was going to need a little more information before she'd let her concerns go. The situation was too serious for her not to know, "Who are these boys?"

A charismatic smirk bloomed in the older boy's face and he presented her a strong hand to shake as he introduced himself, "Russell Tringham, Miss Major."

"Tringham!?" it had been years since she heard that surname.

Shrugging off the handshake he didn't get, Russell clenched his fist and tossed his thumb over to the boy beaming proudly beside him, "And this is my younger brother, Fletcher."

Glancing between the hardened and serious look Roy wore and the gravely concerned look Riza carried, Al hesitantly pushed his voice out, "I don't know who you are."

"We were told to expect that. And you know what – that's good!" Russell's amused smirk never vanished, entertained by Alphonse's confusion, "the past is the past and it can stay there, no one needs to rehash old stories right now, everyone's better off if we just move on and start new, just like you!"

The steam whistle of the train back into Central City caused all of them to flinch, dispersing a bit of the tension in the air.

With the snap of his fingers, Russell pointed to the crowd of people lining up to get on board, "That's your train, you need to get on it."

The seriousness in Mustang's expression tensed at an order Russell was in no position to give, "We are heading east. You still haven't explained what reason we have to turn around."

"We'll get to that," the overconfidence in Russell's voice was put aside and the playful nature of his actions calmed, "but requested by Lieutenant Jean Havoc, forwarded by Lieutenant Maria Ross, and relayed by us: you three need to drop what you're doing and get back to Central City right now."

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


Notes:

Since we're light on notes, I'll drop this here - Note about Ed's appearance for the fic:

For the entire fic, Ed is more fairly built than he turned out to be in the manga. Ed didn't thicken up in the manga until YEARS after this fic started, so my headcanon was a glow-up of his CoS look. I wanted him to be taller than CoS Ed/taller than Roy (say 5'10" 5'11" ish) and since there was no reference at the time, I thought he'd actually have a fairer frame, more in line with his mother's side (Al get's to grow up and be the thick teddy man). Ed could have his dad's eyes and aura, but his mother's resemblance (which felt fun and ironic at the time haha, he was a mama's boy). Time has turned canon Ed into a solid structure, but for this wacky adventure he's still very well built, just much less thick.

Mugear is how the name is spelt on the Aniplex site.

 

This chapter was revised 2022-12-07 for clarity purposes.

Chapter 15: Façade

Summary:

Winry reveals some information she came upon before crossing the gate to Ed and Hohenheim. A woman comes forward claiming to be Brigitte's mother.

Chapter Text

It was the horizon never to be forgotten; a bed which, night after night, the sun would lay down upon. It was the holder of many daydreams. Even on the cloudiest and darkest of nights, there would always be something distinct to this existence of peace in an unsettled world that made it their own. It was intangible and indescribable, but the only description needed past the four o'clock hour would be 'Resembool's western horizon'; enough would be said.

 

"Mommy. How come over there the clouds are so big and there are none over here? How come they're grey on the bottom?"

Trisha's arms enveloped her youngest son, "Alphonse, do you remember what happened to my dishcloth when I hung it out on the line?"

"Sorta…"

"Remember when we took it off the line, the bottom part of the rag was wet but the top was dry?"

Al nodded slowly.

"That's why the cloud is only grey on the bottom, because the cloud is hanging from the clothes line in the sky. The bottom part of the cloud is still really wet like my rag, but the top is dry, so it's white like all the other clouds."

"Ohhh…" it was such simple enlightenment that explained so much of this unknown world.

Trisha's soft voice carried like the breeze; light weight and carefree, "and you know how if my rag is really soggy at the end it drips onto the grass? That's the same thing that happens to the cloud. When the cloud is really grey it drips onto the grass because it's soggy, and that's how it rains."

"Ohhhh…" for young Alphonse, the world made so much more sense today.

Trisha ran her fingers through his hair, pleased with herself that she'd unravelled one of life's many mysteries today.

 


 

Winry stood, immersed in a pungent yellow glow. It neither welcomed nor rejected her.

Her voice called out, and it was sucked into the unending abyss.

     "She said 'I wonder who'll help that remaining Elric child if you continue to sit there afraid?'"

Leaving a coin on the shadowless floor, Winry sprinted away and ran until her lungs forced her to stop. Crouching over, hands to her kneecaps, her eyes widened as the coin lay at her feet once again. It was unmistakably silver, yet it carried no shine and no reflection. Clenching it within her hand, Winry threw it across the glowing expanse.

     "Tucker performed a partially successful human transmutation. He recreated the mind and body of Nina. But that's all there was. It didn't live in a conscious state because it lacked a soul; something Tucker must not have been able to provide, even if he thought he could."

A child giggled.

Winry looked around; she remained alone. Unlike her voice, this one echoed. And it came again, with friends, they all giggled. Winry's feet crossed over, spinning in circles as she tried to find the source of the giggling that encompassed her.

It laughed at her.

     "If Nina did regain some resemblance of a soul, it's probably corrupt. If someone helped Tucker insert a soul into Nina, he or she would easily have been able to influence the information. With Tucker's mental state being what it is, he probably wouldn't notice…"

Her voice called out, demanding to know who was there. It simply laughed at her. The sound grew louder; it echoed in her mind, pulsed through her body, encompassed her soul.

She screamed for the insidious noise to either stop or show itself.

It did both, and Winry wished she'd never asked.

     "I wish you'd been able to see who clapped their hands together. The only people who could clap their hands for the alchemical circle are myself, my dad, Sensei and Dante. I don't think there's anyone else out there who can. I've never heard of anyone who fits this nurse's description."

It towered over her, claiming her existence without ever opening its gates. She could feel it, a perfect understanding of what was going on, yet she was unable to pick out any particular piece of the wealth forced upon her. The dark gate doors remained closed as trembling eyes slowly drew towards it.

The infant's shrill cry was as haunting, if not worse, than the laughter that obviously had known what was coming.

"… Diana?"

     "Dante was someone my father knew much better than I ever did. You said earlier that Roze couldn't remember much about Lyra, but that's because Lyra was Dante. Dante was manipulating societies, cities, peoples, and individuals for her own benefit. Roze was one of them."

There were no words that could explain the moments of complete understanding.

The doors swung open, their hinges creaking in pain as the darkness of beyond reared its ugly head. From the depths, multitudes of eyes lecherously peered back at her. She couldn't move. She could barely breathe, let alone move. But nothing happened. She simply stared into the horror that waited for her with open arms.

She looked up again; it was that child's fault. The child brought order to what felt like uncertain chaos.

     "Lyra's body should be about ready to give out. The Lyra shell was rotting away very quickly; she'd need a new host in order to live. But in order to do that, she'd need the Philosopher's Stone."

It was a crossing found deeper than hell, absorbed with more wisdom and knowledge than she could have ever dreamed of. So, why was all this found at the entrance and exit of here and there? The baby knew.

She'd never heard that term used before, she had no idea who or what Tartarus was… but the baby knew. Somewhere in the infant's subconscious, Winry could feel how the baby likened this place to it. There was no explaining how the baby, who could only cry, knew so much.

     "Dante'd used the last of her stone to transfer into Lyra, and the new stone was used up when Al brought me back. She doesn't have the resources or time to create a new stone so she can keep on living. She should die off, if she hasn't done so already."

Winry climbed the stairs and stood before the black chamber. The understanding of her surroundings suppressed all fear she had for the looming gate.

The prying eyes vanished.

Extending her arm towards what lay beyond the gate, her fingers touched the darkness only to realize the void was solid… somewhat. At first she thought she would have been able to step through, but stability existed at the grace of another.

This was Diana's fault.

     "Ed… you need the Philosopher's Stone to create a hermaphrodite, right?"

Winry pushed her hand against the black abyss and watched as it sunk in. It was like reaching into cold tar; yet, she pulled her hand out cleanly.

This was crazy.

A new voice emerged, above and beyond the sound of the howling baby Winry had tuned out. It screamed. She stepped away from the boundary, and looked into the light once again. This sound was external; it did not vibrate within her existence like everything else.

Where was it coming from?

     "Winry, is there a reason you keep bringing this up? It's not like you to care about alchemy, let alone something so weird."

A cold pair of hands grabbed her legs; Winry froze in panic. A demon beyond the gate summoned her.

How could she even breathe in that? Her imagination ran in place of the legs that could not: what it would feel like to suffocate. To gasp solely as a reaction to living, only to have your lungs fill with a muddy fluid each time she inhaled. She didn't want to know what it would feel like to beg for air and never receive it. She didn't want to know what it would feel like to choke on the sludge or how much it might hurt. She didn't want to know what her last thought would be when her body would stop living.

A hand came from the darkness and grabbed her by her right shoulder. Someone spoke her name.

Winry screamed and took the only thing she could into her left hand and cranked her handler over the head, watching in delirium as he fell to the ground.

"Ah…" Winry blinked, glancing around in confusion, "ah… sorry… er…" she momentarily forgot everything Ed had told her. What was that German saying for 'I'm sorry' again?

"Es tut mir Leid!"

"Verzeihung," Hohenheim corrected her, his voice monotone from the startling reaction, "you should be asking for Albrecht's forgiveness… I don't think a general apology is going to suffice…"

Standing next to his father, Edward stared down with some hint of concern at Albrecht laying cross-eyed on the floor. Ed had warned him not to approach Winry from behind; especially if she was concentrating so hard she didn't answer their calls.

Winry blinked again, turning her wide eyed and dazed expression to the pliers in her hand.


Mustang's elbow rested in the window, the wind licking at the sides of his hair yet swirling back around so that it would continually tease his face. Occasionally he'd brush it aside, but for the most part he didn't pay much mind to it; he was listening.

"Like I said before, she didn't say much else," Russell's hands clasped behind his head, "just said that it was urgent and you should get back as soon as possible. The lieutenant didn't offer much else up other than that."

Riza's attention was focused on her task, though she took a moment to give a quick glance at the eldest in their group before replying to Russell, "As far as Central is aware, we're long departed for the east. Why send you boys as messengers when they could simply have contacted the lodge we're heading to?"

"I got the impression they'd already tried. We were their last hope it seems," managing to cross one leg over the other in the cramped seating arrangement, Russell rattled his fingers off the window in thought, "the telephone line was terrible too, she probably tried for a while to get through."

Leaning to get a better view out the window, Alphonse's gaze traveled out to the east. He pressed his forehead against the window's glass, his eyes held a lazy vigil of what lay in the beyond, "That sky still looks miserable…"

Roy sighed, straightening himself in his seat, "If the station attendants can't get through for a track clearance, I doubt that lines from Central could either."

The ensuing silence was uneasy, and it was Fletcher who broke in, "Thank you for taking us with you, we didn't think we'd end up actually coming along."

Roy flicked his lazy thumb over to Alphonse who smiled sheepishly at the gesture.

"You're involved. You did say Lt. Ross said you're to make sure we find our way back to Central," Al rubbed the back of his head with a giggle, "we couldn't just say thanks and leave you there."

Diverting her attention for a moment, Riza glanced over to the children, "You boys said at the station that you were heading west into Central."

The brothers nodded in tandem at the statement, but it was Russell who spoke for both, "I don't know how much is being told around your parts, but obviously the government isn't giving much care to what's going on out here. It's kind of a shit show."

Ishibal. In a ballsy, unanticipated attack, what appeared appeared to be a team of elite Drachma soldiers had managed to reach the the Ishibal resettlement and return it to waste. Nine months of rebuilding had been ruined, even if the state-run media didn't report it as such. Roy rolled his one good eye. He had a few choice words to say about this new government and how it and the military were being run. Both institutions were turning a blind eye to the terrifying fact that somehow foreign soldiers had managed to infiltrate the country undetected long enough to cause that kind of damage. 

"Why don't you come out to Resembool," Al perked, "it's still in the east, but not as far and much further south. It's quiet and full of open spaces."

"Do they have horses?"

"Oh yeah," Al nodded vigorously at Fletcher's question, "there's a lady just beyond the sunrise hill that raises them on her ranch."

Fletcher turned his entertained look from Alphonse over to his brother, "We should see about visiting Resembool. It would be nice to get away from city life for a while, right?"

Russell started to laugh, "I told you this would turn out to be interesting. I just hope it's alright that we're doing this," the laugh curled into a smirk as he redirected his interests, "Mustang…"

Roy rolled his eye again, for the entire trip the boy hadn't bothered to attach either 'Brigadier General' or even 'Mister' to his name.

"… Your people aren't going to get mad over this, are they?"

Glancing the young man's way, Roy's voice carried no doubt in the decision, "They won't be."

The left hand had no idea what its right hand was doing. There was no way Roy would be able to inform anyone in his office of what lay ahead. No matter how many times he attempted to call, no one picked up and that was only when he could connect. Not Havoc, not Armstrong, not even the telegraph desk could be reached. He could barely get a line into Central at all.

What the Tringham boys were able to provide for information shed no light onto why they were supposed to return to Central, other than it was of the utmost importance. Maria Ross had cut her conversation short with the boys, relaying explicit instructions that they were supposed to follow through on. But there was no way of reaching Central to acknowledge that the message had been received.

Riza's voice was low, keeping the sound below the range of sharp, childish ears, "Sir?"

"I know what you're going to say, and you don't need to," it was nice to have the wind blowing in through the window, since it helped mask his replies.

Riza did not say a thing, simply returning her attention to a clear focus on the journey ahead.

"Call it intuition," Roy mumbled, taking Riza's ears under his command once more, "there was something wrong with how it came to pass. I don't appreciate ultimatums being shoved down my throat."

Riza again took a moment to take in the man's presence, as he held steadfast in a belief that allowed his decision to pass.

"There's a reason I have no objection to Lieutenant Havoc sitting in my chair."

Roy's gaze flickered over to hers, snatching it up for just long enough to remind her of what that reason was.

"I still have one good eye, I can see quite clearly with it."

Both out of uniform officers glanced momentarily over their shoulders to the children who chattered in the back seats.

The frustrations at the station had mounted when the final train to Central had been announced. The initial train Russell and Fletcher had wanted the trio to get on had been full. They'd been herded like cattle onto the next train that had arrived so soon after the first. Everyone had been.

This was to be the last train to Central.

This was the last train out of the station in any direction. Every ticket-bearing passenger was to board and be re-routed at the capital. There'd been no reason given why the remaining tracks would not be used. Not even a train to the north or to the south would depart.

The only choice weary travelers were given was a return to Central.

If it had not been for a cascading series of events that were forcing the officer to return to Central, Mustang would never have torn up their tickets.

The clatter of rain began to sound above everyone's heads and the officers returned to facing the road ahead. Roy rolled up his window as Riza flicked on the windshield wipers; her hand re-gripped the steering wheel as she took the car into the storm beating down on their eastern destination.


"And that schematic works through the liquid fuel injection in the rocket. So, in theory, it'll take only a few minutes to shoot someone out of the stratosphere."

Winry 's eyes followed Ed's finger as he pointed up to the science lab ceiling, "… I think you said 'theory' maybe seven times Ed…"

"I know," his hand came up and brushed through his bangs.

Winry began to laugh nervously, "And… tell me again how long it will take us to get up there to find out if we can go home that way or not?"

"About fifty years…"

The deflated sigh came simultaneously as the two folded their arms and returned to leaning over the paperwork spread out on the lab tables.

"Okay… so we started this explanation of flight off by taking me to the Munich air fields and showing me these incredible devices called 'air planes' that fly around in the sky. You wormed your way into some blue prints for me to look at and keep, which I will forever be indebted to you for," the endearing sparkle that danced in Winry's eyes flashed away when her thoughts digressed, "…but you refused to let me go up into the sky with the nice young man who wanted to take me up there."

Ed frowned sharply, "You could fall out of the sky."

"But can you imagine," Winry clenched her fists tight at her chest, "sitting in one of those two seaters, hundreds of kilometres above the ground, hearing the roar of the engine, experiencing the vibration of the machine, feeling the wind blow through your hair…"

"You wear a helmet."

"… Blow in your face as you soar higher than the birds and look down upon the puny people below, laughing at them cause you're up there dancing in the clouds thanks to some miracle of modern technology. My God, they'd look up at me with such envy!" Winry squealed, much to Ed's obvious dismay, and tightened the tension in her clenched fists and arms, shaking fiercely at the thought of the adrenaline rush, "I want to make one."

"Get a hang glider," Ed snapped flatly.

"Ed, you can't hear the raw power of an engine if you're on a hang glider," she resisted the urge to slap him over the head, preferring only to mull in the thought of building this airplane from a set of schematics she'd practically memorized, "it would be like my first born child, only better."

"Yeah, it wouldn't poop and scream and cry," Ed rolled his eyes, standing up, "it would just crash to the ground and kill you."

Winry's narrowed eyes followed Ed as he sauntered across the room, "You've been really cynical lately," though she suspected that was because she'd said yes to Albrecht's bizarre offer of dinner after she'd blind sided him; how could she say no to such a funny attempt at broken English, especially after she tried to carve out part of his skull.

"So how's the airplane so different from going up into space?" Winry hung her arm over the back of the chair, "You have to contrive a way to get down safely, if you can get up at all. At least you know that an airplane will get up into the sky. You don't even know if you'll make it out of the stratosphere, let alone how you'll get back down if it doesn't work. You could die trying."

Ed rolled up the diagrams and blue prints scattered across the table, snapping elastics around the ends of the rolls, "I could. But, like I said… forty or fifty years."

The defeated tone carrying in Edward's voice slapped Winry across the face. She hated hearing him sound like that.

Ed sighed and began to shake his head, "I'll help Hermann out, but this isn't going to get me home either. We'll find another bridge to cross, let's just go home for now and have dinner."

Winry debated speaking up, wondering if he realized he'd mentioned two homes, but instead rose from her seat. Wrapping a few elastics around her wrists she began to follow Ed's lead and rolled up the diagrams. She'd sort out which of these she'd place priority on later; her own version of a far superior AutoMail, mastering the principals of flight, or learning the theories behind space flight and propulsion. Those were all things she could do while she was here. Learning enough to contrive a way to return home would constantly be Ed's burden, she could not help but think of a solution that perhaps he'd never given thought to; or rather, did not want to give though to.

With the papers tucked under his arm, Ed waited, hand on the doorknob, for Winry as she darkened the room from the lamp light. Winry's shoes were barely heard as she cut towards the door in the darkness, a sound over looked by Edward. He attempted to pull open the door, only to be stopped as Winry's foot suddenly held the door shut.

"Winry, move your f–"

Her hand clasped down around his that held the knob of the door, Edward fell silent as she pinned him to the handle.

"Ed, can we just… let it be for a while?"

"Let what be?"

The rolled up prints left a hallow echo in the quiet room as Winry swatted them to the floor from beneath Ed's arm, "Why keep worrying about this so much. You know Al's searching for you, I told you that. If everything here does nothing but bring you to dead ends and impassable roadblocks, why not let your faith rest in Al and all your friends rather than letting yourself constantly fail. Al has so much more going for him, so much more he can use at his disposal that he doesn't realize yet. You doing this… it's not doing you any good."

"Winry…" Ed cleared his throat, sighing as he looked away; displeased with the idea of having to explain himself to anyone, "I want to go home. Even if the answer is going to come from the other side and not here, I can't just sit around and accept my surroundings. I'm not going to live a life here waiting to be rescued. Maybe I can find something that'll help, even if I don't know what it is yet. Maybe it's not going to help me until after I get home. But there's no way I'm going to simply sit by and wait; I don't want to accept this."

Winry didn't have the heart to tell him that some days it felt as though he'd accepted this long ago.

But, if he could at least continue to tell himself that the world was supposed to be unacceptable, it was better than nothing.

"I'm sorry…"

Ed sighed, rolling his head around on his neck, "You have nothing to be sorry for."

She wondered what sorts of solutions he had dreamed up in the past and never written down; they'd have to be daydreams, because they most certainly were not brought on by sleep. Winry was surprised that sleep was rather peaceful, even though she never seemed to dream. It was a peaceful respite, more relaxing than she could have imagined. Nothing happened while she slept. Sleep was a void in the progression of her existence; nothing could haunt her there, not like it could in the daytime.

"That's not why I'm sorry…"

It was while she was awake that she found she'd have nightmares. Was it even appropriate to call an event that had actually happened 'a nightmare'? Even as she stood in the relative safety of one side of the gate, if she thought about it hard enough, she could feel everything all over again.

Edward was kind enough to have never pushed her to discuss it, even though she was certain that he badly wanted to know what she'd experienced. They would discuss Al, Resembool, Central, Izumi, and Roze freely, but the conversations revolving around how she arrived would always be at her discretion. She knew that he was watching her walk along a similar path he'd taken. She wondered if he knew, from his own experience, not to bring it up.

"Winry… your foot's still in the way."

"Ed," she made him shiver as her thumb rubbed over the back of his hand in thought, "Al didn't use all of the Philosopher's Stone to bring you back. I think there was some left."

It was a left-field comment that nearly knocked him over, "What?"

"The other day you said that Dante had become Lyra, that she'd lived for hundreds of years because she'd used the Philosopher's Stone to transfer bodies," there was no reason Winry should have found this information as frightening as she did, it wasn't as though anyone could punish her for divulging it, "the Mitchell family nurse said that people other than Al were still able to use the stone. I thought maybe they'd been lying to scare me."

Ed snatched his hand away from the door; firmly gripping his hands to her shoulders, the command of the darkened room held his voice at a whisper, "… She said what?"

"She couldn't be lying," it took all her strength to steady her voice, running the disturbing sequence of events over in her mind. She could hear that voice.

A new fear came into her mind, it compounded the first; the fear that detailed Edward's expression, "Because when I asked you how to create a hermaphrodite you said it was like human transmutation, and you need the Philosopher's Stone to do a human transmutation right. But… Diana's only four months old, and that's what she is. I saw it."

Ed's hands slid down her shoulders, crouching slightly to gain her castaway attention. Winry mind remained wrapped tightly in a sequence of events it continued to strangle her.

"Winry…" a hard seriousness lay the foundation of his coaxing voice, "did she say who?"

"I heard two names…" her eyes closed while white teeth gnawed on her lower lip, "Shou Tucker and the Prime Minister's wife, Lyra Mitchell."

The tension of a clenched jaw filtered through to his flesh hand; Winry stiffened when the grip pinched around her arm. Ed's slit eyes soon shot the vicious look of rage into the darkness of the room, silent long enough that Winry came to speak again.

"… Who died because she succumbed to a disease that caused her body to rot away…"

The words seethed out from between his teeth, "Bitch…"


It was tea. It was a nice, sweet smelling, peach tea. And the prime minister, who thought he was growing a new strand of grey hair with each day of stress that passed, slouched back in his sofa, accompanied only by the thoughts in his mind…

"Sir?"

… And two other people.

The man cracked open an eye, "… Aisa? Oh, and my Diana."

The nurse smiled down to the delighted reaction, extending the sleeping baby held in her arms, "I thought you'd like to see her before I put her down for the night."

"I always want to see my girls," even for an old and parentally inexperienced man, there was something indescribable and natural about holding an infant, "where is Nina anyways?"

Aisa glanced out the door, "She's dressing her stuffed animals."

"And our house guest?"

"With her, Nina's quite attached."

His wrinkled hand brushed the soft hair off Diana's forehead, "Thank you for keeping them occupied so I can have an evening to myself. You've been handling some of my business affairs as well, I'm becoming indebted to you," slowly Mr. Mitchell rose to his feet, walking around the comforts of the evening room with the child, "it's been very difficult with my wife gone, but you've handled everything with great poise and balanced children while you've been at it. I cannot thank you enough."

Clasping her hands in front of herself, Aisa played the part and cast her eyes down, "I don't have words that can repay this type of flattery."

"Mister Prime Minister?"

Both parties in attendance of the room turned their heads towards the door, curiously examining the attendant who'd asked for his attention.

"There's a telephone call from you, it's from military investigations."

Mitchell blinked, the obvious look of confusion was apparent, "What do they want at this hour?"

"They said it was important."

Straightening his tie, Mitchell returned the infant to her nurse and followed the attendant out into the hall, "I hope that whoever it is knows military channels go through Hakuro and not myself."

The attendant replied as he opened an office door, "The man on the other end said it directly pertained to you."

"Really?" Mitchell marched past the man, his hand coming over the telephone receiver resting upon the desk, "the call's been redirected here?"

"Yes, Sir."

Snapping up the receiver to his ear, Mitchell took a deep breath before speaking, "Sebastian Mitchell."

"Ah! Good evening Mister Prime Minister, this is Sergeant Denny Broche from military investigations!"

"Broche…" Mitchell knew this name, "Oh, young man! You're the one who found Alphonse and his young friend in the market."

"Yes sir."

Mitchell's grin grew wide, delighted by the energy in the voice he was speaking with, "I'm glad to finally speak with you, was there something you needed?"

"Likewise," Broche's voice paused, "but we have information for you pertaining to the girl you have in your care. Brigitte…Schittenhelm." He wasn't sure if the pronunciation was right, but it was close enough.

Mitchell's voice oozed with curiosity, "You found out her last name? That's wonderful, I will pass the information along so her family can be located."

"Well actually, one of our military escorts to the north returned today and brought her mother back.  Word had gotten out from a newspaper one of the troops had taken with him and the woman came forward."

"You're kidding?"

"She has all of the child's documentation too."

Mr. Mitchell's hand came over his forehead, the delight streaked across his face, "There've been so few pleasant stories come out of the north. Where's her mother?"

"She's in the building, a few officers are just going over the last pieces of identification and paperwork so she can pick her up. We didn't want to separate her from her daughter any longer than she's already been."

"Oh of course. Mr. Broche, would you hold on just one moment," covering the mouth piece, Mitchell turned to his attendant and issued incontestable instructions for Aisa to bring Brigitte to the room at once, "my apologies, Sergeant. But, I can return Brigitte to her mother's custody tonight if it's not too late in the day."

"Not at all, I'm certain her mother will wait here, she's very eager."

Mitchell finally came to sigh, unable to dispose of the grin that had come over him, "Sergeant Broche, I thank you for this."

"No thanks required, Mister Prime Minister."

From the corner of his eye, the lovely young stature of the other child he enjoyed to call his own came into view, "I will be by the department within the hour, please be expecting us."

"Of course."

The conversation ended at that, and Mitchell turned to greet young Nina, who'd begun her approach. A giant white plush bear was held in her arms, the child's high pigtails had been curled and woven with ribbon to match the lovely deep blue and white dress she wore.

"I have good news my dear," Mitchell's grin ran ear-to-ear as he crouched down to eye level for her.

Nina's voice, dripping of sweets and innocence, tantalized the old man's ears, "Sir… Ms. Aisa told me in passing that Brigitte was to come see you immediately. Is something wrong with her?"

"Not at all," his hands came to rest on her shoulders, never realizing the child would much rather have rolled away in disgust from his touch than continue on with the curious investigation, "I have some very good news for Miss. Brigitte, I have to see her right away."

The child's saucer eyes glowed up at the man, her smile artificially lit as she continued the inquiry, "It must be important, you aren't normally involved with her activities."

Mitchell began to laugh, "Oh my dear child," he swept the reluctant child into his arms, "I'm sorry I've not been able to spend much time with you or your young friend lately."

Nina's chin rested at the man's shoulder, an unimpressed set of eyes casting their gaze around the room where he could not see, "What could possibly be so important that you'd summon my friend Brigitte?"

"I received a call; Brigitte's mother was found."

The childish tone fell from her voice like beams crashing down from the rafters, "… What?"


"Winry," Hohenheim had pushed his coffee table away, pulling around one of the kitchen chairs instead. He sat down in front of the couch cushion Winry had sunken into, momentarily glancing up to Edward, who stood, arms folded, scowl ablaze, in the corner of the living room, "I need you to tell me, from the start, what she said."

Winry scratched her kneecap momentarily, glancing at anything that was not Ed and his father, "Okay, so first after Diana's not so girlish… 'body' startled me, the nurse told me that Diana was a hermaphrodite. She said it was a girl and a boy fused from two different worlds. She said it was more efficient and convenient than previous methods. I asked her if she was an alchemist, but she didn't directly answer my question. I asked her what they were doing with Diana, and she said it was an experiment and that I should be part of it."

Hohenheim ran his hand over his hair, seemingly growing more unsettled, "Dammit…"

"Yeah that's a big help, Dad," Ed's bitter voice snapped at him.

The older, and far more knowledgeable man, glared over his shoulder at the snarky remark. He engaged in a battle of displeasing stares before dropping the knife that cut the line, "An infant child has the most cohesion between its mind, body and soul, that's why Dante was easily able to call on the gate with Roze's baby; you know that. In theory, a hermaphrodite infant made up of life from within or beyond the gate and life from our side, can be used to not only call on the gate, but acts as a stabilizer for the gate and the two worlds. Not only can you send into the gate, but since the infant has properties of the gate, you can take from it as well."

Ed blinked through his dumbfounded expression, "That's ridiculous, who thought that up?"

"I did," Hohenheim answered flatly as his son glanced away, "several hundred years ago."

Winry tilted her head in confusion.

"I never came across a theory like that," Ed mumbled quietly.

Hohenheim smirked at the reaction, somewhat amused by Edward's shame of his own ignorance, "We never wrote it down; the underlying purpose was flawed, terribly so."

"Not that flawed," Winry squirmed.

"So the baby's a door stop," Edward's slit gaze traveled back to his father, "How do you know what you're going to get since you can't see beyond the gate."

"We don't know," shrugging, the old man simply sighed, "that's why it was flawed."

The conversation slowly rubbed Winry the wrong way. They were talking about using a helpless and defenceless child as a 'door stop' like it was nothing.

"Okay," Ed dropped his arms and pulled himself over to where the two sat, "so Dante has a tool that'll get her any given thing from this side of the gate…"

"Wait," Winry stopped the conversation, sitting forwards from where she'd embedded herself, "Dante, Lyra, whomever… she died in the hospital. I was there the day it happened."

Falling back into the cushions of the couch, Ed gave the type of reluctant sigh his father would have given, "There's nobody else who could manipulate that kind of knowledge. Even if Dante had passed only the knowledge along, it would take a superior and well trained alchemist to even attempt something like this."

Hohenheim's head continued to shake as he stood up from the chair, "Dante would never have let herself die off that way, especially if she had some portion of the Philosopher's Stone left and used it to fuse two children together. She would never have wasted it on that if she didn't have enough to sustain her own existence."

Ed's eyes hid behind his bangs, the last memories of a lost life playing over in his mind, "I don't know when or how she could have taken some of it from Al. Maybe when I was in London the first time she might have had the chance, but I can't remember Al looking any worse off when I came back."

Winry's eyes narrowed… 'first time'?

"From the sounds of things, I would suspect that Dante had been grooming this nurse for several months, working on easy suppression of her soul. She has no other reason to keep a companion like that, especially if she knew she was dying," Hohenheim carried the kitchen chair out of the room, his voice echoing in the hall, "it takes time to suppress the soul of a new host. We use to make a contest out of doing that, seeing which one of us could groom a new container first."

A faint growl emerged in Ed's throat, "That's disgusting…"

Winry slouched in her seat, running her hands over her knees as she tried to make sense of the inconsistencies… 'we' he said?

"Some point before she died, she entered her new host," dusting his hands off, Hohenheim came to stand momentarily at the back of his couch, "and she's been taking this young girl, Nina, around with her since they met in the hospital?"

"Yeah," she jarred her head awkwardly over the couch to see him, "everyone met Nina at the hospital. I met her when Al took her out of the room."

"That's strange that she'd have a little girl around," the old man walked himself around and began to pull the coffee table back to where it had been, "especially involving the girl in her activities. She must have some use for her…"

The moment the table was within range, Ed kicked his feet up onto it, "I'd like to know how she managed to get Nina away from Tucker."

Slowly turning his attention over his shoulder, the old man's ear refocused on his son.

"Even if Tucker had managed to recreate some part of Nina's soul from his memories, she'd at least show some signs of her former self. Dante must have forged some sort of soul to get Nina to behave like that."

They were words with a daunting enormity and Hohenheim straightened his posture. His eyes cast down at the occupants of the couch; they seemed to wither away into their seats at the suddenly daunting presence the man carried, "What is Nina?"


"Nina…" Mr. Mitchell's voice stroked, "don't look like that."

With tiny arms folded and misery scrawled across her face, Nina continued to glare off into the corner, "It's not fair."

Sliding over in the reception seats, Mitchell wrapped an arm around Nina and pulled her onto his lap, "I know it's not fair to you, but it is fair to Brigitte. I'm sure she misses her mother very much, and it's not fair if we don't let the two be together."

"The military'll take her away and I'll never see her again," the voice continued the miserable pout.

"No, they won't," the man re-tied the end of Nina's braid, "Aisa, you're still unable to reach the people you'd said had been looking after Brigitte before hand?"

With baby Diana in her arms, the nurse leaned back with a sigh deeper than Mitchell could realize, "No, but it's later in the evening. She may have gone home."

"I'm sure things have been coordinated already, the Sergeant seemed on top of what was going on," His hands suddenly gripping Nina at her sides, Mitchell jostled the child lightly, "though, I think it should be your bedtime right about now. You're tired and it's made you cranky."

"That's not why I'm cranky," Nina's eyes rolled away; the gaze finally falling down upon Brigitte.

The German girl had moved herself away from the group. Sitting in the last of a row of seats, she would not allow herself to acknowledge any of them. Heavily slouched in a very un-lady-like position, Brigitte's arms held tight around herself while her tired eyes drifted off into a corner; a myriad of thoughts occupying what lay beyond the distant gaze.

An indistinctive voice asked for her attention, accomplishing nothing beyond drawing Brigitte out from her daydreams. She curled a bit in the chair, realizing she had yet another bizarre craving for something she couldn't share with anyone.

"Brigitte?"

Lemonade, with a curly straw, real lemon floating around in the tall glass and two ice cubes; just like one of those magazine pictures.

"Brigitte!"

The words drew Mr. Mitchell to his feet. Brigitte wished he'd sit back down, until she came to realize he was not the one who'd called for her. She played the call of her name over in her mind, finally picking up the desperate tone. Before she could begin to understand why it sounded so urgent, Brigitte realized that the room was flooded with movement.

Moving to straighten up, Brigitte froze; a pair of soft and warm hands cupped her cheeks. The person who'd invaded her  personal space held her attention forwards into the foyer. The strong yet gentle hands did not let go as the woman came to crouch down before her.

"Brigitte…"

The girl found herself swept up into the encompassing blue eyes that stared desperately back into hers. The swelling of humanity that wrapped into the gaze was so refreshing she could not let it go. After having experiencing nothing beyond the cold and emotionless existences of some obsessive devil child and her watcher, it was a welcomed sight.

Beyond strong blue eyes, a wind blown mess of short brown hair had been pulled into a clip atop her head. A large, hand knit, light beige shawl was pulled tightly around her neck and hung long over her body. Most startling was the bandage taped over her left cheek, and the red, blue and purple discolouration that painted a ring around her eye.

Only Brigitte was allowed to see the flash of surprise in the woman's eyes when her hand reached out and the tips of her fingers softly touched the white gauze, "Did someone hit you?"

"My God…!"

Brigitte's eyes flew open wide as the woman's arms wrapped around her, holding her tight. She could only listen as the woman's voice sobbed into her shoulder. Her inquisition of the English language continued, wondering what 'I never thought I'd hear your voice again' could have meant.

It was Aisa and Nina who made the next move. The presence of this woman that they could not prove was an impostor frustrated the pair enough, but it was the presence of the next man that brought both to their feet.

Mitchell turned from the warming scene, leading several military and police uniformed officers, Lt. Colonel Armstrong came to join the gathering; standing leagues taller than the Prime Minister as he cast his gaze towards the scene.

"It's so beautiful," a far too mature voice wept, "the reunion of such a loving family torn apart. Such an emotional scene of indescribable proportions, a mother embracing her lost daughter!"

The Prime Minister should have been intimidated by the towering man; until the swelling of displeasure that crept over his body the moment he came to realize, "You appeared at the State Alchemist inquisition, didn't you?"

Armstrong's sparkles died when the question caught him off guard, "I was there, yes."

Holding baby Diana close to her chest, Aisa stepped forward to approach the gathering of men, "You were a State Alchemist?"

Armstrong glanced over to the woman's vicious gaze, "I was, yes."

"I cannot believe that the remaining State Alchemists were allowed to retain in their military positions," it was the most emotion Aisa had ever come to display; shouting out so loudly and angrily all gathered eyes had become cast upon her, "Those of you who did not do this world the favour of dying off should have been executed for your crimes."

Mitchell cleared his voice, raising his hand to silence, "This isn't the time or the place Aisa, please."

"But didn't you and your wife–?"

"Aisa. Please."

The family nurse withdrew into silence. The echo of her critical voice continued to occupy people's minds while Nina decided it was her turn to approach upon the situation.

"Please don't harbour any ill will towards him," the woman who stood by Brigitte had once again risen to her feet; her hand held to 'her daughter's' shoulder as she addressed the Prime Minister, "both he and the sergeant were very helpful. There's no way I could thank them enough for all of this… or thank you for this, for taking such good care of my child. There's no way I could ever repay you."

Shaking his head of the bitter voice that echoed within it, Mitchell turned away from the scene and approached, "It was my pleasure, she was very nice and not a problem at all. Though, I imagine she's quite a bit for you to handle, given her condition."

The gentle hand reached back, coming down into Brigitte's hair, "She's a good girl, very intelligent even if we don't always understand her. Intelligence is more than can be what's written down on paper and communicated in words."

"That's very true," Mitchell found himself grinning at a statement soaked in faith. He eyed Brigitte and her utterly perplexed expression; the gaze followed along the girl's arm, watching as her hand moved the hand resting on her head and took hold of it. Ever since she'd arrived in this foreign land, Brigitte had made every attempt to understand the people around her – by watching their behaviours, by listening to the tones of their voices, by judging their reactions, and by listening to her instinct. It hadn't let her down yet.

Brigitte had a mastery for the art of non verbal communication, that's how all of the movies she'd spend hours watching had been presented: silently.

"Mister Prime Minister," Armstrong's voice came out as he came to stand behind the man, a clipboard, "would you review her papers?"

"Of course."

Brigitte eyed the situation, narrowing her gaze in thought as she pieced together what was going on, "Wait a minute… am I being sold?" regardless if this woman would know what she was talking about or not, she was going to demand these answers as Mitchell scanned over the paperwork, "Am I getting sold into British slavery? Is that what's going on here? Am I going to have to clean your house and chimney and barn and things?"

The woman, still holding Brigitte's hand, glanced back as the indecipherable words came out, "Hmm?"

"Do the English actually take German girls to be their slaves?" her eyes narrowed as she thought aloud, "I told my sister that she was lying about that; I don't want her to be right. You should have taken a look at my room before buying me, because I'm obviously not very good at cleaning," Brigitte began ticking off her fingers, "I leave streaks on tables and windows, I can't reach all the shelves, I'm terrible at making beds, I don't know how to fluff pillows properly, I make terrible tea, and I'm even worse at cooking pastries. There are little girls out there who'd love to play house wife for you, why don't you go buy one of them and send me home?"

"Oh my silly child," was all that could be given in response. The warm hands came over Brigitte's cheeks again, and she received a soft kiss to the forehead.

Brigitte's eyes traveled up as far to her forehead as they could go, watching as the woman leaned away from her; a hand sweeping up to straighten the child's blonde hair.

"… Dammit…" Brigitte sank in the chair.

The woman turned away from Brigitte as she accepted the clipboard with the papers, her expression falling as she watched concern sweep over Mitchell's face.

"What happened to your eye?"

"I don't want to clean for anyone…" Brigitte muttered to herself, ignorant of the conversations around her, "I want to go home."

"Oh…" her hand came up, "before the additional troops arrived the other day, Drachma attempted to move into the township again…"

Mitchell grit his teeth, "I heard Drachma tried to move through again just before the second deployment arrived."

"… There were several of us caught in it. Though, I suppose if I'd been turned a little further I wouldn't have my eye at all. This will heal."

"You've had a doctor look at it?" he eyed the fresh bandage.

Standing not far behind Mitchell, Nina's interrogating gaze was far more critical than the Prime Minister was even considering.

"I did," she nodded, "one of the military doctors put the stitches on. When I arrived in Central, they replaced the bandage. Everyone involved has been more than kind."

"You're making that up," Nina scowled, the eyes of the room cascaded towards her, "you're just trying to take Brigitte away from us."


Ed nodded in thought, "Nina died just after I turned twelve. Several years later, Tucker used the Philosopher's Stone to perform a human transmutation on Nina. He turned a chimera into a replica of his daughter. She was an injustice; just some lifeless mind and body he kept around, he wasn't strong enough to attach her real soul. His mental state deteriorated pretty rapidly after that, he carried her around like she was some doll."

Pausing a moment to sort his thoughts, Hohenheim finally redirected his interrogation, "Winry, you were there when Lyra's body died. Who was with her that day?"

"Um…" Winry was suddenly as uncomfortable as Ed found himself, she'd gotten used to the fuzzy grandfather feel; she was ill prepared to be grilled by him, "a lot of people. I think Nina and the nurse were there for a while because Al told me they were getting adoption papers ready. Mr. Mitchell and Al arrived at the hospital at the same time, but Al got to the room with me after she died. I think she actually passed away when we were on our way upstairs, because there was a sudden panic in the hospital. They were all there when she died, lots of doctors and nurses too."

"And you said you saw Nina? Alphonse and yourself met Nina for the first time after Lyra had died?"

"Yeah, Al went in just after it happened and found Nina in the room, that's when he met her. When they came out she told us that Mrs. Mitchell had said mean things to Mr. Mitchell and it made him cry. She died shortly afterwards. She said that she was holding her hand while Mrs. Mitchell went through seizures," Winry scratched her head, trying to recall that far back, "I don't think she mentioned much else."


Mitchell could have grown a few more grey hairs from her words, "NINA," his voice came out harsher than he'd intended, but he did not intend to revoke them, "that's a rude thing to say. Apologize to her."

The wide eyes of the woman stared back at Nina as her scowl deepened, refusing to acknowledge Mitchell, "They don't even look alike."

Her words placed a stunned silence upon the adults.

"My nurse says that big ogre was a State Alchemist, just like she told me that guy who saw Brigitte that one day with Alphonse was once one too. She told me what kind of people you were. I bet they're conspiring to kidnap Brigitte cause she talks funny. Why else would a State Alchemist be involved?"

"Young lady," Armstrong's prowess stepped over the impudent child's, "I'm afraid you're not entirely correct. I am a senior official in military investigations; of course I'm involved."

"Liar!" Nina's tiny voice bit back.

Mitchell's last strand of tolerance had snapped, "Aisa! Take Nina to the car, drive her home, and put her to bed."

"You stupid old man!" Nina's feet stomped, but it was Aisa's hand that came down upon the tantrum throwing child's shoulder.

"That's enough Nina, show some respect," Aisa obvious frustration look out the aghast reactions of the people around them, trying to silence the child, "behave!"

"Don't touch me," Nina slapped the hand away and promptly spun away from another grip that looked to come down upon her other shoulder. Without warning, Nina suddenly tore off down the length of hallway.

"Nina!" Mitchell called out.

"Dammit," Aisa secured Diana in her arms, and took up fast pursuit.


Hohenheim slowly lowered himself into his favourite chair, his elbow coming to rest on the arm, cheek in hand, "Each time we enter a new host, we force the soul into submission. In a proper transfer transmutation, when we transfer out of the host, the suppressed soul is dispersed and the body dies. If Dante is in poor health, the transfer might not be clean. A few things might happen: the original soul may resurface rather than being killed off with the body, or the alchemists' ability to suppress the new soul is greatly diminished."

'We'

Winry's eyes cast away suddenly, stiffening to suppress the tremble pulsing through with each heartbeat. She followed the fabric weave in the cushion, trying to bring about calm; but her ears soaked up the words spilling out around her, each more horrific than its predecessor.

"Eternal life is not possible. There are only so many times we can transfer our souls before the soul itself deteriorates. The body deteriorates with the soul, becoming more rapid with each new host. Each time a new soul is suppressed, the deterioration accelerates and worsens if the underlying soul is not subdued properly. I suspect that's why Lyra's body rotted away so quickly, a poor or hasty transfer."

Winry wrapped her arms around her stomach; she was going to be sick. From the corner of her wide eyes she could see him; his lips continued to move. He was Ed's father, Ed accepted him, he'd been so nice to her, and obviously Mrs. Elric had loved him.

But he was some sort of monster.

Didn't anybody notice this? How could this not be important to anyone? The man spoke and Edward ingested the information like some studious and fascinated pupil. Like it was normal.

This wasn't normal, it was something else, an enormous something else.


Nina had the advantage of barely reaching four feet tall and used her height to dart around those who lingered in the halls. She continued to hear Aisa's voice cry out, pleading for her to stop.

The child tore down the flight of stairs, the braided pigtails flying out behind her as she took each step two at a time. Her polished shoes clicked with each step until she cleared the flight of stairs. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Nina turned her nose to the air, brushed her dress smooth and walked the length of the main floor hall; her fists clenched tight in childish protest.

"Nina!"

Nina clenched her eyes at the sound of her nurse's voice, "You said you'd ensure Brigitte wouldn't change hands! Did you change your mind?"

"Don't be silly," Aisa gathered her breath as she looked down to Nina, "but this was a mess from the start; we didn't know. You know as well as I do that its Brigitte's existence here that's important, not Brigitte herself."

"Of course I know this," Nina scowled, "but there must have been some way for us to keep her. I liked playing with her hair; it was soft."

"I don't see how either of us are in a position to…" Aisa's voice trailed off; her eyes catching two figures at the end of the hall, stepping through the entrance doors.

Straightening, Aisa cast a critical eye down the hallway. The approaching footsteps echoed in the silence while the late evening hue glowing in from the glass doors slowly revealed the guests. Unsettled whispers floated between the two as they watched their two guests smile upon them.

"… What the hell is she doing here?"

"… Why are they together?"


"Then the nurse's body is going to rot away quickly too. If she was sick in a hospital bed to do the transmutation, she couldn't have been in good health."

"No…" Hohenheim derailed Edward's train of thought, "the transfer from Lyra to her new host is clean, and I would not doubt that this new body will last far longer than her others."

Edward's confused stare trailed over to Winry, only to find that she would not return his gaze. Her attention was cast aside, unresponsive and silent. The lingering concern about how distant she seemed carried in his thoughts as he refocused on the deep curiosity he had for his father's information.

"You just said it gets harder to suppress a soul the more times you change bodies, plus the soul itself is rotting away."

Hohenheim stood up from his chair and moved sharply over to where Edward sat. He swatted away the feet the young man had placed on the table, and sat down where the heels had once been placed. Much to Ed's utter dismay, the old man reached out and took a firm grip of his son's hands, "How many hands do you have, Edward?"

Ed sat silent, his eyes wide in confusion, wondering what the hell the man thought he was getting at, "Two…"

'One' may have been the truth, but 'two' was the answer.


The moment of disapproval flashed away from Aisa's eyes, clearing the complexion so that it could carry her smile in response, "There must be a master puppeteer out there playing with our threads. We keep meeting, Mrs. Hughes."

"Isn't it strange, we've met here twice already," Gracia giggled as she, and her guest, were besieged by two sets of eyes that interrogating them.  Gracia looked to her company, "I should introduce you. This is Prime Minister Mitchell's nanny, Aisa, and this is his daughter, Nina Mitchell. Ladies, this is Roze Thomas, she's an acquaintance of mine from out of town."

Aisa extended her hand, "It's a pleasure."

"Likewise," Roze smiled, but did not take her hand.

Glancing at her watch, Gracia's curiosity filtered through, "It's past sundown, what are you two doing here so late at night?"

"They took my friend Brigitte away! They sent her off with some lady…" Nina's arms folded in a pout, turning sharply away with the firm stomp of her feet.

Gracia's gaze softened, her hands clasping as she looked down, "Now Nina, I'm sure there's a good reason. She wasn't always going to be able to stay with you forever, after all.  You were just helping."

Aisa held Roze in her gaze, and did not turn away when the young woman confronted her.

"I'm sorry, was there something…?"

"No," Aisa's reply was quick, "I was just enamoured. Your skin tone, and your eyes… you can't be Ishibalan… but, are you from Lior?"


"'She held her hand', isn't that what Winry said Nina had spoken?"

Ed's eyes narrowed, "… Yeah…"

"It would be impossible for Dante to do the soul transmutation with that many people tending to her, they'd all notice. It would have been done before her vital signs plummeted, which leaves her alone with Nina and their nurse."

Squirming uneasily as he sunk into his corner of the couch, Ed watched as his father's hands clasped over his good left hand.

"Then Lyra suffered a seizure and died."

His words were slow, "That's right."

"The other hand was held undoubtedly by Mr. Mitchell since he views himself as her husband. Lyra's body did not die immediately after the transfer, so the soul began to resurface and spoke with Mitchell… to make him 'cry'."

Edward's discomfort and curiosity conflicted; but his father's words held him riveted. Between the two, Hohenheim displayed the grasp he had of his son's hand.

"This right hand is held by the Prime Minister, and this left one his held by Nina. Which of the two available females do you suppose was able to clasp her hands around Lyra Mitchell's hand long enough for a pulse to be sent through her nervous system…"


"Oh," the question lifted her unease, "yes, I am."

Nina's voice suddenly broke above all else, "You're a lady from Lior?"

The topic suddenly became uneasy again. Roze wondered silently if all the people of Ishibal felt as though they were spectacles of society too.

"Yes… your name was 'Nina'?"

"Yes, Ma'am," the childish fit Gracia tried to tame was suddenly lost, a wave of excitement suddenly swept over her behaviour, "I've never met anyone from Lior before. You have pretty hair!"

Roze could only laugh, "Thank you, Nina. That's very sweet of you to say."

"I'm glad I could meet you, Ms. Roze!" Nina's hand flew out wide for a handshake.

Roze's giggles continued, "That's so sweet, I'm glad to meet you too," she took the child's tiny hand into hers, "Mr. Mitchell must be absolutely delighted by you."

"Thank you," Nina's tantalizing grin grew across her face as the free left hand moved up to clasp around the handhold she secured with Roze.


"… Until she died of a seizure…"

Silent, Ed paled.

"… To stop her former shell from talking."

Ed's eyes latched onto Winry as she stood up. She moved swiftly out of the room, not a word nor a glance given to anyone.

The boy's lips moved slowly as the gold gaze followed the girl exiting the room, "To stop her from telling everyone what had happened…"

He watched; looking towards the hall Winry had vanished into. Even her shadow quickly disappeared from the wall. He held the confusion subdued in his thoughts while his mind came to focus once again; Ed slowly brought his attention back around to his father as the elder man returned the borrowed hand.

"Even if my hands were that small, all I'd need to do is touch my fingers to complete the circle."


"Roze?" Gracia's voice took Roze's attention and she rose to her feet, pulling away from Nina.

An unseen moment of wicked displeasure crossed Nina's eyes. The fingers on Nina's left hand curled like a cat's claw, flicking her wrist with a weak swipe at the airspace she'd once held the hand in. Her tiny arms dropped away at her sides as she returned her attention to the conversation.

"We were supposed to meet up with them at quarter to nine, we're going to be late."

Roze leaned forwards and swept one of Nina's pigtails over her shoulder as she moved to join Gracia, "I'm sorry Nina, we'll talk again sometime, alright? I'm sure we'll get a chance to visit again."

Nina's tongue clicked off the roof of her mouth before flashing a bright smile for the two departing women, "That's fine, I'm sure we'll see each other again soon!"

The tiny left hand, dangling at her side, twitched in frustration of an unfinished task.


"Nina…"

It was the basis for disgust; hadn't that child's existence been violated enough?

"You should have told me Nina's state to begin with. Dante is not a stupid woman; she saw the empty shell of a child that would require so little effort for her to enter into. The rotting of the child's body would be substantially diminished because there is no soul to suppress."

A child, who'd never grown old enough to commit one, had become immortalized as a weaver of sins.

"Only Sensei would know about Dante's existence… but she doesn't know about Lyra, not even Nina. The only people who might are Tucker and any of the remaining homunculus."

This woman; who'd ruined he and his brother, who'd vanquished his father, who'd scarred a life long companion, who'd decimated the existences of so many over time, walked around with the façade of a child. She walked around free, continually weaving the strings of other people's futures.

"When you look at the face of a little girl, how much blood could you fathom she has on her hands?"


It would have been quick and painless; now if only her gaze could kill as well, the women who walked away from her would never know what had happened.

"Aisa," Nina's cold eyes followed the women until they disappeared up the stairs, her voice carrying low, "have you heard any word back from Ishibal?"

"Nothing affirmative, but the damage was extensive," the nurse followed Nina's gaze down the hall, their voices created no echo in the hallow tunnel, "Drachma took no prisoners."

"Send someone to look into a survivor list for Ishibal, I want to make sure they're no longer around. I don't need anyone else in my way again."

"Of course."

The harsh gaze brought on by compounding frustrations turned up to her nurse, "Has the Tucker operation come to pass?"

"Yes," Aisa nodded slowly, "yesterday."

"Was he found?"

"Wrath, you mean?" the longer Aisa paused, the more she could feel the frustrated aura grow, "he vanished during the seige."

"Send them back," Nina bit back at the response.

Aisa found herself in a surprised stutter, "but… Miss…"

Nina jarred her body around; it was a vicious gaze and a threatening tone that strangled her underling, "Send them back, the wretched thing should be easy to kill, he's probably in the latter forms of digression by now, he hasn't had any red stones in nearly eight months. After all he's been through, they should have depleted by now."

Silence was the affirmative reply, and Nina returned to marching forward again. Her tiny hands slipped up into her curls and she gain swept the childish decorations off her shoulders, "Are they on their way back to Central?"

Aisa followed, her voice held submissive, "Rail transit has been stalled.  Any operational transit will bring passengers into Central."

"Ensure that they are indeed returning and not running amok."

"Of course."

The child's uncaring gaze watched as a curl returned to dancing on her shoulder, "Remind me to secure a wire out to my two friends. Central City is gathering people with curious minds. They should be put to rest."

"Miss," Aisa came to a stop, watching as Nina continued to move forwards, "you're letting the situation weigh on you too much, it was the best we could do given the circumstances."

"Oh I know, and I know that it will be inconsequential soon enough," for a moment, the corners of the child's lips curled up, "in some ways, this was a better solution than I'd have anticipated.  Though, I do miss having daily access to that foolish old man's office."

The nurse threw out a lifeline of encouragement, "I think we have something more interesting to concentrate on now, wouldn't you say?"

Nina stopped, entertained by the braid that continued to dance over her shoulder, she wove her finger through it. The finger was so tiny, she loved it. And she giggled; the voice she now controlled sounded every bit like a child's. Her own voice continued to tickle her ears and she laughed. It was a child's laugh, a sweet, young voice playing in the air space.

She'd bled it of its innocence.

"Ma'am, earlier… was that sort of tantrum really necessary?"

"Aisa, I haven't been younger than twenty five in centuries, I am allowed to throw a tantrum however and whenever I please. Do not critique my behaviour," Nina's left hand swept out to dismiss an idea she'd come to change her mind on, "they can keep Envy's gift, I don't particularly care anymore; she serves no practical use other than being the proudest trophy in my collection," her tiny fingers teased the bangs sitting on her forehead, "and I can do without trophies, as much as I'd love to look at her day in and out."

Her footsteps picked up again, with Aisa's soon to follow. The final soaking of evening sunlight cast dark shadows over the pair, what remained seen for colour became drenched in a fiery orange from the last gasp of a setting sun, "Even if they do solve her puzzle, it's not as though they will ever know enough to understand the importance until I'm finished."

Aisa's arm reached the door before the tiny arm of the body below her, pushing it open for the tiny mistress.

"My dear, old Envy, I'm enamoured by you," a giggle carried softly in the little voice; her footsteps created more volume than her words, but nothing could over power the substance,

"Only you could have remembered an idea of two ancient fools. How could you have imagined that I'd be interested in this after so long? You are far more daring than your bastard father has ever been; even he refused to confirm the existence of life beyond the gate for us. I'm sorry I didn't recognize your gift sooner, but I can see it now. Please, make yourself present for the blooms of the seeds you've planted. You won't be disappointed."

 


 

It had been years past since the seeds for the future were planted.

A rogue seed, an ageless seed - one for all eternity. It continued to rot in a festering, malevolent shell. Forthcoming from a solitary night, the decision was rendered to once again exert a merciless fury on a people, a society, and, so importantly, a man he did not care for. For this, the upper hand was not only his to possess, it was his to orchestrate.

The eyes of the devil gazed coldly from behind the mask, smirking in thought.

 


To Be Continued...


Chapter 16: The Devil's Mask

Summary:

Ed disappears while Roy and company investigate Shou Tucker's lab.

Chapter Text

"Daddy can I get down?"

The request was quickly fulfilled with the fluid sweep of Hohenheim's arms. Dropping to his feet, Ed did not remain in place long enough for his father to take his hand. Taking a few steps back until he could see the man behind the counter clearly, Ed's tiny hands came to his hips.

"I'll help catch the mouses for you!"

"The word is 'mice', Edward," Hohenheim corrected.

Ed quickly turned to his father, "But I said I'll catch'em! You can help too Daddy, right?"

"It's okay young mister," the attendant smirked with faint amusement and leaned over his counter, "I'll find a way to rid myself of these disturbances."

Raising his hands in front of himself, Ed's grin grew wide, "Daddy gets the mice out of the house when he cla–"

"Edward," though his actions were swift, his touch remained gentle as Hohenheim took hold of his son's left hand. Kneeling down, the other strong hand came to rest over his shoulder, "Edward…" his voice held a playful tone up as a guise, "you can play jump rope, right?"

Ed nodded vigorously at the statement, "I'm better than Winry at it, but she's always bragging she's better."

"Well, why don't you ask those girls we passed outside if you can join them and show them how much better than Winry you are."

"Mmm 'kay!"

With that, Edward scampered from his father's grasp, toddling to the door and pulling on the handle until it popped open for him.


He looked back with stern disapproval; everyone remained steadfast to his gaze. Steadying his umbrella beneath the wind and hard rain, there seemed to be nothing that would turn them back.

He didn't even want Alphonse there.

It was a graciously given second chance to keep the boy from everything that had gone wrong the first time around. Yet, he found himself unable to push back the same determination that he'd shown while following his brother through a hell most adults could never dream of. Stern silver eyes challenged the directive that the children at least remain in the car, the same relentless gaze that had challenged him in the hospital weeks before. He did not look like his elder brother, his eyes carried a different glow than his older brother; but he carried a strikingly similar aura. Five years had taught Mustang enough that he'd come to know better than to argue with a determined Elric.

"Open it."

Hawkeye took her cue. The shot from the handgun echoed within the mouldy factory walls, the lock that tumbled to the cement floor left a startling echo.

The only one who could remember this place did not, no one even realized he'd been there before. In this tiny, flooded town, the crumbling factory that was once the workshop of Shou Tucker existed in near ruins. Half of the city did. Existing in disarray beneath the torrent rain, the frailty of life was made a bloody spectacle in the streets.

Inside the ravaged facility on the wrong side of a departed invasion, the five stood, bundled in raingear, unable to avoid the wind and rain funnelling in through the gaping roof and torn siding.

Kicking the lock aside, Mustang pulled open the heavy wooden cellar doors. The first direct hint of suspicion came because of the lock's existence. A lock with no abrasion; obviously placed on after the intruders had ransacked the building.

The doors fell open and Roy found himself assaulted by a nauseating stench upon decent.

"Major," Mustang's hand extended back to her as she placed a lantern into his hand, the snap of his readied glove hand bringing the wick to life.

He entered first, followed by Alphonse, Fletcher and Russell, with Hawkeye taking up the tail end of their line.

Pushing open the door at the bottom of the staircase open further, Mustang stopped their decent as he peered inside the room emitting a rotting odour. Holding the lantern high at the entrance, Mustang's teeth clenched at the atrocity rotting in the middle of the floor.

"What the hell is that?" Russell's muffled voice came through from beyond his hand covering his mouth as he peered beyond Roy into the room.

"'Was'," Hawkeye corrected as she moved past the Tringham children, stepping to the edge of the sticky pool of dried blood, damp once again from the rain's moisture.

Mustang's gaze carried back to his subordinate, only to find Alphonse standing silently between them at the edge of the sticky red mess. The boy's eyes cast upon the poorly lit expression that had existed last on the creature's face, his voice trying to conceal the overwhelming shock of what lay in pieces upon the ground.

"… This was Shou Tucker?"

Roy hesitated, uncertain how to read Alphonse's behaviour, "Yes."

Beyond the travesty that lay at their feet, the sets of eyes wandered around, examining the shattered chimera tanks and opened animal cages; there was nothing left in the room beyond Tucker's dead body. Roy quickly glanced over his shoulder to Riza as she pulled open one of four closed doors around the room.

"When you said he was a chimera…" Al stepped slowly around the mess, the eyes of the two guardians falling upon him as he looked down at the severed head looking back at him without any sign of life, "I didn't think it would be this bad."

"That's disgusting," Russell's face wrinkled as he moved closer to the situation.

With great displeasure for the situation, Roy moved over to Riza as she began opening doors to the room, looking to clear out the stench.

"None of them are locked," pulling open the third door, Riza turned, "none of them are lit either."

Peering into the darkness, Mustang could only frown, taking a quick glance over his shoulder to Alphonse who hadn't moved from his spot, "That's alright," extending his left hand towards the darkened tunnel system, he gave a light snap of his fingers, flaring up the candlelight, "we have other problems."

Shadows created from the lantern began to dance quickly, catching Al's attention. His eyes darted toward the exiting staircase, the parade of chaotic movement avoiding his direct line of sight, disappearing once the light settled down.

"Where's the rest of his body?" Hawkeye squinted in the poor light as she tried to make out what existed in this cavity beneath the building.

Huddled up against the wall, young Fletcher's eyes focused away from the central mess, "some of it's over there…"

The young Elric stepped out from a bloody mess towards Russell, his attention carrying past him towards the staircase.

Raising his lantern higher, Mustang's eye narrowed with curiosity, "It's been moved around…" both officers' eyes scanned the room, looking for the two upper arms that were no longer attached.

"Did you see that?" Al whispered, standing next to Russell.

The older Tringham glanced over his shoulder as Alphonse stepped past him, "You saw something?"

Stooping in the pale outreaches of Mustang's lantern light, Al narrowed his gaze, questioning if he'd actually seen something escape from the shadows. Glancing back over his shoulder to Russell, Al ducked out of the room and began to ascend the surface.

"What's he doing…?" Russell muttered, unimpressed. Glancing to the officers distracted by the two remaining exits, he turned to follow Alphonse back upstairs, issuing a stern warning as he exited, "Fletcher, stay here."

The young Tringham couldn't argue, he didn't want to go ghost chasing, since this room was unsettling enough. Fletcher's right hand grasped over the front of his shirt as he turned his attention back to the officers, wondering if they'd even noticed.

The echo of the rain against the tin roof of the old factory was nearly deafening, it sounded like hail. Al moved slowly as his wide eyes scanned the room, though he nearly shrieked when Russell's hand grabbed his shoulder.

"What are you doing?"

"Something's moving around," Al shook the hand form his shoulder, "I think it ran out from the basement… one of the chimeras. All those cages were open and empty."

Russell held the ends of his poncho tight in his hands, in defiance of the brisk, moist draft spiralling around them.

"We should get Mustang… it could attack us and we're not-"

"No," Al's steps quickened, the sounds of his shoes never heard above the pounding rain dripping through the roof, "if it was going to hurt us it could have done that when we got here. It ran for a reason."

Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Russell folded his arms, intent on giving the young Elric one of his 'Older Brother' lectures that he'd give Fletcher, only to realize that the boy was running off again.

"Alphonse!" his feet dug into the damp ground as he broke into a sprint to catch up.

Already scaling a mountain of rubble at a point where there was no roof to deflect the falling rain, Alphonse stopped, his eye catching something in the debris.

"Al!" Russell followed into the debris field, watching curiously as the boy began throwing the debris aside.

Crouching down around the hole he'd created, Alphonse shoved a bit more debris aside before his hand came to cover his mouth, eyes wide with wonder and confusion at ruins he'd found.

"Alphonse?" Russell perched himself next to him, "are you o… kay?"

His gaze followed Alphonse's, looking down into the uncovered mess. Both boys remained silent, the rainfall against their ponchos providing more than enough sound, examining the remnants Al had revealed.

"A transmutation circle…" Russell broke the vocal silence, eyeing the portion of a shattered wooden tabletop.

"It's my brother's…"

The voice was so quiet, Russell wondered if he'd mistaken what Al had said, "Come again?"

Alphonse leaned forward, his hand reaching tentatively towards the tabletop. From the corner of his eye, Russell watched as Al brushed his hand over the rain-soaked, wooden surface, tracing a finger through the grooves of a partial transmutation circle, engraved into the wood.


Edward froze in his steps, the briefcase dropping from his fingertips.

Breathing stopped, eyes flew wide, and ears fell deaf. It was so cold. The flesh hand slapped over the back of his neck as he spun around. Wide eyes scanned down the street, then back towards the university.

He didn't even know what he was looking for; it was like someone's cold breath blew over the back of his neck, sending a shiver down his spine.

Nobody was there.

Trying to smooth away the hairs that stood on end, Ed's hand rubbed his neck slowly, wondering what would cause such an uncomfortable feeling.

"And I thought I was the only one jumpy today."

Ed spun on his heels at the sudden voice, barking out his uncertain aggression, "Did you do that?"

Narrowing an eye in confusion, Hess examined Ed's obviously flustered behaviour, "Do what?"

"… Never mind."

"You know," Hess's arms folded across his chest, "I have a reason to be on edge, you don't. Are you up to something we should know about?"

"Who's 'we'?" Ed asked flatly, picking up his briefcase swiftly, "What are you doing here?"

Hess turned over his shoulder quickly. For a moment, the vicious, spiteful gaze Hess enjoyed wearing during Thule meetings shot out into the streets, "If I'm out in the open with someone, less chance something will come up."

"Thanks, you're using me as a shield," it only left a disgusted taste in Ed's mouth.

"There have been eyes watching me on this street since the moment I stepped outside to see you walking home," Hess smirked, as though amused by the game he intended to play with whomever was following him, "it's been going on for days."

"Lovely. And you've followed me around on some of those days, thanks a bunch," rolling his eyes, Ed returned to walking away, "Maybe if you did other things in your spare time, you wouldn't think people were stalking you."

Hess's expression fell away, glancing to his departing companion, "Edward, wait up."

The sudden urge to continually beat his own head into the wall crept up as Hess insisted on following Ed.

"Is there a reason you're here?" Ed shot out flatly, "or am I just convenient?"

"What are you talking about? My class is done, I'm heading home," Hess spoke with a laugh, "did you have a bad day at work?"

Ed rolled his eyes, feeling as though he were being spoken to as a child, "no, my day at work was fine."

A lecherous grin grew across Hess's face, "something else then?"

"How about someone else," Ed's snapped to another topic, not wanting his displeasure to become too well known, "You're that Mr. Hitler's friend, you might know," his pace slowed as a question came to mind, "my father asked me to check with Hermann but he didn't know, so maybe you do. Where does Mr. Hitler gets his wine?"

"His wine?" Hess blinked at the strange question.

Edward could only shrug, "Before I left this morning, My father wanted me to ask around and find out which wineries in Germany carried certain brands of wine. He mentioned something about being surprised that Mr. Hitler could import some certain expensive wines for that party you're planning and wanted to know where we could get some for our wine cabinet."

"Aw hell," Hess scratched his head, "I have no idea where Adolf gets some of his stuff, he has a network of connections that would leave most men jealous. Leave it to him to pick the best."

Re-gripping the briefcase in his hand, Ed's pace picked up again, "Great. I've done my part, he can call the wineries himself."

Matching speed with him, Hess took a few quick steps to join Edward's pace, "You know, it's a shame you and Winry are going to be out of the country when he gets out. We were planning quite the party."

There was that 'no touch' nerve again, "We're not leaving the country, my father has no idea what he's talking about."

"Albrecht told me that Winry said you two were going to London."

The comment stopped Ed in his tracks, "When the hell did he talk to Winry?"

Hess did his best not to laugh at Edward's obviously flustered reaction, "You know, everyone's having a great laugh over how protective you are of her when Albrecht's name comes up."

Ed wished he could bite back about that but chose restraint over a potentially uncontrollable rant, "Are you going to answer my question?"

"Your father was talking with Karl the other day and the idea came up to let Albrecht practice a phone conversation with her because that's what he was doing in class right now. Hohenheim said Winry's entertained by his English skills," Hess mused, "and it's not like you've ever volunteered to help Albrecht with his English skills."

"Not like I've ever volunteered to talk to Albrecht, period," Ed's unsatisfied expression carried far down the street he walked.

"You know Edward," Hess frowned, shaking his head, "I don't know what you have against him, but maybe cut Albrecht some slack once in a while."

Ed's skin began to crawl at the thought. Since the day he had met him, he'd seen nothing but a slimy boy who slept around on his girlfriend and seemed quite proud of the fact that he kept getting away with it. Decency wasn't something high on many people's lists of behaviours, apparently.

"Besides which, I think Albrecht realizes that if he tried to move in on Winry, you'd put him in his grave," the words rolled off Hess's tongue with a laugh, "that or she'd beat you to it. She's… eccentric and isn't afraid to exert herself. It's somewhat frightening, no woman raised in a German household behaves quite like that; I'd have hoped most of Europe would be the same way."

Scratching his head at an odd flood of disturbing and mostly painful memories, Ed glanced up in thought, "Yeah well, Winry's out of place in most European settings, you shouldn't be too surprised."

"Obviously you've figured her out then?" his eyebrows rose.

Ed simply shrugged.

"So how does it work?"

"What work?"

Narrowing his eyes, Hess wondered if Ed was playing with him or was actually serious, "Well, if you're sleeping with her there has to be…"

Loosing the sound of Hess's voice, the man had managed to derail Edward's entire train of thought with one foul swoop, leaving a mortified expression in it's place.

"I'm WHAT?"

Amused by the exaggerated and shrieking response, Hess licked his lips at the ideas crawling around, "You're this great big mystery Edward, most men I can paint a clear picture of, but you're withdrawn from most social settings and I don't know what to make of you half the time. Winry came along and you seemed more amicable; it's rather nice. I've actually seen you around town more often," Hess watched as Ed twitched, a hand slapping over his face as he tried to simply grasp what was being implied, "you've been here over two years now, that's a long time to be away from home. You took her home from the hall and no one saw you resurface for the next several days... we assumed you two were making up for lost time."

The pitched shriek Edward managed to give was far sharper and louder than the first, "What the hell are you TALKING about?" Flinging his body square in front of Hess, Ed stiffened his shoulders as he brought the world to an abrupt halt.

Hess could only blink.

"I am NOT sleeping with Winry," even saying it sounded wrong, "WHO gave you the idea that I WAS?"

"Well…" frowning in thought, Hess' reaction remained subdued, "we just figured that's what you two were doing. I mean, you two live together, you take her everywhere, you bicker and yell at each other but still walk or drive home together when you're done… we just assumed that's what you were getting out of it. I wouldn't put up with any woman using a belligerent tone of voice with me unless I was getting something quite rewarding in return."

"Rewarding?" once more, Edward wondered where that conveniently placed wall he wanted to bang his head against was.

"You two seemed really close when you were with her in the Thule hall. We've seen you around with your father but you keep your distance from everyone, it was strange to see you with any sort of openly compassionate side."

"Geh…" Ed's eyes crossed while his head drooped in disbelief of their interpretation.

"… So I'm going to assume you're going to deny our rumour?" Hess made no secret in his tone that he was playfully disappointed.

"Winry was scared, okay!" Ed threw his hands up in frustration, "you idiots frightened her for four or five days and she kept on crying, what did you expect me to do? I'm not going to let her cry on the bed by herself."

"We were given incorrect information; you and your father straightened that out. Beyond that, she put up a fight whenever any of us came near her."

Ed held his disgusted look over the man.

"Hey…" a frown developed in Hess's expression, "I apologized, don't look at me like that."

Taking a slow, deep breath, Ed finally straightened his posture and tightened his ponytail with a stiff jerk, "I've known Winry for as long as I can remember and she's different than that!  It's not happening. Tell all your friends, it's not happening. Tell anyone who asks, it's not happening," sudden realization came as he continued with the denial, "where the hell was my dad to tell you this was not happening?"

"We asked him, and he said he didn't know."

"That stupid ass!" Ed's voice once again snapped with frustration, paying no mind to Hess's frown for the derogatory description he'd given of his father, "He knows we don't do anything, he'd be even nosier than he is now if we were."

"Hey," it was a cross tone of voice Ed had not heard Hess use very often, "don't speak so poorly of your father."

As much as he wanted to carry on his tirade, Edward opted for the wiser of the two courses of action. Simply discarding the line of conversation without another word for it, Ed decided he was going to walk away, "It's quicker for me to cut through the market. Are you still heading up street?"

Hess picked up on the deliberate change, somewhat grateful that he didn't have to engage in a verbal sparing match, "I am, but I'll see you at school tomorrow. You will be in?"

"I try to be," Ed made his abrupt ninety degree turn at the street corner, giving Hess a passing glance from the corner of his eye as he ended the conversation, "don't let those ghosts follow you home."

"Heh," he could only smirk at that, "I have a bullet for every eye that considers spying on me, though I still can't shake this feeling."

"Good luck then," raising his hand in departure, Ed made haste into the market, wanting nothing to do with whatever Hess planned to say or do next.

Only able to shake his head with a laugh, Hess let Edward walk off. Never in a million years, he thought, would he figure this one out. He loved a mystery, and as much as he enjoyed the intriguing aura of Hohenheim, he still enjoyed trying to figure out why it was Edward kept the people around him at arms length.

With arms folded, Hess continued his walk up street, a smirk landing on his face as he ran the preceding conversation over in his mind.

"Nothing, huh?" steps slowing, the Thule member's pace ground to a halt as he looked up in thought.

Looking back over his shoulder to the vacant spot he'd held the conversation at, Hess's arms slowly fell away. His mind drifting from the musing sensation to another the man's eyes carried down a sidewalk sprinkled with moving people. The gravest of concerns filled his eyes, his feet slowly moving back to the corner where the two had gone their separate ways.

It was gone.

With his attention tearing into the marketplace, Hess watched the unconcerned world move about. The eyes he'd felt since leaving the campus, the ones that watched him, the followed him, daunted him… the one's he'd have killed if only his hand would reach the trigger fast enough, they were gone.

"My God… I wasn't…"

He tore off into the marketplace.


Something tipped, and both boys turned their attention towards the direction of the sound as it came crashing down. Alphonse stood up, his alerted attention distracting him from the engraved surface. The boys stepped along the debris, slipping into a corridor between the heavy machinery scampering until they found themselves in the heart of the firearms factory.

Russell took a few steps towards a toppled tower of equipment piled against the wall, the obvious source of the collapse.

"Over there…"

"No, wait…" Al's voice came stern as he stepped up alongside Russell, his eyes darting about in the dim light, trying to map out where the closest points of escape could be.

"Al," Russell momentarily glanced away, "Tucker used to work for the State you said? I heard rumors about the type of chimeras they wanted to create… if this thing attacks…"

Slowly, Alphonse stepped away from Russell, moving towards the crumbling cement wall, "Even if it's two different animals, it's still an animal," he motioned for his counterpart to move to the other side of the mess, "Chimera's attack at the order of their master, but there's no one here to command it. So if you don't give it a reason to fear you, it won't attack."

"That's not a reassuring strategy…" Russell's shoulders sank as he stepped towards the far corner at the wave of Alphonse's hand.

"Just don't run," rising on his toes, Al tried to see what lay in the shadows of a factory in ruins, "if you run, it'll chase you."

Pressing his back against the cold, damp wall, the elder boy carried his gaze around the room before finally setting into the darkened mess of equipment, "That I'll believe."

The rain pounding against what remained of a rooftop and pouring in from a gaping hole above, drowned out the sound of Alphonse's approach. As much as he was thankful for that, he wished it wouldn't drown out the sounds of anything moving around in the darkness. His eyes glanced down the room, watching as Russell carefully made his way around the debris on the floor.

The shadows moved and Alphonse found himself frozen. He couldn't see it, but he could feel the eyes look back at him. Curiosity told him to move forwards, fear told him to move away; all that could be done was for him to stand motionless, wide eyed against a cloaked opponent.

"Al!" Russell's horse whisper called for him, barely heard above the constant echo within the room.

"It sees me…"

It was Alphonse's frightened voice that wasn't heard; this wasn't frightening before, he had the thing cornered in a mess of metal. He was supposed to have the upper hand in this situation. But it moved, he was certain of it, and it moved towards him even if he could not see it make an advance. He wondered if it was not the wind he was hearing wheezing through the cracks, but the sound of the animal's breathing.

"Alphonse! Russell!"

The angered bark of Mustang's voice commanded the attention of both boys.

"What the hell are you two doing?"

Alphonse next found himself laying flat upon his back on the ground, thrown from his feet by the force of a body in full sprint. Dropped upon the damp floor, his eyes looked up into the boxes and shelving piled high into the rafters, and the body flinging itself up towards the protection it would provide.

His eyes narrowed in confusion, it was a human body.

"Wait!" Al's voice rang out as Hawkeye's gun fired, he shrieked when the bullet ricocheted off the shoulder of the moving shadow with a spark and bounced off the cement next to Alphonse's ear.

"What the hell?" Mustang's brow rose as Hawkeye lowered her gun in a mix of surprise and confusion.

Scrambling to his feet, Alphonse had barely moved two steps before freezing, the body that had collided with him dropping down from the rafters at the connecting corridor between the two rooms, right in front of Fletcher.

Both bodies, of practically matching heights, stood frozen in motion, practically nose to nose, looking into each other's eyes.

Stepping away from the collapse of equipment, Russell stood speechless at the wild child standing before his little brother.

Riza and Roy snapped their attention to the sudden situation, both swift to draw their guns.

"Don't shoot!"

Alphonse's voice came over Roy's shoulder, tightening his expression, "Why?"

"That's Wrath," Al's voice swept out as he came to stand next to Roy, "his right arm and left leg are AutoMail, I felt it when he hit me. The major's gunshot went off his right shoulder. Winry put that AutoMail on him…"

"Wrath?" Riza's eyes narrowed.

"He ran out from the basement, I thought it was a chimera that escaped. He might know what happened to Tucker."

Lowering his gun, but keeping it at ready, Mustang looked at the back the motionless child, covered in lengths of frazzled hair, "Who's Wrath and what was it doing down there?"

Al paused, wondering if he should give out the information, "He's one of the homunculus."

"What?" Mustang gave Al his undivided attention. With the security of the major's shot at his side, Mustang turned to look into the nervous expression the Elric wore.

"Why was that creature equipped with AutoMail parts?" glancing back, Mustang paused for a moment as a disturbing realization hit him, "…why does he have the same AutoMail as your brother?"

His eyes turned forwards, Al took a moment to glance up to Russell who'd joined them, his jaw quivering with the urge to speak, "Fletcher… back away from it…"

"Brother, he's…" it was the intrusion of the younger Tringham's voice that diffused the standoff, Wrath's posture slowly loosing the aggression and panic for escape that he'd been moving with.

"Why are you here?"

The tremble in the purple eyes held Alphonse where he stood, watching as the young Homunculus turned towards him. The look did not freeze Al for long; slowly his tension slipped away and posture straightening as he looked into the timid gaze that bore no resemblance to the creation he'd known as Wrath many months ago.

"Why?" The voice was childish, carrying a frightened cry within it. Alphonse remained silent, wondering what could have caused such a change; the anger and rage no longer present in the small body.

"Answer me!"

As Wrath turned towards the barrel of Hawkeye's gun, staring into the startled and confused expression Alphonse carried, Fletcher turned quickly on his heels and ran into the safety of his brother's presence.

Violet eyes suddenly shot around the room, dropping his defensive posture against the people around him, Wrath stumbled himself around in circles, wildly looking about.

"Sir?" Riza's voice held low, waiting for the order from her superior to fire; an order that Mustang held carefully in his two signalling fingers.

The movement stopped suddenly, the Brigadier General finding himself entranced by the frightened look in an unnaturally coloured gaze.

"I knew they came back because of you!"

Mustang's brow slowly rose as Wrath's voice shrieked.

"It'll be your fault!"

"Alphonse!" Riza screamed in frustration at the boy as he moved into her intended line of fire, chasing after the homunculus that had quickly fled before his last syllable was spoken.

Roy considered cursing the boy for having an impulse reaction like his elder brother, but his attention was stolen the moment a frosted glass pane shattered, ripping into the echo of rain. Turning in the direction of the noise, the remaining four watched the remaining stack of boxes and equipment, piled high along the wall, begin to topple over.

"Get back here," Roy's darkened expression directed the Tringham brothers towards the back of the room, his good eye watching a thick, grey smoke billow out from the collapsed mess, "get against the wall."

"Let's go to the other building," Russell glanced to Mustang who'd opted for his gun over his glove, wary of what fire could set off in a factory filled with ammunition and weaponry.

"Sir?" Hawkeye found herself standing at the senior officer's back, as the two moved in a circular tandem, surveying the room.

"Wait…" he wished he could command the wind and the rain as well as people's voices. Mustang's right gun hand came to point at an archway of glass panes that remained in tact.

Her left hand coming to steady the right, Hawkeye kept her focus trained forwards, listening for what existed beyond the storm.

Huddled up against the wall, farthest from the flowing smoke, the Tringham brothers watched as the cloud began to flow around the two officers who paid no attention to the growing screen. As the rain thundered down against the roof, spilling in from its cracks, Mustang's jaw tightened as he fought to see something beyond the growing grey haze and frosted white windows.

"… Get down… "


"Grace?" Winry paled, it was a strange word and for some reason, she didn't like it, "how do you say 'Grace'? Isn't 'grace' how you walk?"

A meal of ham, steamed carrots, and sweet potatoes steamed up from the centre of the table as she stole a glance of the dinner before questioning Hohenheim once again.

"A lot of families in Germany, Europe in general, say 'Grace' before sitting down to dinner. It's a thank you to God for the meal."

Leaning back, Winry watched as the elder Haushofer placed a wine glass down at the side of her still empty plate.

"If there's a guest over, it's not uncommon for he or she to be the one who says Grace before the meal."

Winry's eyes traveled around the dining room, Mrs. Haushofer setting the white buns down with the meal, Mr. Haushofer returning the wine bottle to the middle of the table, Albrecht's continued gaze cast upon her, and Hohenheim fixing the napkin in his lap.

She couldn't tell him that she didn't want to do such a thing, Albrecht knew enough so that he'd understand her.

Winry fiddled with the napkin in her lap, "I don't know what to say…" it was a merely defensive response to an uncomfortable situation, "God didn't make this meal, Mrs. Haushofer did…"

"Winry," Albrecht's voice made her nerves even worse, "you will have thanks for this food before we begin the eating?"

Even in his butchered English, it was like another unwanted pressure for the topic, "Sure, I'll… think of something."

"I am happy for that!"

Half the time Winry couldn't figure out if she wanted to laugh at him for sounding so funny, or have his tongue cut out because it had gotten so annoying.

The conversation at the table broke into a chorus of foreign German as plates began to fill; the transition allowed Winry to unwillingly distance herself from the moment. It was a fleeting, passing sensation that sat heavier than the food could have in her stomach. The dinner looked so good, so warm; the ham, which had been the last cooked ingredient of dinner placed at the table, billowed up with thin white steam. Albrecht had asked her if it smelt good; yes was her answer for his question, but no was the response. Dinner was a table decoration. Every night, dinner was a table decoration that only teased her tongue on what life use to taste like. It was a bother that had grown up over the three weeks, the wanting urge to taste and savour the meals, the drinks, the aromas. It was all there for her to grasp, all of those sensations, she'd watched other people enjoy them; but she couldn't find it for herself.

One more piece of life went missing.

"Winry?"

"Huh?" she blinked over to Hohenheim, a stupid expression must have crossed her face that caused a few giggles around the table.

"Do you have something to say for Grace?"

She wished to be five years old, so she could throw her napkin at the plate and yell how mad she was at this inanimate object for making her so unhappy. She was not thankful for this food, "I will… make something up…"

Wrinkling her face in thought, Winry found herself momentarily flustered at the bowed heads and hands in laps; even Hohenheim, which seemed more wrong than her saying Grace.

The thanks Winry ended up giving was for the doorbell that rang.

"Right at dinner hour too," Karl Haushofer stood up from his meal, "people have no manners."

"Or no wife to cook them dinner," Mrs. Haushofer gave a smile, casting an eye at Hohenheim who began to laugh at the statement, "it's a good thing you have Winry staying with you, I can only imagine the catastrophes you and Edward cook up."

"I will have you know that I'm a fine cook, Edward is not bad at it himself," Hohenheim conveyed through a smirk, "my wife use to love it when I cooked for her."

Smoothing her napkin over the skirt of her dress, the woman could only giggle, "If either my husband or my son ventured into my kitchen, our house would burn down in no time. Did your wife teach you how to cook? The men in my household seem quite disinterested."

"I actually knew how to cook before I met Trisha, and Edward had some culinary guidance from his mother and a teacher."

Winry raised her eyebrows to the only two words in the conversation she was sure of, spoken with a casual delight that seemed inappropriate for the names.

It seemed to be an astounding concept, "They teach young boys how to cook in the British school system?"

"In the education stream Edward went through, yes."

Entirely disinterested in the foreign conversation, Winry glanced over her shoulder and out curiously into the rest of the house. With only moments to let her distraction wander, she quickly turned to face forward as Haushofer returned into the kitchen with a dinnertime guest who seemed somewhat familiar.

Her eyes focused on Mrs. Haushofer who greeted the interrupting man with a delightful smile. The gibberish continued on with a jovial light tone, Winry ran her attention around the room, trying to figure out who this somewhat familiar face was. Haushofer's voice intruded with a grave tone that caught her attention, and Hohenheim's as well. Unsettled, Winry held her hands in her lap, her attention redirected to Hohenheim the moment he abruptly stood up from his seat. The unnerving vocal tones held her discrete, painting a distraught world through the sounds of everyone's voices. The intruder continued to speak while her eyes glanced from man to man: their guest would speak, Mr. Haushofer would speak, Albrecht would speak, Mrs. Haushofer finally spoke when addressed by her husband. Winry's nerves wanted her to curl away each time Hohenheim's broke into the conversation; Edward's father that did not 'speak', he demanded and commanded.

"Winry," his tone chilled her as her gaze traveled over to meet an incontestable sternness, "stay with the Haushofers for the night."

"What?" she squeaked, looking up at him horrified. Her lips moved to protest but the moment she caught his gaze, he silenced her challenge.

"Do not leave the house unless myself, Mr. Haushofer or Mr. Hess have come to get you, understand?"

He was frightening; her bottom lip itched to move in defiance of being with a family she'd barely had the company of for two hours. She couldn't find enough courage within herself to protest against the damming eyes of a man who'd quickly discarded his empathy. She'd spent the last few days telling herself that if Ed knew and accepted him as he was, she could too. But again, his existence, towering above her with a powerful aura, frightened her.

Turning to leave before Winry could cast her gaze away in submission, the raging concern that swept over his expression became far more alarming for her than his aura ever could have.


"What happened to Tucker?"

"Why did you have to come here?" the tiny, frightened voice cried back.

"To talk to Tucker," Alphonse swallowed the tremble in his body, looking blindly into the darkness, "did you kill him?"

The dark hole carried a gut-wrenching odour that Alphonse forced into the back of his mind. Like a frightened and trapped animal, Wrath remained buried in the darkness of a corridor he'd unsuccessfully tried to hide within. The young Elric's hands clenched to subdue his fear of the confrontation. His jaw tight, eyes stern, Al waited for the darkness to move. The one thing he knew for certain: the only way out was through him.

"She killed him. She cut off his head."

Pausing, Alphonse found himself caught off guard by the abrupt answer. It came blurted, like a secret that he'd been longing to share.

"Who did?"

Alphonse waited in the silence, feeling the faint, cold breeze against the back of his neck as it flowed through the stench, seeping in from the hatch he'd left open.

"Dante."

Alphonse's defensive guard fell, his shoulders giving away beneath a confusing answer, "Dante's dead."

"No…" such a timid sound, but the fear Wrath held in his voice had been redirected, and Alphonse's gaze became lost in the darkness as he began considering the improbability of his statement.

"Why'd she kill him?" regardless of who Wrath thought had done the deed, the question had to be asked.

"Because of Nina."

There was that name; it was a tiny name for a tiny child shrouded in a mystery no one had yet been able to answer for him.

"Was Nina Shou Tucker's daughter?" Alphonse nearly bit his tongue at the eagerness in his voice. He knew as well as anyone, at the core of his question lay a disgusting truth he was afraid to know the answers to.

"Yeah."

Just one more question. No matter what he would find out about this young child's existence, she seemed to carry so much more life, history and intrigue than he could ever have guessed. Everyone seemed to either love her or want her. The pinch bothering him in his chest made it an immoral choice to concern himself with only the self serving interest of his own and not that of a family in ruins, "Why did…" Al side glanced as he thought about how he could possibly imply Dante, "how did Nina have anything to do with it?"

"He wouldn't let her go," the darkness had turned deep grey; Alphonse held in his eye the black signature of Wrath's figure as he sat on the damp cement floor, "she cut off his arms first so he'd let her go."

Even though he'd seen the chimera's hairy torso bled out on the floor, Alphonse could not help but carry the image in his mind of the human Shou Tucker: the image he'd looked at from Mustang's files during the train ride. He'd spent so long becoming accustomed to the image, the only thing he could envision was the man, the father, refusing to give his child over.

As tattered as it was, it was still a family of two. A forged family of two, he knew this. The stunning grey eyes shrouded in the cavern's darkness steadied themselves in the cloud and asked a terrible question.

"Do you know how Tucker took Nina from the Gate?"

"He didn't."

Alphonse's posture straightened to a quick and unanticipated answer. Wrath's response was affirmative, without hesitation, but how could he not have? There couldn't be any other way someone could look so-

"He made her."

Pausing, Al wondered if Wrath understood what he was asking. Roy had told him Tucker was attempting to recreate his daughter, but he wouldn't be able to finish her without retrieving her mind and soul from Gate.

"You helped him finish making her, with the Philosopher's Stone…"

The words blew through his chest like a rusty old spear. Again, there was the Philosopher's Stone. Everywhere he looked, all the answers that he knew, everything found it's way back to that. He did not want that, yet reality insisted on bringing him crashing back down to earth. Stiffening his shoulders as he took a sharp breath, trying to hold his disappointment and composure in check, Al forced himself to think over the other implication Wrath had presented.

"I brought her back…?" For the moment he thought about how this could be his fault, the air was hard to breathe, "why would I have…? It doesn't make any sense. How could I have enough left for my brother?"

"You did though! Dante said you did…"

Distancing himself from the words, he continually fought to fight the numbness wanting to take him over.

"… because you were the only one who could, Tucker's alchemy couldn't do it without you."

Al turned slowly, dragging his feet along the soggy surface of the floor as he moved away from the darkened dead end. He didn't want to hear any more, this had been a waste of time; beyond that, it hurt. For a few days he could finally start progressing towards answers, something that could give him a lead, or a starting block. He found himself dropped back at the point where he'd began before the idea of Tucker or Nina. Alphonse continued to walk away from Wrath, carrying with him nothing more than an ugly story about a time in his life disassociated from his current state. A frustrated silver gaze looked ahead down the hall, he wished Sensei or Winry were there to lean upon for support, but he only had himself. Taking in a slow walk away from the situation, Al's eyelids drooped as he thought Wrath's statements over.

He could only shake his head, the more he thought about it, the more something was wrong with Wrath's information. He'd used the stone to bring his brother back, and that was the last thing he did. How could he have possibly had enough Philosopher's Stone for two complete human transmutations…

"Hey," Alphonse spun on his heels, turning back towards the unlit tunnel his voice called out into the blackness, "are you sure we're not – GEH!"

Finding Wrath standing right behind him, Alphonse stumbled backwards in surprise and quickly found himself fallen on the floor. Staring up at the saucer wide eyes that looked back down at him, Al could only sigh.

"Why do you want to know all this stuff?" Wrath tilted his head, "you make so much trouble with it."

"I want to reach the Gate," rising to his feet, Al patting the damp seat of his pants unimpressed with the soggy floor he'd landed on, "and take something from it."

An over exaggerated scowl crossed Wrath's expression, "I don't like the Gate."

"Neither do I."

"You know," the purple eyes examined Alphonse fiercely, "the Gate doesn't like your idea of Equivalent Trade when you want things from it."

"And I don't want to give it anything in exchange," a grin swept across Al's face, hands landing on his hips as he played along with the childish voice Wrath used in the conversation, "so we're even."

Turning again, he continued to make his way back towards the cellar doors; his hand coming to cover his nose as the smell of rotting flesh grew more potent the closer he came. He could hear Wrath following, his bare feet echoing off the damp floor.

"But I don't know how to get to it safely," Al's gaze carried up to the low ceiling as he thought, "let alone get someone from it. I think you and I are missing something…"

"Diana."

Alphonse stopped, looking back over his shoulder as Wrath's footsteps came to a stop.

Holding a distant and still unsolved riddle, the inhuman eyes Al could see in the darkness shone with a damming knowledge, "Diana is part of what you want, just like Dante wants too."

Al slowly turned, squaring himself around to the presence Wrath began to carry, "Diana?"

"Dante wanted to make Diana for that theory," the young voice bounced off the moisture on the walls and surrounded the last Elric.

"Is she a thing…?" Al's brow wrinkled in confusion.

"It's not a she, it's a baby."

Al's arms fell down to his sides, thoroughly confused by Wrath and his story. Choosing to disregard the gender confusion, Al found another question to pose, "Why does Dante want a baby?"

"Babies talk with the Gate the best…"

Slowly, Alphonse's eyes widened with intrigue and fascination, listening as Wrath offered up a simple elaboration.

"… and Diana is a special baby."

"What makes Diana special?" he couldn't help but ask.

Wrath's face twisted as he danced around in thought, "Hmm… lots of things."

"Like what?" his tone attempted to coax Wrath along.

"Well," the young homunculus tapped his chin, "you can do that thing you wanted to do, 'cause Diana's part of the Gate," Wrath paid no mind to the widening expression on Al's face, "she's made of some Philosopher's Stone, so she doesn't listen to all of the Gate's rules."

The idea of using a baby for an alchemical experiment seemed horrifying; an infant is defenceless and unable to defend itself, a horrible victim of some mad man's experiment. Standing in the darkness, Alphonse ran over the implications in his mind, the cruel and heartless idea of violating an infant; yet, it could access the Gate. Letting the information soak in, he tried to find reasons and possibilities for what he'd been told. Refocusing his attention upon Wrath, Alphonse couldn't help but think of the alchemy array that had been on Roze's baby for so many weeks before finally fading away.

"Where is she… er… it?" the question came off his lips tentatively, carrying stern caution as though he wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

Wrath's response was quiet and withdrawn, somewhat to Alphonse's relief, "I dunno, I've never seen it."

Even if he didn't want to know, the response Wrath gave him was unsatisfying. Frowning, more so in frustration for the overwhelming mountain of questions and obstacles coming to light, Al challenged the answer, "Then how do you know there's a Diana?"

"I don't know!" Wrath's voice rose in protest of the accusation in Al's tone, "Dante wanted the Lior baby for it, but it wasn't working right. She wanted to change him into the Diana baby so the theory would work, but the Lior woman took it away."

Al's eyes widened, his head slowly shaking with confusion at the bizarre information, "W-which theory?"

"The Gate one!" Wrath's voice whined with displeasure at the barrage of questions, "The one Hohenheim made!"

The darkness hid how quickly the colour drained from Alphonse's complexion, the tension vanishing from his shoulders as his hand's hung loose at his sides, "… My dad?"

Not given time to digest Wrath's words, the pair's attention shot towards the echo of sound rushing down the hallway. Alphonse froze, he could feel it in the echo, in the ground; the world moved from some type of explosion.

"They came back!" Wrath shrieked, taking Alphonse's attention. The boy looked on; wide, dilated eyes watching the fear flow through the small body, "I knew they came back because of all this."

Remaining standing in the echo of what Alphonse soon realized was gunfire, they grey eyes watched Wrath tear off into the black mess of hallways beneath the building that led into Tucker's lab. Turning back towards the faint light, now flickering with noise and movement, the youngest Elric took two frightened steps away from the only known exit before running into the darkness of the hall system.


A crushing grip rattled a pair of cold, metallic bars, "Get on your feet."

"Does anyone know you're here? At this hour?" the voice carried bitterly, unimpressed by the interruption at the post-midnight hour, "waking a man up at this time of night."

"Are you that cowardly?" Hohenheim's voice shot out with a startling ferocity.

"Isn't it a bit late to hold so much rage?" sitting up slowly from the old mattress on the cot he slept upon within the prison cell, Adolf opened his eyes towards the angered voice, "even if those bars were not in our way, it would be quite unwise for you to handle me, Professor Elric."

"Where is he?"

"Who?"

Hohenheim's eyes slit, "Edward."

With a deep sigh, Adolf rose from his creaking bed, "Who's Edward?"

"Don't you dare…"

"Oh your son!  That's right," his fingers snapped, coming to sit on the cozy wooden bench against the back wall, "Did you lose him?"

The voice raged with a low rumble, "If anything happens because of your actions I'll-"

"You'll have no way to prove it because I am in jail," Adolf's hands slapped down upon his kneecaps, cutting into Hohenheim's threat, "now satisfy my curiosity Professor, why do you care so much for that existence you feel is worthy enough to be known as your son? You've come all the way down here to threaten me, yet I still cannot see you as a man who cares for a family, especially something as broken as 'Edward'."

Hohenheim's attention focused on a strange line of questioning, "your opinion of my life style has no bearing on how I conduct myself."

"Perhaps I cannot envision it because I know the types of actions you are capable of," his words drifted around the room, pretending as though he were lost in thought.

Hohenheim's directed speech was far less whimsical, "My actions with Thule and my actions outside of that are entirely unrelated."

"So what are you doing here?" Adolf grew a similar, serious tone, still holding the entertained atmosphere in his speech, "accusing me of these things, when you should be out looking for your son."

"I thought it would be best to go straight to the source," Hohenheim's smooth speech shot towards the man sitting in the post-midnight darkness of his confinements, "rather than continuing to chase my own tail around until sunrise."

His eyebrows rising, Adolf seemed mildly delighted, "I am flattered to know that our last conversation found a place in your heart."

"Where is he?" Hohenheim was done with the man's game.

"Why don't you just let fate run its course and see if he turns up."

Scoffing, Hohenheim turned his nose up at the suggestion, "Don't lecture me about 'fate' when you are the one intent on toying with it."

Adolf held the room in silence, looking back at his accuser with the same cold gaze bestowed upon him. With arms folded across his chest, he leaned back against the cold cement wall, "I do not like what you are implying, Professor."

"Then I'll tell you again to answer me," the words came without care or regard the previous statement.

"Maybe he'll float up in a swamp," his voice carried a bored drawl, "face down."

"Why do you insist on interfering in my business and with my family?" Hohenheim snarled, forcing the image Adolf had created from his mind, "I've told you time and time again that I have no quarrel with you."

An unforgiving gaze looked back at him as he spoke.

"If you insist on confrontations with me, fine, I will deal with you," the father's voice thundered out, "but your issues with me have no reason to include anyone else around me."

"That is not how this system works," his left hand smoothed over his chin, "besides which, I cannot comprehend why you're so insistent about caring for your son. He and his mechanical parts should be thrown out with the trash. Beyond that, I've heard you've abandoned him before," Adolf watched as the man beyond his cell bars stood frozen at his words, "while you lived in London, and that you were reunited after many years in the days after the raid. Are you making some foolish effort to atone?"

Just for a moment, Hohenheim had forgotten that was the story he'd concocted to explain Edward's recurring animosity towards him; the realization relinquished a strangling fear that had lingered for far too long.

"Hence, why I'm confused about how a man like yourself cares for his children so much."

Hohenheim paused, bothered by the wording, "I have one child."

"That's it? I was told you had more children in your household," the man said with the tilt of his head.

With the slow shake of his head, Hohenheim made the correction to an assumption, "No, I only have one. Winry is a family friend."

"Strange…" he came to fold his arms, once again trying to give the illusion he'd become lost in thought, "Someone must have been confused when I heard you fathered more children."

Hohenheim's gaze hardened, speaking slowly at the frightening and sickening sensation of déjà vu from the smooth tone of voice, "It's happened before."

"Obviously some mistaken identity…"

"By whom?" the words came harsh and cold, frozen over as they snapped from his mouth.

"… with 'Winry' then."

Each syllable came with strict enunciation, "Given by whom?"

"Someone named Bryan," Adolf waited, watching Hohenheim as the old man tightened his jaw, unable to strangle the life out of the metal bars he'd come to grip.

"You remember the man I speak of? He ran the postal outlet you once frequented. I found out many interesting things about your life and your family from him," throwing one leg over the other as he sat upon the old wooden bench within the prison cell, the toying man watched as Hohenheim stepped away from the barrier that prevented him from tearing something apart, "Do you remember the time we met there? Your son was with you. It was the last time we'd spoken outside of your introduction to the Thule Society. You received a package: a bottle of wine."

His hand sweeping over his tightly tied hair, Hohenheim let his cold gaze hang cold over the conversation, casting his fierce golden gaze back at the man who paid no mind to the atmosphere.

"You remember what happened that day, don't you?"

"I'm curious to find out how you think you know what was in that package," Hohenheim's voice fell low, he began to piece together the implications of this knowledge. Adolf once again asked for his attention, and Hohenheim gave it to him, watching as the man stood up from his perch.

"In one of the southern districts, some stray members of the Freikorps have an 'office' of sorts. Perhaps he might still be there," smoothing his prison shirt, Adolf slowly approached, "and if you two grace me with your presence at my celebration next week I might tell you how I came to know that there was a bottle of Mariana's Finest in your package."

His fists clenched so firmly the strain on his muscles caused his strong arms to tremble. Eyes shut tightly at the recollection of a memory, jaw grinding at the thought; Hohenheim finally threw himself away from the situation. Hands gripping his ponytail as he yanked it tighter, he straightened his vest with a firm tug and marched down the hall towards the door.

"Hohenheim," Adolf watched, smirking; the bellowing call did not slow his departure.

"Let me make myself perfectly clear," the man's words rang out down the hall, wrapping around its listener, "I did not tell you where to find your son because I pity the wretched thing's existence. Nor did I tell you where you might find him because I carry any concern for your poorly conceived idea of a family."

Angered golden eyes carried boiling frustration for a suddenly far more dangerous situation, refusing to look back as the vocal sounds bounced around him.

"Pick up whatever may be left of his tattered body off the ground and hold in your eyes the knowledge that I can manipulate many different strings of 'fate'. In my Germany, you are a very little man. With the position you hold, I will not tolerate how you stand against me. So, before you die, I want you to dance in whatever performance I dream up for you, before something more unfortunate happens."

Firmly, Hohenheim gripped the metal handle of a prison door.

"Perhaps your son should watch when you're put in your place, and then know who was able to accomplish that."

Glancing down at the hand that held the cold handle, Hohenheim gave a response, "Edward has nothing to do with us."

"Unfortunately, as I'm sure you're aware," Adolf's arms came to rest against the bars above his head as he leaned against the confinement, "I've already included him."

His hand gripped around the door handle, throwing it open as the taunting voice broke into the mid night silence once again.

"Do I get to see the look on your face before you walk out the door?"

The door swung shut without him turning back, but the echo of Hohenheim's fist slamming into the wall let Adolf's grin of satisfaction curl a little more.

 


To Be Continued...


Chapter 17: Returned to Parent

Summary:

Ed fights for his life while Al is rescued.

Notes:

Chapter warning for pain, violence, gun violence, blood, death, and an array of discomforts (the warning applies to the chapter art as well).

Chapter Text

Trisha slid herself into the last remaining chair at the table, giggling at the wrinkled face her youngest made while her husband re-seated himself at the table.

"Mommy?"

Edward's call caught her attention.

"Didn't Winry's mom and dad already make us an anniversary supper?"

Trisha's fingers came to her lips in thought, "They did, but that was last month."

"They beat me to it, I was supposed to treat your mother to dinner," Hohenheim announced, an eye raised as he sat down at the table, "but there's no harm in having a second dinner. We can place the blame on the bottle of wine that showed up a month too late."

Her hand covering her mouth, Trisha began to giggle as her husband popped the cork of the wine bottle, "I love when you cook for me, it's such a masterpiece."

"It's not that good," his hands held the bottle with great care as he filled the two wine glasses on the table.

"You've had many more years to refine your cooking than I will ever have," Trisha protested, though she could not clear the delight in her expression after having spent the remainder of the day in the yard with her children while her husband filled the house with the luring smell of roast beef, steamed vegetables, and potatoes.

"Daddy, can I have some wine?" Edward's tiny voice peeped.

"Me too!"

Both parents gave a shake of the head as Hohenheim returned the cork to the bottle stem, "This is too strong, it'll put you to sleep and then you'll be waking up at all hours of the night."

Placing the tall glass in front of his wife, the father sat down; slipping the stem between his index and middle finger, Hohenheim raised the glass into the air, "To…"

"To Mommy and Daddy!" Alphonse's voice sang out as he held his plastic cup of juice strongly in the air, a motion soon mimicked by his older brother.

Trisha's giggles couldn't be withheld as she tipped the rim of her glass off her husband's, "To 'Mommy and Daddy'."


The voices in the room became only echoes of existence. Tired, gold eyes looked out from beneath the tight knot of a lowered brow. He thought hard, consciously pacing his breathing as he kept it in check, or else it would run away from him. Another bead of sweat slid down his forehead; Ed's toes tried to grip the cold cement as sat, keeping his back pressed against the wall.

It was that close; so close he could feel the touch of the metal doorknob in his hand, but between himself and the only exit was the old wooden table he'd tried feverishly to damage in his earlier struggles. On the chair at the side of the table rested what remained of the wooden leg that had kept him balanced. His teeth again clenched tight at the mess of wooden parts tossed across the table, recalling the sound of two gunshots shattering the ankle joint when he refused to go down on his knees. Edward found himself too busy cursing his mangled situation to be thankful that the man had not shot out the other ankle in the fight to bring him down.

The wall was not cold enough; no matter how hard Ed pushed his back into it, the chill did no good. Focusing on the clock, Edward struggled to watch the seconds move; nearly ten minutes had passed since he'd lost…

He couldn't allow himself to focus on that. So, he thought again, how could he get from where he sat to beyond that door without having a gunshot fired his way. Those anticipated shots would come from three men at the other table, tucked away in the far corner. But, they were so preoccupied with their new toy he could have easily made the dash, if only…

Shifting, Edward winced as he pushed the bare shoulder blade against the wall, it took all of his effort to see the sharp angles of the door clearly through the distorted blur disrupting his vision, let along the clock. He wondered, in the time since the muddied leather boot crossed his face, through the horrid moments he'd been pinned to the cement, face down in his own blood, until he'd finally realized the pain in his chest was because he was still breathing and had sat up, if he'd simply gotten use to this feeling, or if it had honestly subsided. It was a long ten minutes since that happened. What he did know, was that feeling was fuelling the numbness slowly creeping across his body.

Clearly, he could recall the body weight of the arms and legs pinning him at his neck, and at his shoulders, not forgetting the kneecap that dug into the small of his back. He couldn't bring himself to think about the last screw in the back of his shoulder blade, pulled out like all the others as his captors mused themselves by dissecting him.

Again, wiping the sweat from his face, Edward suddenly found himself face flat against the cement floor, never feeling the impact of his own metal forearm hurled against the side of his head.

"You're still ticking over there boy?"

The unsteady hand pushed his chest off the ground amidst the laughter and cigarette smoke filling the room. With every last ounce he could manage, Edward forced himself to balance upon his leg stump and kneecap, hunched over the arm balancing his position. The rancid sound of laughter emanated from the round table of three men gathered in the reclusive corner. He did not know their names, they referred to each other in code; nor did he recognize their faces from anywhere. They reminded him of the thugs who'd escorted Adolf to the stage during the gathering his members had crashed, yet they wore no sign of allegiance. They had spoken casually throughout the night, laughing, and occasionally getting up to remind Edward he belonged on the floor. And then they asked about his right arm, Edward almost wished he hadn't knocked out so many of a fourth man's teeth; but at least that abuser eventually left the room.

Ed did not hear the chair legs scraping against the cement as one man stood up, but he heard the alarming sound of approaching footsteps, and then felt the hand grab his loose hair. His eyes clenched, begging his body for some sort of stamina. Lurched upright, the only thing that came to him was the strength to have his left hand gripped around the bothersome wrist.

"Still hanging around, eh?"

Edward's arm slipped from the wrist that jostled him as he found himself sitting on the floor once again. Though his hair remained gripped, he still refused to give the man the satisfaction of his voice. The moment the first warning shot was fired his way, he'd taken every last ounce of strength and dignity and refused to let anyone hear this pain.

"If you're so interested in staying part of our conversation for a bit longer, why don't you tell us who made that for ya?"

Ed's rigid gaze tore back up at the man, watching as he spun the cigarette in his teeth. His head hurt enough; no amount of pulling his hair could make it any worse. The new gash where blood trickled down his face should have held a lasting sting, but there was a gaping wound at his empty shoulder slowly numbing his body that took precedence. His loose fingertips swept over the ground, finally taking hold of the dismembered forearm thrown at him moments before. Edward asked the horrid sickness churning in his stomach to relent, the exhausted tremble in the nerves of his body to cease, and the ache behind his eyes to ease long enough for him to utilize the fragment of pride held in his hand.

"Come on now," one of the two at the table called out as he flicked the ash from his cigarette. His free hand rose high into the air, holding the right hand they'd disconnected from Edward's AutoMail, the lengths of wiring dangled from it, "can't let someone selfishly hang around with us unless he's willing to share."

Again, the oppressive hand jostled Ed's by his hair, "I haven't slit your vocal cords just yet, so why don't you offer up an answer."

From where he sat, Ed turned his right side against the wall, planting his foot at the baseboards to hold his balance. He hated the unsettling feeling of his heart racing. He hated that the sweat in his palm was not washing away the blood drying on his fingers. Far more than that, he hated a situation beyond his control. Edward lifted his bitterly raging gaze up to the man standing over him.

"I made it," his lips slowly curled into a sneer.

"You?" the brow of the man looking down upon him rose.

The laughter again erupted from his captors. The man holding Edward's hair crouched down beside him until they were nearly at eye level, "You made all this? You want us to believe this?"

"Well, I based it off of some girl's design," he quipped, holding his sneer in check as the men's laughter grew louder.

"A woman is not smart enough to conceive of something like this," the other of two seated men announced.

Edward's nose curled, tasting the noxious fumes of tobacco flowing from the mouth that laughed in his face, "What? Did she make her design out of pots, pans, and canisters?"

Ed threw away the metal forearm in one swift swing of his left arm and watched as it skidded across the floor. His arm motion followed through until his clenched fist stopped, slamming against the kneecap of the man still gripping his hair.

"There are four metal rods that run along the back of that forearm. One for each finger," Edward's raging gaze again drifted into the dilated pupils of the man that looked down on him. Under no uncertain circumstances would he allow exhaustion to submit him just yet, "even if I couldn't make it work too well, the wires provide part of the nervous system connected to the muscles moving the fingers. The rods are just over 15 centimetres long and they're supposed to be only five millimetres in diameter. Mine are nearly double that width since I couldn't find any copper wiring thin enough to hold a decent current."

The man remained frozen beneath the low, searing voice Edward carried. Shifting from where he sat, Ed rose until he perched nose to nose with his opponent, "They're pinched at the ends so the wires don't shift, bunch up, or get caught up in the mechanics."

His teeth grit, Ed ripped the metal rod out from the man's knee joint, having jammed it into him moments before. Looking on, Ed snarled as the man's expression widened at the rushing pain.

"So they're a bit sharp."

The men at the table slowly rose from their seats, eyes widening as their companion holding Edward at bay let out a furious wail. The screaming voice vanished as quickly as it had started, the man suddenly thrown on his back as Edward threw himself headlong into his chest.

Holding his position silently, Ed would be the only one aware of his exhausted, trembling nerves. The determination and flowing ferocity radiated out from behind the tangled mess of hair that had fallen in his face. The stump of his left leg pressing into the man's gut, the right leg planted on the ground for balance. Edward's left fist pressed against his opponent's shoulder, the rods taken from the forearm gripped between his fingers and buried deep within the body he'd pinned.

"I knew a woman whose claws worked something like this. She was inhuman like you and the rest of this world," he ripped out two of the three remaining metal spears. While his eyes watched as the man grabbed at the third, Edward quickly stripped him of the firearm at his belt, "Yet she was more human than you could ever hope to be."

Quickly sitting back, Edward raised his arm as one of the comrades moved to defend his partner, swinging the length of metal chain down over him. Ed's hand remained tightly gripped around the weapon he'd taken, allowing the chain to snake around his arm.

His golden eyes trained on the second man entering the challenge of survival.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" the voice echoed viciously within the confines of the room.

"Sorry," his arm stiffened and the sole of his shoe gripped the cement floor, preventing him from sliding as the second opponent jerked the chain tangled around Edward's last defence.

"I can't die here."


Silence always held some resemblance of peace, but the silent darkness Al ran through only captivated his fear. It was the only thing he could see, the silent darkness, which was interrupted only by his footsteps, which made Al hope to never hear whatever might be approaching.

Alphonse could not see everything he'd tripped over, and some part of him was grateful for that. Each time his hands and knees came crashing down to the ground, he didn't want to know what it was that his fingers were touching on the floor. He didn't know if he'd been followed; he couldn't remember how long he'd been going, but the escape route was finally above his head and he simply needed to take a moment to breathe.

He'd had no idea where Wrath had gone; his instinct had taken him down each hall whenever it came time for him to turn left or right. If he'd had time to worry about it, he would have asked himself why such a maze existed beneath this remote town.

Taking hold of the chilled, damp metal rail, Al made his way up the ladder, nearly smacking his head when the seal weighed far more than he'd expected. Finally pushing the manhole cover out of his way, the rush of water pooled in the street flooded down as he slipped out. His feet still dangling inside the cavity, Alphonse looked around at the township, somewhat surprised to find himself sitting in the middle of the road.

There wasn't a running car or face in a window to question why he sat there. Soon standing, Al began his walk down the centre of a ghost town. It was one thing to have driven through it with the car full of people; it was another to stand alone in the middle of it. The rain was no lighter than before, and the wind still cut a bitter path through town. He wished the sun was out, at least then he would be able to figure out which way was east and west.

Footsteps trampled the constant sound of rainfall. Al dashed from the middle of the road where everyone could possibly see him and ducked into the space between two darkened houses that lined the street. Voices, as faint as whispers, accompanied the parade of feet splashing along the ground. Obscured by the shadows and hidden behind the trash, Al crouched, watching as the men, dressed in black and wielding rifles, fanned out into the street.

Confused to begin with and uncertain over what these militants were doing, Al took some relief by watching them move away from where he hid. He slipped deeper into the shadows of the alleyway until he was certain that they could not see him move. Al's hand darted into his pocket. Finally, with fist clenched, he turned to disappear.

"Unfortunately…"

Alphonse froze, his eyes suddenly focused on the tip of a riffle.

"… your free reign in this city stops here."

The rainfall echoed off the damp, brick walls as the the stem of white chalk in Al's hand slipped form his fingertips, shattering against the cement. Petrified to move his body, the younger Elric locked his pinpoint grey eyes, focusing them on the daunting figure of a man towering over him.

"You're that boy staying in the ministerial house."

The weight of rainwater began to slip from his hair and run down his face. Stiffening his body, Alphonse gave his own statement.

"You're that man from the Central market explosion."

"Oh?" his posture loosened with curiosity, brushing a damp clump of hair from his forehead.

Slowly Al shifted, straightening his posture a little more, "Is there a reason you're in this city?"

"You've missed something," his voice almost seemed to laugh while he realigned the weapon in hand, "I'm the one asking the questions."

Looking out from beneath his brow, Alphonse shifted his weight, waiting for the interrogative question. The rainfall provided a nearly deafening echo.

"Where did she take them?"

"Who?" Al's eyes narrowed curiously.

"That woman."

Al could only squint with confusion at the question, "Major Hawkeye?"

"Are you playing stupid with me boy?"

"Marcus!" the call came from a body blackened by the light filtering in around him at the end of the alley, "They're moving down the 8th street corridor!"

His face burdened with obvious frustration, the man holding Al frozen finally let out a disgruntled sigh, "Only two blocks? Alright."

The man's strong grip took hold of Alphonse high on his arm. Throwing the Elric deeper into the alleyway, Al staggered to catch his steps, trying not to let the man's movements out of his sight. As much as he wanted to run, wanted to defend himself, he did not dare; he did not want to know what the world might be like if the rifle, trained on his movements, discharged.

"Walk."

Al straightened, watching as the man motioned with his firearm for him to move deeper into the alley. Silent, he turned, grey eyes focusing on the figure of the companion still positioned at the corridor's exit. Their footsteps moved closer but the figure remained motionless; Al watched the stout, unwavering figure stand in their path until finally the man showed signs of life and folded his arms. Even if Alphonse could not see his face clearly, he could feel the unimpressed look cast back upon him.

"And you're expecting him not to run off?"

The footsteps that had pushed him forwards suddenly vanished, Al's movements stopped at the disappearance of the sound. The silence of both men standing in the pounding rain took only moments to set off every alarm bell in his head. Alphonse spun on his heels, as though he stood on ice. He wouldn't have enough time to see; the shiver shot up his spine faster than he could lift his arm in defense, Al found himself ripped off his feet, dropped to the cement floor as the butt end of the rifle cracked across his face.

He didn't feel his body hit the ground. With his forehead against the road, his hands clawed at the side of his face. The impact pounded through his skull, burning at the side of his face. Centered at his left cheek, the sensation leaked into his body until it filled his head and tingled down his neck. The sound of the rain vanished, as did the recognition of the wind's chill. Their voices echoed around him, never entering into his mind. He had no idea what to do with this feeling, he knew his knees were on the ground and his head pressed into the dirty road, but his sense of balance told him he was upside down. Then, that same sense of shaken balance told him 'no' as he tried to push to his hands and knees, only to end up slipping like a fish out of water, flopping again, unable to hold himself steady.

Izumi had hit him before, she'd clocked him good more than once, but he'd never been unable to pick himself up before. He'd never opened his eyes and seen the world through a thick, white haze. Alphonse could not explain why his eyes watered so badly the tears ran over his face, disguised by the rainwater already drenching in his face.

Again, his hands and knees slipped in the water. Al moved his jaw, his breath flowed, but he could not get his tongue to release a single word for anyone to hear.

The disassociation he felt from his own body grew, until the muscular hands grabbed under his arms, hauling him up off the saturated ground. Alphonse barely felt the cement as he inexplicably fell back to the ground. The hands that lifted him had promptly released him. He couldn't hear it, but Al was sure the world existed outside of the pounding between his ears. Opening his eyes hurt, so he wouldn't bother.

He wanted to flinch when the sounds of the rifle discharging invaded the silent world forced upon him.

He wanted to ask if someone had fallen after the echo of shots ceased accosting the block in his head.

He wanted to know who picked him up afterwards, because it wasn't the same two hands that let him fall moments before.


It was the no choice option that stripped him of the level of morality Ed believed he upheld. Existing in a world where the dignity of human life carried a market value did not make it easier to accept how he'd willfully broken himself. It had merely corrupted him, and made it easier for the muscles in his hand to move.

Edward fired first, knowing that he did not have a second hand to combat the free arm that would attempt to change his string of fate. The man withered as the shot tore through his shoulder, dropping the chain which interfered with his movements.

The only conscious thought that passed into his mind was the one asking if his Sensei would be disappointed in him.

There was no 'one is all, all is one'. The earth was ravaged and it was survival of the quickest: quickest to think, quickest to act, quickest to move, quickest to run, quickest to take, quickest to fire. The human decency that haunted Mustang when could not finish him off during Edward's State Alchemist review had no business being in this room; and Ed fired a second time.

His shot entered through the man's eye as he lurched forwards again. Ed's arm suddenly trembled from the recoil. His outstretched arm was held in midair, frozen by his own actions, watching as the body hit the ground with a lifeless thud. Eyes wide, only able to see the results of his defensive action, Edward never saw the boot that whipped across his face, knocking him flat on his side.

"You son of a bitch!"

Slowly rolling his body, Ed spat out the blood in his mouth, watching through the clump of hair in his face as the last, uninjured captor crouched next to the comrade's side. Weapon in hand, Edward dug his fist into the ground and pushed himself until he sat once again. His tired body felt numb; it was inhuman to feel this way, he concluded. Ed composed a bizarre speech in his head, one that started with 'don't move' as he'd point the gun at the third and final person within his company.

"Eye for an eye."

Not wondering why it hurt to breathe, Ed found himself with his gun trained forward once again, expecting to be the one who'd spoken and not prepared to have a weapon pointed back at him.

His eyes slit, "'Equivalent exchange' doesn't work like that."

The gunshot rang out, stopping Edward's heart; he was the only one who knew that he would have been unable to pull the trigger a third time. His hand went numb, a sensation that slowly crippled his whole body. He scolded himself: how unmanly, how uncomposed, how disgusting, wanting to shed tears because he'd not been able to fire the weapon in his hand. The splattering of blood across his face felt oddly warm as it ran down his cheek. The muscles in his arm began to tremble and the weapon in his fingertips clattered against the cement floor. Edward's eyes remained fixated upon the face of a man who could no longer look back at him, the explosive bullet that rang out in the room had gone clear through the back of the man's head and exited through his eye. Disbelief kept Ed's attention upon a gruesome figure; he'd heard the bullet sail past him, but could have sworn that the sound cut through only him.

The suddenly dead body crumpled over. Ed tried to catch it, but ended up falling onto the cement floor beneath it. A wary set of gold eyes rolled away, towards an indistinguishable sound; Ed's tilted, upside down view of the room saw the last of the three men scrambling upon bloodied hands and knees towards him. Edward lay motionless, momentarily unable to draw the conclusion for why the man was rushing towards him in that manner. Disconnected from the thoughts that kept his mind lost, Edward found himself quickly pulling out from beneath the fallen body, his hand slamming down over the firearm on the ground between he and the person moving for it.

Ed swore that he could almost make out his own refection in the polished shine of the black shoe that stepped in his way, pinning his hand to the floor. The eyes of the man who once held an empty rage for him looked up from his knees to the figure impeding progress. The man was only given enough time to see the room's light glance off the silver casing that released two shots into his forehead.

Robbed of existence, the body collapsed to the ground at the same time Edward's head came to rest upon the floor. He watched vacantly as a pool of blood formed on the ground, dying the hair of his last aggressor a filthy colour. Nothing disturbed his bird's eye view of death's door until a set of hands slipped the heavy piece of metal from his grasp.

"Edward?"

The most familiar voice he could have asked for stopped the replay of the last minutes in his mind. He pushed himself onto an elbow, spitting the taste of blood from his mouth. A firm grasp took hold, his father's hand held beneath the only arm he had and hoisted him upright. Edward's single hand clung desperately to his father's shoulder, trying to remain balanced. His eyes downcast toward the bludgeoned mess across the floor, the empty looks of death in the three bodies close enough to touch.

In the corner, a mangled attempt at reconciling a part of life left behind lay useless upon the floor.

"Edward?" it must have been the fourth time his father had asked for his attention, and not until Hohenheim's palm slapped his cheek did he even realize where the voice was coming from.

"Dad?"

His wide eyes turned to watch the strong hand hook the top button through the jacket eyelet. When did his father's coat end up on his shoulders? Hohenheim's free hand brushed over his son's pale face, wiping away the red mess thrown across his complexion. Too numb to acknowledge the touch, Ed's eyes carried away, glancing around at the Thule members his father had brought with him. For a brief, inexplicable moment, the German voices of those companions became untranslatable. His wide expression could only look about, unable to wrap his mind around what was being asked of him.

His gaze trembled slightly, looking down at the first bled out body fallen to the ground. That could have been him; but he was the executioner. The hallow eyes were still open, wide in surprise of their own death. A hallow, ghostly emptiness carried directly back into Edward's eyes; the existence of death that swelled in this vision and held the Elric at it's mercy, unable to step away…

It was the sense of familiarity that finally interrupted Edward's thoughts. It rose up from beneath the fear of death lying before him; a warm and a quiet sound he instinctively knew to listen for. It lured him from one setting and lulled him into another. Ed couldn't quite place the sound, or where it came from, it merely existed as the faint remembrance of a dream not allowed in this world. It was an unchanging and familiar constant, as secure as the arms that could embrace him. Once upon a time, the world had been safer this way. He listened, carefully, the mind's eye covering a wide-open gaze. He knew this verse.

A hand brushed through his matted hair as the clarity between this world and one he could hardly remember slowly disintegrated.

Edward did not fall down, even when his hand let go.


Bright blue eyes stared up towards where the sun was balanced in the sky, having not yet risen above the peaks of the spruce trees towering stories above her. With the bird's welcoming voice, she stepped out into a light breeze that flicked the hemline of her dress.

Her sandals scraped over the cement that soon turned into a clay bed, each step made carefully to avoid crushing the pinecones that rested contently against the earth's warm surface. After no more than thirty steps the clay vanished beneath a thick bed of white sand. Standing at this edge, the fascinated eyes looked out upon the smooth surface of the lake not yet disturbed, the wilderness laid out before her beyond the lake reflected back upon itself in the water's natural mirror.

Slipping out of her sandals and stepping into the heated sand, the young mind wasted no time avoiding the assault of the cooked pebbles, rushing until her feet splashed into the crystal glaze of the lake's edge, unable to disturb the entirety of the smooth, liquid surface. She found herself squealing, delighted by the water's chill. The world was too hot from 8am to 9pm, she'd rarely venture outside after her first encounter with the sun.

But this, this was a good idea. Turning back to look at the cabin, showered in sunlight filtering in through the pine surrounding it, she ran out of the water nearly as soon as she'd entered. The collection of sand on her soaked feet and ankles grew as she scampered towards the old wooden dock. Rushing onto it, each step along the platform released a spray of sand, her movements echoing off the water beneath the platform. The end of the dock was simply a formality, she could have jumped off either side; but it was more appropriate to jump off the end of the dock, fully clothed, into the cool, crystal water.

"Brigitte?" the woman's head poked out her door moments after the sound of the splash came through the window, "Brigitte?"

A tiny voice echoed off the lake.

With a sigh, Maria took a barefoot stroll down the backyard embankment towards a pair of empty sandals and the sound of a girl's voice, "Are you alright?"

A soaken, wide-eyed expression floated out from around the pier.

Raising an eyebrow, the lieutenant, dressed only in jean shorts and a white tank top, came to a stop at the water's edge.

"What are you doing?" she didn't want to giggle, but the sound found a way into her words.

Though sheepish, Brigitte's triumphant grin ran across her face as she let her body float up to the surface.

Even if Maria did not understand the motive, the situation looked foolish enough that she couldn't help but laugh and shake her head. Finally forcing a stern sound into her voice, she addressed her young companion once again.

"Come out of the water, you have all your clothes on."

Brigitte's eyes flickered over, the language barrier would exist at her discretion today, and she would ignore the tone of voice her own mother used and paddle her feet instead.

"Well," Lt. Ross tilted her head, a smile on her face as she sighed, "at least this is better than last night."

Last night had been nearly sleepless. Maria had spent an hour trying to coax the girl out of the back seat of the car, and Brigitte had only relented after the vehicle heated up from the glaring sun. She'd fought with her to get her into the house, to pry her out of the corner, to get her to eat anything, to silence the fit she'd try to throw whenever Maria had gotten close. The behaviour, the officer realized, was her own fault. Brigitte hadn't started acting up until she'd removed the bandages and washed the makeup off her face.

50 kilometres outside Central, they were scheduled to change transports, in the process, the pair slipped away. Maria knew the location Broche would be waiting and Havoc had slipped the paperwork for his temporary assignment in that township through days earlier. With no time to waste, Brigitte was stuffed into the back seat of Broche's car and Maria flew in and out of the gas station washroom. The moment the lieutenant started the engine and looked over her shoulder, Brigitte curled away into the backseat, realizing this woman had spent the previous 24 hours deceiving her.

Broche remained behind, his superior taking the car out to the lakeside cabin her family used during the summers she'd been a teenager.

The car stopped at its 'middle of nowhere' location and the woman who'd lured Brigitte into feeling secure tried to convince her to go into the house. The young teenager's fit started and continued for the remainder of the day.

Maria had finally gotten her into the house, but left the girl huddled up in a corner. Not long before midnight she'd surrendered for the evening and moved the plate of dinner cooked hours earlier to an open floor space in front of the silent fireplace. Setting a blanket and pillow on the rug next to the meal, Maria told the teenager she could sleep wherever she wanted, and spent the next hour minding a headache on the back porch.

Just before the clock struck to turn over the new day she came back inside, her relieved expression turning to the girlish figure curled up atop the blanket and pillow, and the plate of food finished. Maria sat down on the floor next to a set of shining blue eyes that had been analyzing her every step. With a sigh, she suggested the sofa was more comfortable than the floor, and then apologized for the cold dinner, even if Brigitte would never understand.

Now sitting at the tip of the pier, her chin resting in hand, Maria watched Brigitte as she paddled about.

"I bet all the wood for the fire pit's rotted by now," Maria's finger scratched her chin, her bare feet dangling in the water.

"Hey lady," Brigitte called out, waiting until she had her undivided attention, "I'd like to see you jump in the water too."

Maria narrowed an eye in confusion, "What?" she glanced at her watch, "Do you want lunch?"

With the kick of her feet, Brigitte floated back towards the pier, "My aunt use to do things like that."

Wrinkling her nose, not sure what the girl was going on about, Maria continued on, "I put a loaf of bread on the counter and peanut butter in the cupboard…"

"Dammit lady, jump in the water," Brigitte kicked her feet up and sprayed the officer as she thumped her feet against the top of the water.

"What are you d-?" scrambling to her feet, Maria backed off down the pier, shaking the water from her hair, "don't do that!"

Straightening and floating back from the ledge, Brigitte's hands patted the water's surface, deepening her voice theatrically, "I will not tattle on you."

Scowling, and slightly more confused, Maria slid her feet along the wooden planks of the pier until she stood at its edge once more. Crouching down, she held her frown over Brigitte, "I have no idea what you want."

Again, she began patting the water's surface, a foolish grin crossing her face as Brigitte allowed her body to float to the surface again, "Well, I tried. I didn't think you'd come in anyways."

Raising an eyebrow, Maria's confusion persisted until she found herself sitting dockside, sweeping her feet through the water again.


He couldn't sleep. As much as he wished for it, he couldn't shut his eyes. He'd shut his eyes and it would be his ears that played tricks on him before his minds eye would; he could not stand the murderous echo vibrating in his head. But, even though he'd kept his eyes open, Ed hadn't seen the sunrise or the sunset. It felt like the pre-dawn hour he'd last experienced, but it was post-dusk, and grudgingly he'd accepted the numerous missing hours. But, time slowed to a crawl as he lay exhausted atop the bed sheets. By the time midnight came, he felt as though he'd existed for that missed time, and then some.

Deliberately, he hadn't ask how he'd gotten from that place to the hospital bed; though, he'd nearly blurted the question when he'd awoken, but withheld it when his father's hand instructed him to lay back down. Frustrated, he'd dismissed his father from his presence the moment he'd given his son the gentle 'sympathetic father gaze'; he did not want that from him. Ed had finally gotten that look removed from Hohenheim's repertoire of expressions the man would bestow upon him. The gaze dogged him around London for too long and the last thing he wanted was the man's pity again.

Lying on his back, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Edward only listened as Winry prattled on around him. He couldn't remember when she'd gotten there and began mulling about with her grossly transparent, cheerful guise.

What finally caught his attention was how she sighed and Ed picked his head up.

"Why don't I just make you a new one?" she said, giving a kick to the pieces of wooden leg scattered on the floor, "the wood wasn't properly treated anyways, it was rotting a little inside."

Ed's head fell back onto the pillow, his arm fallen over his open eyes; he couldn't understand why she was still at the hospital so late, "Alright."

"It shouldn't take me long," smoothing the bottom of her dress, Winry finally sat down on the side of Ed's hospital room bed, "a replacement limb is just screws, coils and some woodwork, it's simpler than AutoMail. I just need to find a hardware store."

"Ask Dad," Ed mumbled, energy lacking from his voice, "I'm sure he'll take you."

Coming into existence once again was the silence; the silence Winry hated to hear from Ed. His silence was far louder than his words ever were, and his discontented silence always seemed to rage around the room. She looked out the window, through the autumn leaves of the trees and into the midnight sky, running out of things to say to stop an uncomfortable evening.

"This evening, when your dad picked me up from the Haushofer's and we went home for a bit... he said Mr. Oberth called for you," she paused, only long enough to realize he wouldn't respond, "and he wants to see you after you come home, since you don't want him to come here to visit."

"Nosy bastard," he murmured through grated teeth.

"Ed," Winry's tone turned harsh, "don't talk about your friends that way. He's only worried about you like everyone else has been."

He didn't respond; Ed simply remained silent, laid upon his back in the hospital bed.

Eyes soft in thought, Winry returned to staring out the window, "What's wrong with the hospital? Is there a reason you don't like them?"

"What gave you that idea?"

Winry tangled her fingers in the hair pinned to her head, "When we picked up something to eat, your dad said that you didn't like hospitals too much," an eyebrow rose in curiosity as Edward's arm lifted from his face, "but I saw you in the hospital back home and you weren't this miserable."

Edward held the limb above his face, following the length of forearm speckled with purple bruising until he focused on his hand. He turned the arm over, examining the palm of his hand until Winry snatched it from his attention, gripping his hand tightly and pulling until he'd sat up.

"I brought you something," Winry grinned and hopped off the bed.

Taking his hand back, Ed narrowed an eye at her as she began digging through a bag she'd stuffed until the seams nearly burst. Dumping the tools and bit parts she'd fit inside, to Ed's horror, she began pulling out what filled the most space.

"While we were home, your dad said that you were in a hospital in London once and that's why the lady gave you this," Winry wrapped the blanket Ed had placed on her bed weeks ago over her shoulders, forcefully unfazed by Ed's gaping reaction.

"Why the hell did he tell you?" his voice snapped.

Winry gave a sharp sigh, a juvenile tone in her voice, "That you were in a hospital in London once and that the lady, who was a friend of your dad's, gave you this as a feel better present."

Glancing out the window, gathering his thoughts, Edward sighed finally and returned his attention to Winry, "Put it back on your bed, I'm going home soon, I don't need it."

"Just enjoy it for the night," she swung it off her shoulders, "see, it's pretty and colourful and-"

"I don't need any more sheets," his hand gripped the bed, "there's plenty here."

Scowling back at him, Winry clenched the quilt in her hand, "Humour me and take the blanket, Ed."

"I don't need the damned quilt, Winry!"

"No, you don't need it!" she bit back, "you need a slap in the face, but if I tried to hit you you'd fall over and that would defeat the purpose of slapping you because you'd be on the ground angry that you're on the ground and NOT worried over why I slapped you!"

"Huh?" Ed's face twisted, "slap me? What the hell for?"

"For being so selfish!"

"How am I being selfish?"

Wrinkling the blanket up in her two hands, Winry held it over her head and threw it at him, watching as the ball of cloth unbundled as he tried to block it, "You just want to sit here, be miserable, and leave everyone who's worried about you as far away as possible. Me, your dad, his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Oberth; that's not fair to us! I hope that 'comfort blanket' gives you some companionship while you sit there all miserable and lonely, because I'm not going to do it anymore!"

"…Winry!"

"Talk to me again when you remember much more older you are!"

"Winry!"

"You never listen to me!"

"WINRY!"

Her hand gripped the door handle, her tight, frustrated expression glaring back over her shoulder at him, "WHAT?"

Ed found himself sitting high, the quilt gripped in his left hand, and his mouth open with something to say, but finding no voice to say it with. Winry's grip slipped away from the handle as she watched Ed mull over his thoughts, slowly turning back into the room.

"I got the quilt from Mrs. Churchill when I was in the hospital, just after I crossed the Gate and ended up in London. I gave you the quilt when you were in our house, just after you'd come through the Gate and ended up in Munich. Couldn't you find-"

"Sorry."

Her voice blurted out suddenly and vanished as quickly as it had appeared. She'd cut him off, but long before she had, she started realizing what he was saying. It was Winry who'd create the silence this time, having made a frustrating situation even worse.

Turning, her feet brushing against the floor as she moved back towards the side of the bed, "I'm sorry."

Ed pushed the bundle of fabric out of his lap, "I need two hands to fold it."

"I'll fold it," she swept the quilt off the bed, holding it carefully at the corners as she folded it across her chest. Ed sat silent, watching from the corner of his eye until she finally placed the quilt at the foot of his bed.

"Once you're standing, I think we should go for a walk."

"What for?" Ed's expression lifted at the question, "Where?"

"Anywhere," smoothing the fabric, Winry sat back down on the bed, her gaze carrying out the window, "I don't particularly care where we go, but I'd like to just walk away, and keep walking until something different turns up."

Ed offered no response to the suggestion, only his silence yet again while time allowed their thoughts to drift.

"You keep the quilt folded like that at the foot of your bed."

Winry turned over her shoulder, watching as Edward's gaze rose from the folding job, "When we lived in London, I slept in the living room more often than not."

She watched, as the gaze in his eyes never seemed to return to the present.

"And Dad kept it folded over the back of the couch."


"Don't flinch."

There wasn't enough desire to open his eyes, or to even force himself back to consciousness. Alphonse let the voice echo in his mind as a gentle, cold touch came over his cheek.

He flinched again.

Whatever voices he heard remained as echoes in the backdrop. None of them setting off alarms in his head, the sense of comfort and security erased his concern. Alphonse tried to understand the low voices holding broken and disappearing discussions around the noise of a rickety, bouncing carriage. One voice suddenly resonated over his right ear; clear, concise, and familiar.

Alphonse's eyes cracked open, lifting his head from the cushion he rested on, "… Sensei?"

The cold, damp towel wrapped around a firm hand came over the sore cheek, "And you woke up anyways?"

Unable to see clearly, the only way he could move was to roll onto his back. With his legs sprawling out over the floor of the carriage, Al's gaze looked straight up to the hide covering their transport. Head resting in his bundled up jacket within her lap, between he and the covering were the eyes of his sensei looking back down at him.

Her smile formed, somewhat crooked as the young Elric's gawked back up at her, unable to form words in his mouth.

"You're going to have a headache," Izumi looked back down on him, "you should go back to sleep."

"What happened?"

The question was too broad for any one particular answer. Even if he had been more specific, it would not have drawn an answer out of her, "Don't worry about that right now."

"Where are we?" Al began to sit up until Izumi's hand clasped over his forehead and returned his head to the resting spot in her lap.

"Alphonse," Izumi's eyebrow gave a warning twitch, "didn't you hear what I just said?"

Letting go of the tension pinching his face, shoulders and back, Al gave in to the incontestable demand. Her hand, cradling a cool cloth, held his head where the rifle's end had landed on him. The numbing chill felt nice over a spot on his cheekbone fully swollen.

"Sensei…"

She hesitated with her response, though finally acknowledging him, "Hm?"

"Where've you been?"

It was an understandable question; he had every right to make it. She would have apologized to him if she'd not felt justified in her actions. Izumi's unburdened hand brushed over his matted hair, cautious with her answer.

"I was at the Ishibal settlement."

The road turned to gravel beneath them, the carriage beginning to bounce unsteadily as Al lay silent. The answer was nothing like he'd envisioned, though he didn't know exactly what he'd wanted to hear for an answer.

"Why?"

"If I have to tell you again to stop asking questions," her voice was sharp, "I'm going to dump you off the side of the carriage."

Alphonse took the hint and fell silent again. She wanted him to rest but there was suddenly no way he could. There was things he needed to know, wanted to ask, wanted to share, had to tell… she couldn't expect him to simply lay there?

"I saw Wrath again," the words slipped from his mouth, needing to keep some line of communication open with Izumi for even a little longer.

"I know."

"He told me something strange about the Gate…" Alphonse's voice softened when Izumi's hand came to rest at the corner of his jaw, as though to silence him, "and something about my dad."

There would be a more appropriate place and time to discuss this, Izumi thought. Her own curiosity for what Wrath knew would have to wait; she'd heed her own advice and not voluntarily start the questions.

"And Winry's missing."

"I know."

A hint of frustration emerged Al's words, "How do you know?"

"Your friends told me," Izumi's tone would remain steady and smooth.

The gravel path gave way to concrete again and the sound of the leading horses hooves began to echo, "Are they alright?"

"Everyone's fine."

Suddenly stiff, Alphonse moved from his resting place; finally able to steady himself with the ground he stat on, he rose to his knees, "Where are they?"

Frowning, Izumi's cloth hand slapped over Al's cheek, "Alphonse, we can discuss things in the morning."

It was the first time Al had realized that it was dark outside the beige cover of the carriage. Absorbing his surroundings and the familiar, resting bodies searching for sleep, Al's attention refocused on his sensei. Expecting to find her scowl searing back at him, he took a minute to burn the image of her frustrated, weary and sympathetic expression into his mind. Her other hand moved to adjust the brown and orange shawl that wrapped over her shoulders.

"I want to discuss them now," jaw quivering as he tightened it, Al's hand feverishly scratched his head, "y-you disappear, you leave me in Central to go to Ishibal?"

"That's not what I said."

"No one could find you, you could have been dead, and then you just show up and expect me not to think anything of it?"

Izumi sighed, her eyes focusing on the trembling, harsh expression Alphonse bestowed upon her. Her own ferocious gaze would always over power his, except that she didn't look back upon him with that in her eyes. Sliding to her knees, Izumi's arms came to wrap around his neck and shoulders. The youngest Elric would not surprise her with how easily his forehead fell against her shoulder, her fingers buried in his hair.

"Yes, I do."


Quiet, Hohenheim stood in the centre of the room.

He wondered if his son had slept. He wondered if he'd eaten. He wondered those, and many other things he'd been unable to do himself.

The pleasant morning was a cruel backdrop for the raging thunderstorm existing within the confines of the room. Hohenheim again wondered if Edward was lucid enough to understand he should not have won the argument. Unlike London, Edward was now old enough to demand his own hospital release in the coming afternoon. Much to the protest of his father and most everyone else, Ed dictated he would come home at four that afternoon and not remain in a place that did nothing but remind him how he'd gotten there.

It drove the father mad that he was refusing to stay in the hospital's care. There was no way for Hohenheim to convey the instances fused to the forefront of his thoughts; the ones that wanted Ed kept under the care of people far more capable of ensuring his well being. The perception of events that had come to pass was different between father and son. Where Edward knew what had gone through his own mind the moment the gun had been pointed in his face, Hohenheim got to see the look in his sons eyes when he thought he was going to die. Where Edward struggled to relinquish himself from the events in that room, Hohenheim got to hold him when he finally let go. Where Edward was allowed to exist in unconscious freedom, Hohenheim was given the painful task of taking him somewhere far safer.

Something far too traumatic exists as the barrier between personal experience and verbal discourse when a father carries his injured son away; without knowing how badly he has been hurt, without having a way to have prevented it, but knowing the circumstances arose from the father's soiled hands.

Again, at the edge of the bed, Edward sat; cut, scraped, stitched, bandaged, and horribly unbalanced. Yet, the orange fire raged in his eyes once more. The argument they'd fought had occurred first thing that morning and had ended with Hohenheim marching out of the room at mid verbal-volley. The trait the father possessed that the son did not, was the ability to diffuse a situation by walking away.

However, the trait the father had passed onto his son was the stubborn, solid backbone that did not allow either to back down. Hohenheim finally returned with his trump card, and he'd placed it at the foot of the bed.

Ed's eyes rose from the bed, looking in below the rim of his father's glasses as the old man cast his stern gaze back to the boiling son.

"You don't honestly expect me…"

His arms rose, folding across his chest as Hohenheim looked down towards Edward as he manoeuvred awkwardly where he sat.

"Take the tickets and go."

"You can't be that senile," Ed wished he could kick something, or throw the tickets laying out of his reach back at his father, "I'm not going to London."

"I told Winry you were taking her to London…"

"Just who the hell do you think you are?" Edward's voice raged again.

"… and she's looking forward to going somewhere where she can speak the language."

The strength of his clenched fist could have shattered something, "Did you slip into a coma and forget how many times I've told you that this isn't going to happen? Are you deaf maybe? You can't just decide these things for me."

"But I am your father, I ca-"

"Don't start that father bullshit with me," Edward's raging gaze clashed fiercely with the stone-cold, unwavering look Hohenheim carried, "you have never been my father."

The old man's eyebrows rose, "You call me 'Dad' now."

"I'd call you 'asshole' for all the good it would do me," Edward barked.

"And you use to call me 'Daddy' when you barely stood taller than my kneecap."

The conversation itself ignited Ed's rage, and the indestructible, unwavering tone Hohenheim conducted their discussion with only fuelled it.

"Yeah, and that 'Daddy' walked out one day and never came back. He never came back to see his children grow up, he never came back to be there for his wife, and he sure as hell didn't give a damn when she died."

Taking a strategic step deeper into the room, Hohenheim kept a cautious eye on his son's reactions, "Haven't we had this conversation before?"

Ed slammed his hand against the mattress, "Yeah, the last time I told you I didn't see you as my father."

His voice was quiet as he slipped his hands into his pockets, glancing out the window into the early portion of the day, "It's been a while since we've had one of those arguments."

"And I'm sick and tired of having to remind you of it," Ed scoffed, wishing he could storm out of the room, "maybe you should take Winry to London and remind yourself why I don't want to go back there. I sure as hell cannot understand how you were even able to deal with them."

"Edward," Hohenheim's hand stroked over his beard, his voice light, "were you old enough to remember when I left?"

His eyes slit, throwing a disgusted look back at the old man, "You can't even remember how old I was?"

"You were four, Alphonse was three…"

Ed rolled his eyes.

"You and Trisha taught Alphonse how to dry the dishes that day," his fingers pinched his beard, resting his arms in the windowsill, "later we went into town to pick up the mail. I carried you around on my shoulders while we were in town so you could see everything."

Edward watched, on the edge of instructing his father to 'shut up', yet remaining curiously silent.

"I received a package from an old friend, Majihal."

Ed's brow rose at the name.

"He'd sent me a bottle of the wine your mother and I had at our wedding and a beginner's alchemy book for fun. You asked about the book, and I told you I'd teach it to you when you were older," Hohenheim's hand came back and slipped the ponytail off his shoulders, "we had dinner that night and toasted to the family. I don't remember how it unfolded, but sometime during the dinner hour you asked how I burnt my arm again. That wasn't the first time you or Alphonse had asked, but that's just what you thought the lesions on my body were, because that's what I'd told you."

Ed's jaw grinded, grating his teeth as he turned his attention away, "That was your own fault."

"It was," the quiet, guilt ridden voice locked itself away in the past, "I'd told Trisha what was happening to me long before I married her and she never looked down on me for it. I'll never understand that. Your mother had a faith in me, and in humanity, that I can't grasp."

The mention of his mother's name so rarely came up. Inexplicably curious about what sort of look he carried on his face, Edward's eyes flickered over to his father.

"I don't know if I'd have come home if I had gotten the letters you and Alphonse had written," Hohenheim didn't want to see the reaction Ed gave to those words, "I told Trisha I was leaving until I could at least come to terms with myself, let alone explain to you boys the calamity of sins required to end up in this state. I couldn't let you see me rot away. Even if she knew, I couldn't let my wife see me deteriorate like that," his hand came up, resting loosely over his mouth as he spoke, "What a burden I was."

Hohenheim took a moment; inhaling a slow, deep breath as he gathered his voice again, "Trisha told me that she'd wait until I came back, but I can't imagine how much of her faith I took from her that day. All the faith she'd put in me and in the family we wanted; a simple world that I could not provide for her."

Hohenheim looked back into the room, almost surprised to find that Edward was looking at him.

"I found out she'd died when I came back to Resembool, and I was glad that she hadn't died alone. She had you boys with her," he replayed a scene active in his mind for too many years, "and some days I sit in the living room watching the candles flicker and find myself wondering what her last words were."

Stepping away from the window, Hohenheim moved to the bedside and picked up the train tickets out of Munich. Edward's gaze drifted away from his father's movements as the old man slipped the papers into his vest pocket.

"The day I left, the last thing she said to me was that she'd wait. We sat in the armchair, she tucked her head in against my neck; if I'd thought there was a God I would have prayed that I hadn't made her cry," his hands swept over his face, tracing through his tied hair until he gripped the ponytail and tightened it a little more, "and I sat there with her, until Trisha fell asleep. I continued to sit there with her, to just enjoy her company. Sometime past midnight I picked her up and took her to bed. There was a storm outside, Alphonse ended up waking up and crawled into bed with her."

"The tree outside his window use to wake him up when it was windy; the branches scratched the wall," Ed murmured, "Mom and the Rockbells spent a weekend moving the tree because she didn't want it cut own."

"You came downstairs just as I'd gotten up enough nerve to walk out the door," Hohenheim straightened his vest, "the storm woke you up, and no power existing on that green earth beyond my own was going to get you to go back to bed."

The mind's eye slowly picked apart the steps Edward's father laid out for him.

"So I sat with you in your mother's rocker. We use to sit there some nights and I'd have you tucked into my left arm for hours. Your head would never find the spot in my shoulder that Alphonse buried into, you'd just put your head against my chest and simply fall asleep. It was fairly easy."

The distant eyes Ed wore remained shielded by the bangs framing his face and masking his profile. Hohenheim looked towards the door; focusing head as his hands slipped into his pockets. He'd allow history to follow behind him.

"I put you in your bed before I left. You lay down and I brushed the hair from your face, I kissed you on the forehead and told you to sleep well."

The old left hand reached out, sweeping Edward's bangs up and ruffling his hair as he finally walked away. It had been an action his child had protested against long before he'd been able to stand on two feet, yet today he was silent.

"I left the house no more than five minutes later."

Hohenheim turned back as he pulled the door open, the blonde ponytail swaying over his back, "Don't think I can't remember what it felt like to walk away from all that."

The door to the deadened hospital room slammed shut as Hohenheim left, leaving his son's silent figure sitting in the middle of the early daylight flowing in through the open second floor window. Ed's only hand reached back, pulling the elastic tie from the mess of blonde strands. He tossed the tie into the middle of the floor as his hair slipped over his shoulders.

 


To Be Continued...



Chapter 18: Resembool Verses

Chapter Text


Resembool Verses



Verse I – Because Mommy Said So.

Rinsing the plate under the splash of warm water, Trisha handed the dripping white plate to Alphonse's outstretched arms. Keeping an eye upon her youngest son perched next to the sink, a towel draped over his outstretched legs, another towel fumbling around in his hands as he made a continual attempt to dry his mother's dishes; Trisha treated another plate to the rinse water. This time, the plate was passed across Alphonse to Edward, who handled the slippery item with a bit more precision than his younger brother.

Leaning across Edward, Al placed his clean dish onto the other plates they'd already dried, "Mommy, done."

Extending a bowl to her son's wide arms, Trisha couldn't help but giggle at the delight dancing in Alphonse's eyes, having finally been allowed to help his older brother dry the glass dishes.

Setting his plate off with the rest, Ed pushed to his knees and leaned into his younger brother's battle with the dish in his lap, "See Al, if you turn the bowl on it's side, put the cloth there, and turn it like that in a circle, it dries lots faster."

Following along with his brother's motions, wide-eyed Al did as instructed. As if a valued trophy, Al gripped the rim of his bowl and held it out for his mother to see, "Mommy, see. I done bowls too."

"Yes you did," Trisha's tone tingled with delight as she gave a huge grin in reply to Al's far larger one, "now pass it to Edward, and I'll give you another one."

"Okay!"

Ed sat the bowl his brother handed him aside and took a plate from his mother before watching her hand Al another bowl. From the corners of both Edward and Trisha's eye, the pair caught as Al tipped the bowl, put the cloth inside, only to have it slip from his grasp as he tried to turn it. Trisha was unable to move fast enough to catch the dish as it bounced off the counter's edge, and shattered on the hardwood floor.

Leaning over the edge of the counter, Ed examined the scattered shards of the white bowl, "Oops."

"Oh dear," Trisha's hand came to her cheek as she stepped back from the sharp mess, "I'll get the broom… oh, Alphonse," abruptly changing her mind, Trisha swept a few pieces aside with her slipper as she reached for Al, his lower lip trembling as his eyes watered up. Not given time to grab her son, Trisha took a startled step backwards at the unannounced handclap echoing from the top of the stairs; the shards of the bowl suddenly coming together on the floor. The transmutation light, and the decent of their father from the second floor, was enough to distract Al from his tears.

"See, Daddy fixed it," Ed pointed down to the ground as he tried to get Al's attention.

Trisha's hands came to her hips as Hohenheim crossed the kitchen, picked up the bowl, and sat it down in his youngest son's lap, "All better, right?"

"Thank you Daddy," Al's voice choked, the miserable look still in his eyes as he examined the restored glass bowl in his lap.

Hohenheim's hand came up and ruffled Al's hair before cheering the miserable look with a kiss to the forehead, "No tears. Remember what went wrong, and don't let yourself do it that way again. You'll do just fine when you try again, and don't forget I won't fix a second one."

"Daddy, Mommy's got a mean face on."

Trisha watched her husband look over to her at the prompting of Edward's voice, "How are they supposed to learn to be careful if you keep fixing everything they break?" She knew he knew this too, she told him every time.

"I don't fix everything," Hohenheim contested the accusation, even though he was well aware she would have the upper hand in this argument, "it was just one. I fixed Edward's first broken dish too."

Trisha continued to frown; still holding the belief that her husband constantly spoiled their children.

Still sitting next to Al, who cradled the bowl in his lap, Ed perked up, "I'll learn how to fix things too like Daddy!" at that, he slapped his hands together and squished his face as tight as he could.

Trisha's hand came to her forehead, unable to hold back the giggle at the face Edward was making.

"Oh no, I don't think so young man," Hohenheim's strong and playful voice caused Ed to crack an eye open, "do you know what I'll do to you if you put your hands together like that and something happens?" a mischievous grin grew across Hohenheim's face as he watched his son's eyes widen as he made a slow
approach, "I will spank you so hard…"

Edward shrieked and quickly dropped off of the restricted space of the counter; the change of platform didn't seem to help, as Hohenheim snatched Ed up by the back of his overalls. Tossing him into the air with a scream, Hohenheim caught the tiny boy effortlessly under both his arms.

"Trisha, did you need to go into town for anything? I have to pick up a package from the post office," Hohenheim placed the squealing boy down upon his broad shoulders.

Wiping her hands with a towel, Trisha glanced out the window, "I don't think so, but the fresh air and walk would be nice," reaching over to Alphonse, she took the bowl from her son's disappointed hands and pulled him to his feet upon the counter, "Alphonse, would you like to escort me into the town?"

Ed's chin came to rest atop his father's head, "Isn't that daddy's job?"

"Daddy's bad today," Trisha's voice shot over to the laughing man as though she were scolding her child, "and Alphonse's done lots of big boy things today, he can be a bigger boy and make sure Mummy gets safely into the town."

Al's grin stretched from ear to ear, the pride his mother showered him with radiated in waves from his body. Though he and his brother exchanged a set of stuck out tongues; today, Alphonse was a big boy too, just like his older brother…

because Mommy said so.

 

Verse II - Tastes Like Marshmallow

"Edward," Trisha's voice called out, "make sure you hold Winry and Alphonse's hands tight, okay?"

Turning over his shoulder Ed called back, "M'kay!"

"I wanna hold Winry's hand too," Al pouted as he toddled alongside his brother down the gravel path beneath the brilliant mid-day sun. The warmth of the summer rays filtered down through the forming shapes of puffing white clouds; pure white light drifting throughout the farm fields below.

"Well, I don't wanna hold a boy's hand," Winry scowled over to Ed, her face scrunched up tight in protest, "but Mommy says I have to hold Ed's hand. She didn't say I had to hold Al's too. I'm not holding two boys hands, I'll get a boy disease."

Al whined; sulking and dragging his feet at the rejection while he swung around the handhold he had with his brother.

Ed's pudgy face grew extraordinarily cross, scowling fiercely at Winry's teasing, "Don't be mean to Al. And I don't have a boy disease."

"Yes you dooo," Winry shot her head away from Ed and turned her nose to the sky, "all boys have a boy disease and you're going to give it to me and Al cause you're holding our hands."

"Brother, I dun wanna boy disease," Al's little voice continued to pout until he fell silent, once again distracted from the ongoing debate.

"Winry!" Ed picked up his squeaking voice in protest, "there's no such thing as a boy disease."

"Nuh'uh, you lie!"

"I do not!"

"Yes you do!"

"Brother!" Al suddenly bounced at his side, his voice squealing as he pointed out to the trio's left, "an octopus cloud!"

Ed's eyes widened as he followed his brother's pointing finger, "It is…"

"Wow, an octopus cloud," Winry mirrored Edward's gaping enthrallment of the sky. The children fell into silence, watching as their cloud paraded it's solitary way across the crystal blue, southern sky.

"I bet it tastes like marshmallow…"

 

"What do you suppose has those three all wrapped up?" Sarah glanced over to Trisha and Hohenheim as the trio followed a good twenty meters behind the children.

"That octopus cloud," Hohenheim pointed to the sky.

Trisha and Sarah exchanged a concerned look before casting an overly questioning gaze up at Hohenheim.

"What?" the old man's amused expression slowly fell away.

"I don't see it," Sarah said flatly.

"… Trisha?" a faint plea lay buried within the voice.

"I'm glad you can see the octopus cloud, dear," she patted the hand that he held hers with and returned her bemused smile over to the giggling Sarah.

Hohenheim decided it was time to deflect the conversation away from him, "Sarah, why is it just you and your daughter out today?"

"Oh that man," she folded her arms, "he wandered off into the valley, he'd collected some plants down there and put the roots into a serum that worked wonders on that cold Mom had a few weeks back. He wanted some more to work with."

Trisha grinned in amusement at Sarah's explanation, "That's so interesting, both of you having gone through medical education in Central and he still enjoys herbal solutions."

"He's done it every day this week too. I'm hauling him into town Sunday whether he likes it or not," she huffed, folding her arms while her voice snapped back at the children at large, "Winry! I told you to hold Edward's hand!"

"Edward," Hohenheim's voice commanded out after the mother's, "we told you, you had to hold both Winry and Al's hands. You are the oldest!"

Pointing an accusing finger at Winry who was stomping back towards her mother, Ed's spat out in protest, "Winry says I'm a liar!"

"You are!" she turned back just long enough to give him a raspberry, "Ed thinks that the octopus cloud turned into a spider cloud but it still looks like an octopus cloud!"

Both Trish and Sarah's narrowed gazes turned up to Hohenheim whose smirk was growing wider.

"I told you it was an octopus."

 

Verse III – Parent and Child
(Father and Son)

Leaving the wives and remaining children behind, Hohenheim picked up the son that followed him and placed him upon what the little imp had claimed to be his rightful spot: atop his dad's shoulders. The warmth of the midday sun wrapped the life below in a blanket only suitable for lounging around on such a peaceful day. And as his father walked the path through town, the little son kept eyes open as he slouched over his father's head, cheek loosening the tightened ponytail as he buried his face into the soft hair. Hohenheim paid no mind; he was used to it, even if his wife would nag that the boy should walk on his own two feet, he did not mind the presence on his shoulders.

"Daddy," like a kitten kneading a blanket, Ed's fingers played in his father's hair; his wide eyes embedded on a lazy body examining the activity in the town, "where are we going now?"

Though unable to see, Hohenheim glanced up regardless, "Remember, daddy needed to go to the post office. I had a phone call last night telling me that there was a box with my name on it."

"Really?" Ed curled his lips in amusement at the thought of what could be in the box, "maybe someone sent you chocolate."

Entertained by how his son's mind was still wrapped up with the candy store, he did his best not to laugh, "Perhaps someone did send me chocolate. But I'm going to guess it's a book."

"You have lots of those already," Ed's nose twisted, "Mommy said that she's going to burry them in the field if you get more."

"Did she really?" Hohenheim's brow rose at the statement, "well, we'll have to have a talk with Mommy and tell her that my books make poor fertilizer."

Though restrained by his father's hands, Ed still made the attempt to swing his legs as his voice sang, "I already told her you'd say that!"

"I'm sure you did," Hohenheim laughed as his hand clasped around the handle of the post office door. Ducking to allow Ed clearance through the doorway, the pair made their way to the abandoned desk. While Edward's eyes opened wider with curiosity, Hohenheim's narrowed with the same emotion as they both scanned the small entryway. No one at the desk, no one within eyesight in the building, no sounds to be had at all; it had been the only time all day that Ed had sat still upon his father's shoulders.

 

Verse IV – Foreordained

Hohenheim's hand came out and tapped the service bell upon the desk, within seconds of doing so, the backroom door swung wide and a sharp pair of eyes looked back at them.

"… Is Bryan here?"

Hohenheim found his eyes locked into the malevolent expression the young, brown haired man carried. He had been unable to cut himself from it until the man shook off his expression and gave a laugh in response.

"Sorry Sir, Bryan stepped out to the barber's. Was there something I can get for you?"

"Do you work here?" Hohenheim continued to carry caution about his aura.

"Yes I do, I apologize for not being at the desk," the door swung shut at he stepped out; waving all tension from the room with the sweeping of his hand, "there's been mice in the storage room and I've spent all my day trying to rid the place of the blasted things. Another darted by my feet and into the room not more than a minute ago."

"Daddy can I get down?"

The request was quickly fulfilled with the fluid sweep of Hohenheim's arms. Dropping to his feet, Ed did not remain in place long enough for his father to take his hand. Running up to the counter, Ed rose as high upon his tiptoes as he could manage; only his wayward antenna of hair peeked above the top. Taking a few steps back until he could clearly see the employee, Ed's tiny hands came to his hips.

"I'll catch the mouses for you!"

"The word is 'mice', Edward," Hohenheim corrected; his gaze shifting between the amusing determination plastered across his son's face and the inquisitive look growing on the face of the man behind the counter.

Ed quickly turned to his father, "But I said I'll catch'em! You can help too Daddy, right?"

"It's okay young mister," the post office attendant smirked with faint amusement and leaned over his counter, "I'll find a way to rid myself of these disturbances."

Raising his hands in front of himself, Ed's grin grew wide, "Daddy gets the mice out of the house when he cla–"

"Edward," though his actions were swift, his touch remained gentle as Hohenheim quickly took hold of his son's left hand. Kneeling down, the other strong hand came to rest on Edward's back, "why don't you go ask those girls outside if you can join them?" his voice held a playful tone up as a guise, "you can play jump rope, right?"

Ed nodded vigorously at the statement, "I'm better than Winry at it, and she's always bragging she's better at it."

"Well, why don't you ask those girls if you can join them and then show them how much better than Winry you are?

"Mmm kay!"

With that, Edward scampered from his father's grasp, toddling to the door and pulling on the handle until it popped open for him.

The young worker folded his arms across the counter as he shifted his weight, "He's a nice little boy. He's yours I assume?"

"Yes, he is," refocusing his attention to his other company within the room, Hohenheim rose to his feet as he nodded, "I didn't know that Bryan hired an employee finally."

"The man's getting on in years, he was kind enough to offer a traveler like myself a place to work until I took to the road again," dusting his hands off, the young man put them firmly on his hips, "what's the name on your package?"

"It should say 'Hohenheim' or 'Elric'. Bryan didn't specify."

Narrowing his expression curiously, the employee stopped before reaching the backroom door,"… Hohenheim…"

The man raised an eyebrow at the drawl of his name.

"You're that famous alchemist that Bryan was telling me about," his gaze engaged Hohenheim, "I traveled through Central City a few months back, your name causes quite a buzz there."

The reaction was somewhat disheartening, as though he'd not wanted to hear the man mention any of that, "My name still does that in Central? I haven't been there in a long time, I'm surprised it hasn't been swept aside by now."

The young man shook his head, "Oh no, Central is full of alchemists and your name comes up among them when I've heard them chatter. Though, it's not surprising that you'd find a nice, quite place to avoid all that attention, it would get quite burdensome after a while," his eyes turned out the window towards the playing children, "but, I never imagined you to be a family man until Bryan brought it up."

Carrying his gaze beyond the window, the curl of his smile began to show, "There are more joys in my life than just alchemy, Edward is part of that."

"I heard that you had more than one child."

"Ah," Hohenheim grinned, somewhat delighted that the conversation was focusing on his children and not on his skills, "my youngest son is Alphonse, he's in the park with his mother right now." His attention redirected to the postal employee as the young man looked off in thought.

"That's it? I was told you had more children in your household," the man said with the tilt of his head.

Hohenheim quickly made the correction at an assumption that crept up now and then, "No, we only have two boys. Winry is a family friend."

"Strange…" the man folded his arms, still in thought, "Someone must have been confused when I heard you'd fathered more children."

His head shook lightly at a mistake he'd more than once corrected, "It's happened before."

"Obviously some mistaken identity…"

The words rolled off the tongue so casually, without any honestly noted concern for the issue the man was creating; the underlying tone almost seemed theatrical. Words that flowed like scripture began teasing the back of his mind, unnerving Hohenheim. He watched as the young man kicked a peg into the backroom door, propping it open; finally reaching up onto a shelf for his package.

"… with 'Winry' then."

"Her parents are gone quite often, she spends a great deal of time at our house. I'm not surprised, there are a some people in town we aren't that close with," his voice came with caution, still mulling over how to identify which cord it was that had set him on edge. For a frightening moment, he wondered if…

"Ah well," as quickly as the nerves began to quake, the discontent vanished with a quirky smile and the presentation of a rectangular box, "your package, Sir."

Hohenheim's brow rose, the corner of his lip curling in amusement at the senders name scrawled at the top corner of the box, "… Majihal?"

"Someone you know?"

Unable to clear the grin that had quickly formed in his face, Hohenheim took the box up, curiously turning the box over as he felt it's weight and listened for the sounds it made, "Yes, I haven't heard from him in ages," with a bemused laugh, he tucked the unexpected parcel under his arm, "thank you."

"Not a problem," the attendant folded his arms over the countertop as he watched Hohenheim make his way outside, "I'll let Bryan know you stopped by to pick it up."

 

Verse V – Seeds for the Future

"Daddy!" Ed scampered over, his tiny feet echoing off the wooden deck as he ran up to the front of the post office door, "what did you get?"

Sitting down on the wooden step, Hohenheim placed the box in his lap and grinned a foolish grin to his curious son, "I got a gift from an old friend."

Coming to lean on his father's shoulder, Ed narrowed his face as he eyed the box curiously, "What sort of gift?"

"Why don't we find out," from his pocket, Hohenheim used the pocketknife to slit a seam through the tape that bound the box together. In his lap, with child's eyes peering, Hohenheim opened the box. Handing the packaging tissue to his young son, the father began to laugh as he pulled out the bottle of red wine.

"'Marianna's Finest'. That old fool, where did he find a bottle of this?"

Ed's hands reached out and clamped around the heavy dark bottle of wine, his hands not big enough to touch at the fingertips as he gripped the bottle, "What is it?"

"It's wine, Edward," Hohenheim sat the bottle down at Ed's feet, "a very fine wine. It's what your mother and I had at our wedding."

Plunking himself down on the boardwalk, Ed carefully examined the bottle that he'd placed between his legs, "What's it taste like?"

Hohenheim knew where this question was leading, "It tastes a little bit like raspberries," he watched in amusement at Ed's obvious approval that it tasted nothing like milk.

"And there's something else in this box," Hohenheim cleared the rest of the filling away as Edward began to examine the cork preserving the wine. Clearing away the remainder of the packaging, Hohenheim's hearty laugh sounded out as he pushed the box aside and dropped the book into his lap.

Ignoring his father's amusement, Ed's fingers wiggled the loose cork curiously. Clenching his tiny fist, Ed began to bop the cork back into the stem of the bottle.

"That old fool…" Hohenheim continued to shake his head. Entirely amused by the gift, Hohenheim flipped open the first few pages.

"Daddy, what did you get?" giving up on the wine bottle, Ed returned to his feet and again came to stand at his father's shoulder, "what's that?"

Flipping the pages to the book shut, Hohenheim held it up for Edward, "It's an introduction to alchemy text. Apparently, I have some old friends who think I need to touch up on my basics."

Ed's expression suddenly perked, "Can I read it?"

"Can you recite the alphabet?"

Puffing up like a frazzled kitten, Ed's face soured at the insult, "Yes!"

"Can you spell 'alchemy'?"

There was a long pause; the one that exists when the accused child debates if it is worth it to stretch the truth enough to get his way, "… No, but…"

Reaching his arm out, Hohenheim swept the child into his lap. Resting the book over his son's stout legs, the father's finger came to rest on the word in question; the title of the book, which was etched into the hard brown cover, "When you get old enough to know how to spell 'alchemy', then I'll teach you what's in this book."

 

Verse VI – Parent and Child
(Mother and Son)

It was the horizon never to be forgotten; the bed upon which, night after night, the sun would lay down upon. It was the holder of many daydreams. Even on the cloudiest and darkest of nights, there would always be something distinct to this existence of peace in an unsettled world that made it its own. It was intangible and indescribable, but the only description needed past the five o'clock hour would be 'Resembool's western horizon'; enough would be said.

And though the sun still shone down upon the township and countryside, the town watched with subdued relief at the billowing of grey clouds growing on the horizon. All came to know and accept that once the sun sank beyond the last reaches of the land, the horizon will have left them with a welcomed rain; a blissful and welcomed rain not seen in weeks.

"Mommy. How come over there the clouds are so big and there are none over here? How come they're grey on the bottom?"

Trisha started to giggle, "They're grey on the bottom because they were dipped in water."

"Mommy," little Alphonse shook his head before giving his most profound statement, "water is blue. The clouds are not blue."

In the clearing near to the slide and swings Alphonse and Winry had played in before Sarah took her daughter home, Trisha sat. Nestled into the long, cool grass to watch the remainder of the day slowly unfold, Trisha had wrapped her youngest son up in her care; content to enjoy the light breeze that teased their hair and the tallest tips of grass.

Time passed by without concern.

"Water in the sky is different," Trisha explained, pointing out to the unfolding event, "The sky is already blue, so the clouds have to be different colours so we can see them. That's why, when water is in the sky it's grey."

"Ohh…" the child's face squished up with curiosity, "how come all the cloud's not grey?"

"Ah," Trisha's arms enveloped her youngest son as he continued to interrogate a horizon he would someday come to learn was never to be questioned, simply enjoyed, "Alphonse, do you remember what happened to my dishcloth when I hung it out on the line?"

"Sorta…"

"Remember when we took it off the line, the bottom of the rag was wet but the top was dry?"

Al nodded slowly, saucer eyes and wide-open ears absorbing everything his mother had to say.

"That's why the cloud is only grey on the bottom, because the cloud is hanging from the clothes line in the sky. The bottom part of the cloud is still really wet like my rag, but the top is dry, so it's white like all the other clouds."

"Ohhh…" it was such simple enlightenment that explained so much of this unknown world.

Trisha's soft voice carried like the breeze; light weight and carefree, "and you know how if my rag is really soggy at the end it drips onto the grass? That's the same thing that happens to the cloud. When the cloud is really grey it drips onto the grass because it's soggy, and that's how it rains."

"Ohhhh…" for young Alphonse, the world made so much more sense today as he stared off into the skyline.

Trisha ran her fingers through his hair, pleased with herself that she'd unraveled one of life's many mysteries today.

"Mommy?"

The curious inquisition started again. Peace with her youngest son rarely existed; his mind ran circuits whenever the boy was given spare time to do so. Trisha would never mind allowing him the time and space to understand how the world managed itself, nor did she mind finding a way to answer, though Alphonse never seemed to understand the reasons behind his mother's amused giggles.

"Why does Brother sit in the hill when he's mad?"

Trisha's hand gave a final brush over Alphonse's hair as she re-wrapped her arms around him. She took a moment to realize the question's inspiration came from how they seemed to be perched upon Resembool's park hill, "Because he wants to make sure everyone knows that he's not happy with something. The hill is the highest place around, so everyone can see that he's sitting there."

"How come he doesn't go to the river anymore?"

"Because the last time he did that, he wandered up stream and your father couldn't find him for a long time," her chin came to rest in the downy softness of her young son's bed of hair, recalling an unsettling day, "he made it explicitly clear that Edward was to never go sulk at the river again after that."

"Really?"

"Mmhmm," the ensuing conclusion could only add a touch of laughter to her voice, "and now he sits in a spot where the whole township can see him glower over them."

The wide, silver eyes turned back towards a skyline slowly changing its colours. And as his mind found new ways to have his mother answer his dissection of the world, it was her voice that swept away all the important questions he considered asking.

"When I was a little girl, no taller than Winry…" Trisha's mind found itself wrapped up in the same early evening mystique that Alphonse created questions from, "… I use to live up stream," her eyes wandered up the river's path, watching it disappear around the curve of the mountain, "a day or so upstream. Our house was much closer to the river, though I was never curious like Edward so I never wandered too far. But, whenever the world wasn't right, or something went wrong, I use to sit out at the water's edge too."

"Did you like the water, Mommy?"

"There's something peaceful about the water's edge."

The scenery became just that, scenery; something to be left untouched and simply enjoyed as Alphonse snuggled into the security of his mother's arms.

"Water in the mountains is so clean and cool; it washes away all sorts of bad feelings. If you sit with the water long enough, you can understand how it feels to be free just like the river. It always relaxed me and 'washed away' all those things that upset me. I'd always feel better."

 

Verse VII – Toast to the Family

With her hand placed firmly at the edge of the frame, Trisha pushed the open window closed. The westerly wind was blowing the drizzle of the soggy cloud into her kitchen, and though the aroma of freshly fallen rain was a wonderful scent within the house, it was not a substance suitable for her kitchen counter tops.

"Daddy…" the little voice whined.

Hohenheim's hand held firm the tiny fingers that had found their way into the mashed potatoes, "Alphonse, wait for your mother to sit down, then use the spoon." Taking a napkin from the center of the dining table, the father dipped it in his glass of water, soaking the end just enough that once he'd squeezed the tissue in his hand, the entire square would be damp, "Dinner is not finger food."

Alphonse was unable to wiggle his hand away as his father wiped it down, then protested even further when Hohenheim amused himself by wiping down the pudgy face with the damp napkin as well.

Trisha slid herself into the last remaining chair at the table, giggling at the wrinkled face her youngest made while her husband reseated himself at the table.

"Mommy?"

Edward's call caught her attention.

"Didn't Winry's mom and dad already make an anniversary supper?"

Trisha's fingers came to her lips in thought, "They did, but that was last month."

"They beat me to it, I was supposed to treat your mother to dinner," Hohenheim announced, an eye raised as he sat down at the table, "but there's no harm in having a second dinner. We can place the blame on the bottle of wine that showed up a month too late."

Her hand covering her mouth, Trisha began to giggle as her husband popped the cork of the wine bottle, "I love when you cook for me, it's such a masterpiece."

"It's not that good," his hands held the bottle with great care as he filled the two wine glasses on the table.

"You've had many more years to refine your cooking than I will ever have," Trisha protested, though she could not clear the delight in her expression after having spent the remainder of the day in the yard with her children while her husband filled the house with the luring smell of roast beef, steamed vegetables, and potatoes.

"Daddy can I have some wine?"

"Me too!"

Both parents gave a strong shake of the head as Hohenheim returned the cork to the bottle stem, "This is too strong, it'll put you to sleep and then you'll be waking up at all hours of the night."

Placing the tall glass in front of his wife, the father sat down; slipping the stem between his index and middle finger, Hohenheim raised the glass into the air, "To…"

"To Mommy and Daddy!" Alphonse's voice sang out as he held his red plastic cup of juice strongly in the air, a motion soon mimicked by his older brother.

Trisha's giggles couldn't be withheld as she tipped the rim of her glass off her husband's, "To 'Mommy and Daddy'."

Beyond the rim of the glass she sipped from, Trisha suddenly realized that her husband had placed his glass down; moments later the hallow echo of the plastic lid to Alphonse's cup bounced off the hardwood floor.

"Dammit," Hohenheim's hand snatched the napkins from the table and started to wipe the face of the child who howled in embarrassment of the red juice that had soaked him.

Trisha quickly placed her glass down, standing up sharply from where she sat, "Oh no. Edward, get a cloth from the sink, please."

As the elder of the two children moved at his mother's request, Hohenheim pushed up his sleeves as he lifted the sobbing child from the seat, "The lid wasn't on tight. I'm sorry Alphonse, that was my fault."

"Here," Trisha reached out for her crying son, "I'll get him cleaned up."

"It's fine Trisha," Hohenheim shifted Alphonse in his grasp, "I'll look after him. It's only juice; I'll have him cleaned up shortly. Finish your dinner before it gets cold," the husband leaned down and kissed the forehead of his protesting wife, still refusing to hand over the unsettled child.

Dropping the damp cloth on the wooden seat and a handful of paper towel over the spill on the floor, Edward looked up to his father and stopped in his tracks, "Daddy, you burned your arm!"

Frozen, Hohenheim's startled concern cast down upon the little boy whose hand reached up towards his left arm, "You said you'd be careful cooking this time!"

The child's brow, knit with scolding concern, directed up to his father; a silent, cautious eye locked over him. Rising to his feet with Alphonse in his arms, the sleeve in the arm cradling his son was pulled too high.

"Those things happen to master chefs Edward," Trisha's voice broke in where Hohenheim's could not, "they start tossing their food around like a professional does and bad things can happen. That's why I don't like you boys around when I'm cooking dinner, there's lots of sharp and hot things you can hurt yourself on."

"Skin turns black when you burn yourself?" Ed frowned at his own question.

"It might," Trisha's hand slid down her son's arm as she crouched down before him, taking him by the hand, "now, your father can take care of himself, why don't you he-"

She could hear the creaking of the wooden staircase, and Trisha turned her gaze over her shoulders. Without a word to each other, Trisha watched as her husband carried their other child up to their rooms. Her bottom lip caught in her teeth, she tried to clear the empathetic expression from her face, wishing Hohenheim had been able to find the courage to say something.

 

Verse VIII – Anticipated Apology

What could be heard for wind whistled in between the double panes of glass. The curtains waved softly as the sounds of a storm swept through the cracks. A faint flash of lightning withheld the distant roll of thunder for an eternity. Each flash that grew more prominent illuminated the shadows of the room; the shadow that stood behind him made every inch of his body quiver.

He sat, dumped in his couch, carrying a gaze out to the unlit fireplace, simply listening and waiting. Amidst the storm's rare silence, bare feet finally brushed along the floor; his eyes cast down into his lap. Sharp ears animated the movement, coloured the skin, drew the gown, streaked the hair, and highlighted the silhouette upon the wall with each flash of lightning

Without a word, Trisha picked up the candle from the holster upon the cloth-covered table. He couldn't help but look. It was curiosity more than it was anything else, and he watched as she moved from the table to the fireplace. The ends of soft brown hair swayed over her back, the white, silk gown hanging off her hips. With the unwavering sweep of her body's motion, Trisha placed the candle at the center of the fireplace mantle, in the space between her potted plants.

"I always thought the candles looked better on the mantle. The flowers have a whole different look in that light."

She turned the gentle gaze towards her husband in the chair, his eyes cast away, staring off into the excitement beyond the sheer curtain covering the window.

"And the boys can't reach them up there," her feet swept along the rug, moving towards him. The sound stood out above all else in Hohenheim's ears, he recognized the unspoken acknowledgement she gave for his solitude that evening and then did nothing to stop her from intruding.

Trisha sat down on his knee; Hohenheim's eye flickered over to her as she perched herself much like their children did.

"They went down before the storm broke, so hopefully it doesn't wake them up."

The man's cautious gaze watched her from beneath his brow; the soft, brown hair sliding over her shoulder as her hand held gently over his bristly jaw line and her lips rested softly against his forehead. Hohenheim's hands came up, sliding her touch away. His strong fingers wove into her hair as he put his forehead against her; his finger tips slipping down the back of her neck, brushing over her shoulder, and running down her arm until he found her hand. She laced her fingers through his and tucked herself into the niche at his neck that was all her own.

"I'm sorry."

Trisha's voice floated, "For what?"

"For all this."

"Is there something wrong with this?"

Some part of Hohenheim wished that she could find the same flaws he saw, the other part of him was thankful that she did not care to look for them or simply looked past them when present.

"I could see it again."

His hand again slipped into her hair, running his fingers through the length of her hair.

"You had that look in your eyes again when we were walking back to the house," even with how the storm rattled the house, the sound of his breathing was the clearest thing, "the first time you had that look, you told me that you thought you needed to leave."

The strong left hand that was woven into her hair strengthened as he held her against his chest.

"And then we never spoke of it again."

No, Hohenheim thought, he never spoke of it again. He only thought about it, and they both knew it. Trisha had a look in her eyes that would develop to match his for that cruel thought.

"It was worse this time," Trisha's cheek snuggled into the warmth of his bare skin at the crook in his neck, "most days when you have that look it's just wandering off in thought…"

"…Trisha…"

"But your distant look was so full of concern," her voice held strong through the urge to tremble, "and you didn't say a word along the path until the door closed behind you. You said nothing after putting Alphonse down."

"You just sat here, all evening long."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not mad at you," the quickness of the reply dampened Hohenheim's hopes that she would be boiling with frustration over the thoughts in his mind, "Haven't I told you before, it's not my place to pass judgement."

Some sinister part of his mind wished that she would scream at him, and then throw him into the cobblestone path for wanting to leave her this way for his own selfish reasoning. That would make not looking back a far simpler task. But that was not Trisha, not the woman he married.

"If you go, can you come back without that look in your eye. The one you're so afraid to share with me?"

That was wrong, he'd shared that story with her. His wife knew more than anyone ever had, she knew the source of his anguish and had told him that it was unnecessary for him to leave. She continued to read him like a book, knowing whenever he refrained and kept her from sharing his worries. It was the security of this family he enjoyed, knowing he did not always have to explain himself; there was so much that words could not describe.

"I won't come back until I can. I'll take these burdens away from your life until I've lost them again."

Trisha would create more than one way to stand by his side and give her husband a long abandoned sense of comfort for an unspoken lifestyle, "And I'll still be here for you when you come home."

The hand gripping into the fabric of his nightshirt tried to silence him, "I don't know-"

The roll of thunder that cascaded through the room drowned out the sound of Trisha's voice, a sound clearly conveyed to her husband by the strength held in a pair of blue eyes, passed on to their children.

 

Verse IX – Crying Sky

It was a brisk, sharp wind; taunting the shingles, whipping around the top of the chimney, rattling the windows just a little more with each gust. The pelting of raindrops on the glass and rooftop would intensify at each puff of wind blowing across the landscape, and then die off to the smooth downpour that slipped off each surface.

The lonely set of eyes, burdened with an unprecedented tale not to be shared, turned his attention once more to the door. He listened in silence as the wind whistled through the cracks of the door's seal.

Again he looked up the stairs, he did not want to go back up there. No, he wanted to go back up there more than anything else, but by this time he'd convinced himself that he could not. It would be easier if he buttoned the trench coat, took up his briefcase, and walked away. The storming world beyond the door welcomed him with all it's spite; he didn't deserve anything better on a list of irreparable sins he would continue to add to. A list and chain of events he never seemed to be able to stop.

It was a curse.

"Daddy?"

There had been very few moments in his life when his heart had stopped, but he could add this to the list.

"Edward," even if his voice did shake from the startle, it would never be known why, "go back to bed."

"The window keeps rattling," the quiet, little voice echoed in the darkness, the childish arms wrapped around his knees as he sat at the middle of the staircase, "and the tree keeps scratching the wall."

Hohenheim dumped his coat over the back of the kitchen chair. Of course he wouldn't get off that easily, the world wasn't done punishing him for his sins; it would never finish.

"Go sleep with Alphonse, his window doesn't rattle."

The voice whined softly at the suggestion, "I tried, but Al's sleeping in your bed…"

Hohenheim's eyebrows rose, Alphonse wasn't there when he'd gotten up; but it had been a while ago.

"… and the tree still scratches the wall in Al's room, it's scary."

It was that same strong grip by a gentle set of hands that had always slipped under Ed's arms and picked him up; this time from the darkness of the unlit household. He didn't even need to hear the squeaking sound in the voice, he could feel it by how the arms wrapped around his neck, how the legs clung around his body, and how the head tried to burry itself in the curve at his neck; the poor child was so overtired.

"The tree can't hurt you; there's nothing scary about the tree."

"Yes there is."

Some days Hohenheim believed he could make his money in fortune telling; right or wrong, no matter how far into the future he saw, he knew he would not end up winning this argument.

"Why don't you go sleep with your mother?" he only needed one hand to support him, while the other soothed over the matted pillow-hair.

"Al's sleeping with her already."

It was his house, he could have moved blindly through it; the darkness of the stormy night was as good as blindness. Hohenheim walked a slow course through the main floor of the house, never needing to watch where he was stepping.

"You two can't share?"

"… No…"

He couldn't help but give a chuckle to the stubbornness; it probably would have been impossible to detach him anyways. The father's left arm supported his child with ease while the right hand removed the candle from the living room mantle. Slowly, Hohenheim came to sit in the cushions of the wooden rocker, placing the candle down on the round end table at his side. He readjusted Edward, leaning into the corner of the chair as he tucked his boy into the basket of his curving elbow. The palms of old hands awkwardly touched, and the wick of the candle at his side flickered to life.

"Daddy…" the child's voice murmured while a hand swept through his hair, "…I'm tired."

"I know."

The little body shifted, the tiny left hand pulling at the shirt as Hohenheim leaned back in the rocker. Supported in the father's left arm, he rested against the broad chest as the rocker slowly lulled him to sleep in a far safer setting. The hand brushed over his head again as the clarity between the world around him and the world he would imagine began to blur.

But he could hear it, as distinct as his father's 'cologne', the heartbeat beneath the cotton shirt that carried a strong and steady rhythm. It was an unchanging and familiar constant; as secure as the arms that could embrace him, the comforting sound he would find in the chest moved with him while he swayed. The world was safer this way. It always was when he could hear it, even if the world drifted away in the process. Fingers, once wrapped tightly in the fabric, slipped from their hold, only to fall until the curled tips caught on the shirt pocket; a place they continued to hang undisturbed.

The poignant heartbeat drowned the world out until the breathing, the wind nor the rain existed anymore.

That final plea would not be answered; the one Hohenheim had made for himself. Standing up carefully from the chair, he would have to go upstairs one last time. Even with the extra weight in his arms, the father still had the ability to ascend the staircase without a sound; a technique mastered to catch young children.

 

Verse X – The Last Day of Resembool's Radiance.

He didn't want to look. He would pass down this hall and not look; he couldn't look.

The whimpering voice was stronger than his own selfishness. Looking into the room, the curled up ball of Alphonse next to peacefully sleeping body of his wife twitched and squeaked. Leaving Edward in the cushions of the bedroom chair, Hohenheim placed higher priority on calming the unsettled behaviour within the bed. He would have to walk paths to lull both children into security tonight, and he picked Alphonse up from the bed. His hand soothed over the child's back to calm him, the child's head burrowing into the soft spot at his handler's armpit.

Hohenheim's steps came without a sound, sliding his feet along the floor panels as he made his way down the hall. Standing in the doorway of the youngest child's room, the father concluded the son was to deep in his sleep to be woken by the sounds raging beyond his window. Cradled in a single arm, Alphonse lay silent as his father adjusted his boy's bed sheets and lay him down.

Sitting at the edge of the bed, Hohenheim watched as Alphonse sprawled out on his back; tiny fists clenched tight, lips cracked open, head rolled to the side. His smile curled as his hand ran through the child's downy hair. He burned the image of the sleeping child into his mind before gently kissing him on the forehead.

"Good night."

Somehow, Hohenheim suddenly found himself standing in the doorway of his wife's bedroom once again, the eyes of an ancient looked in. If he'd only relax his arm, it would be able to tremble freely, but he could not have that happen. He simply watched, burning another memory into his mind; Trisha resting on her back, the fingers of her left hand mixed into the sheets that were pulled up around her chest, the right arm fallen across the bed where Alphonse had once been. He could see the movement beneath her eyelids and wondered what she could be dreaming about. Nothing bad he assumed, there wasn't a flicker of tension in her expression.

He didn't realize that he'd walked from the door to the bedside; but there he sat, his hand gently sweeping away the strands of brown hair from her neck. She must be dreaming something wonderful, he thought, or she would not have looked so at peace where she lay. The hope for her to remain with blissful dreams was the final wish given by the husband for his wife. His lips coming to rest softly on her forehead, he would remain like that, unable to pick himself up.

The touch finally slipped away, only so far as to allow his forehead to rest against hers. The left hand slowly stroked a path through the lengths of hair spread out over the bed, while the other simply held Trisha at her cheek. He loved how warm her skin would always be to his touch. There was no way he could even begin to ask for her forgiveness.

He'd breathe, a deeper breath each time, trying to push away the feeling in his chest so he could get up and walk away. The inhale he wished for finally came, though merely strong enough so he could pull away; he could not subdue the knot. The tips of his fingers slipped off her cheek; he stood up, held her in his eyes one last time before walking towards Edward.

This child slept like a rag doll, content no matter how his father would hold him. His ear against his father's chest, Hohenheim carried the other son to his room as well. It was not that Edward's room was as noisy as Alphonse's, only that he'd been awake more recently, and his eyes fluttered as Hohenheim lay him down.

"No…" the father's thumb smoothed over the child's cheek.

Perched at the side of the bed, he waited for the eyelids to fall motionless again. Brushing away the blonde hair fallen over the boy's face, Hohenheim kissed him on the forehead as well.

"Make sure you sleep well."

If the wind and rain had not died down for a few moments, or perhaps if he'd been more sound asleep, Edward would never have heard his father's movement's as the man made his way downstairs.

The tired eyes slipped open once again. Rolling onto his stomach, he slipped from the bedside to his feet. Careful not to make a sound as he crept across the wooden floor, Ed's tiny hand finally reached for the doorknob of his bedroom door and pulled it open just enough for his eyes to peer through. He listened, and though drowned out by the noise created by the storm, he could still make out the sound his father's shoes made on the floor. Thought it did not last long enough to be remembered, it did last long enough to give him cause to move; Edward could not recall his father having his shoes on before.

He crossed into the hall, crouching down in that magical spot both he and Al had discovered; the place at the top of the stairs where they could see down into the house as they were sheltered in the protective darkness to watch.

The old man opened the door; Edward's eyes narrowed as the porch light shone in. The gusts of wind and rain began to blow through the house, but nothing seemed disturbed by it. The silhouette of his father, darkened by the light, stood in the doorframe… looking back inside. No matter how hard he searched, Edward was unable to make out the expression on his face, or the look in his eyes. He hoped that his father would not look up and scold him for getting out of bed. The young boy received his reprieve when the figure turned away and moved outside; right hand trailing behind to pull the wooden door closed without a sound.

He had left.

Edward rose from his crouch, his face twisting as he yawned and rubbed the sleep in his eyes. His father's departure was unquestioned. He dragged his feet back into his bedroom, crawling up onto the soft mattress, blankets and pillows.

And he kept on crawling, dropping off the other side of his bed. Ed ducked his head behind the curtains as he stepped onto the toy box beneath his window. Both his hands wiped away the thin fog layer on the pane of glass.

Beyond the smudged streaks and fingerprints, beyond the distortion of blistering wind and rain, Ed's half conscious eyes watched his father cut through the torrent weather, moving along the damp gravel path. The black coat tails and ties flailed in the wind, the length of blonde ponytail snapped around at each gust. Edward continued to watch, wondering why his father would go out without an umbrella. Again, he wiped the window; his warm breath fogging it up.

Edward would wave, if only his father would look back.

No matter how many times the boy would wipe the window to keep his father's path in sight, the old man never turned back. But that, Edward figured, was because he was supposed to be in bed. Dad wouldn't turn back to wave at him if he didn't realize there was someone there for him to wave at.

And though Edward could still make out the path his father took away from the household, the eldest son pulled his head out from behind the hanging curtains, stepped down from the toy box without a sound, and walked away from the scene beyond the window. He slipped into bed with the intention of sleeping the rest of the night through; in the morning, he could tell his father that he'd slept through the storm.

Engulfed by the pillows and surrounded by the sheets, Edward's tired eyes stared up at the ceiling. He surrendered himself up to the sleep demon that would burry this night in the back of his mind; never realizing that 'the morning' he'd again speak to his father, would not be the next.

 

Verse XI - München, October 19, 1921


He couldn't tell you how long he'd sat there in his living room and not actually existed in it. But, Hohenheim thought, he had to pull himself away or become lost in a memory forever.

He blew out the candle in the middle of his table. It wasn't as though the room turned to complete darkness, it simply faded into it – staying light enough for him to watch the light trail of residual smoke drift around him. He needed to go to bed; the moment felt almost delusional.

He'd meant to climb the stairs to his room, but he stopped abruptly. At the top of the stairs sat Edward; his hair down, night shirt not quite buttoned tight around his neck and the extra half pant leg dangling down one of the steps. It was an uncomfortable observation for his father to make, how out of sorts Edward looked sitting there. People sit in positions – arms crossed, propped up on elbows, legs crossed, the simple act of putting two feet on the same stair were all unbalanced, disproportionate and simply impossible stances for him.

"Edward…?"

The call of his name caused Ed's hand to scratch the back of his head, glancing away to the corner without a response.

Hohenheim hated that uncomfortable sensation Ed gave him some days, the one that would not allow him to read into his son's motives. Ascending the staircase, the elder man continued with caution, "You should get to bed-"

"When mom died we were sitting at her bedside."

Hohenheim stopped, not three steps from where he'd begun. The startling conflict of emotions he found himself dealing with kept him under the control of Edward's every word.

Ed had yet to pick up his eyes to look at whom he was speaking with. The emotionally drained voice tried to remain in the empty state; it was easier that way, "we sat there, we'd been like that for days. She got sick so quickly, there was nothing anyone could do for her except try to make her feel comfortable."

Brow tightening momentarily, Hohenheim wondered if Edward did in fact understand how London had started off being for them.

"She didn't say so, but she was in a lot of pain, you could tell by looking at her. She was really pale, sweating lots, breathing heavily; her eyes didn't focus well. Her fever got really high and Aunt Pinako called the doctor to come over again… I'm sure he knew what was about to happen. The whole time I'm thinking 'this is my mom, she can't die'."

His words formed a statement that continued to carry a terrible lesson learnt.

"I didn't understand… obviously."

If Hohenheim could stand in front of that bathroom mirror, he would curse himself. He was no better than his infuriating son, "Edward, you don't need-"

"Mom made a request with her last words," words from the son's mouth that stripped the father of active thought, "it wasn't some 'I love you', 'I never got to do this' or 'I'm sorry' sentiment. We knew mom loved us and we knew she didn't want us to be any sadder. So, she asked me to transmute some flowers for her. She died when she was making the request, so I transmuted the flowers I brought to her grave ever since."

The silence remained between the two in place where Hohenheim was supposed to have replied, but could not. Ed grabbed his hand firmly around the banister and came to stand once again. He hopped a couple steps to the top of the staircase, taking the crutch he'd left on the hall floor under his arm once more. Edward acknowledged his father's eyes watching him and turned face his gaze.

"Mom died and her last words were that she wanted me to transmute her some flowers. She smiled a bit, and said it was something you always did for her… and then she passed away."

The faint echo of the clock's tick passed through the silence Edward orchestrated.

"The last thing she was thinking about when she died was you."

Within the faint moonlit shadows created from beyond the bedroom windows at the ends of the hall, nothing could be sufficient in response.

"And that made her smile."

Neither of them would question, nor speak again, how the son got his father to bow his head.

"You're coming."

The hazy, golden eyes flickered up from above the rim of his glasses .

"I'm not going to London with just Winry. This was your bad idea, so you're coming too, or I'm not going," the pale hall light left only a faint reflection of colour to glow off the morose gaze, "I'm not dealing with all your friends by myself."

Linguistic gratitude is an insufficient device. He would not say a word; the ability to speak long since stripped from his possession.

"I'll find that crappy old suitcase in the morning. I'm going to bed," Edward's hair slipped off his shoulders as he turned away.

Remaining standing, third step from the bottom, Hohenheim absorbed what was left of the moment before discarding the notion of retiring to an empty bed. He'd instead returned to the darkened living room, where the resemblance of a family had slowly emerged. Wading through what remained of the lingering smoke, the old man took up the matches and relit his candle. He placed it on the fireplace mantle between the flowering potted plants that he maintained year round. Falling back into the comforts of his couch, his tired eyes watched the source of the unsteady flicker of light that barely lit the room. The yellow and orange hue flickered patterns off the petals and through the leaves of the flowers gracing the flame's sides. It was a display that did not carry the same radiance found in a Resembool household; though it was something his wife would have cared for nonetheless.

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


Chapter 19: Existence Revisited

Summary:

Ed laments his time in London while Dante sends her pawns in Amestris scurrying.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Death is involuntary; it is the resultant state of an event.

A rebound from human transmutation is involuntary; it is the resultant state of a reaction.

The separation of the mind, body and soul is involuntary; it is a resultant state of my actions.

When you deal directly with the Gate, it is a 'take' and 'give' scenario. The Gate takes from you and gives whatever it deems most appropriate back. It's a greedy entity; it's not looking to make anyone happy.

The Gate takes your mind and soul upon separation at death.
The Gate takes from your existence when you cannot create a proper formula.

The Gate takes that man's bonds of existence because I offered them.

But, if you step up to the Gate, give yourself of your own free will - the Gate acquires all of you and gives back. Edward Elric left nothing for the Gate to take – he gave everything. That doesn't make the game fun. The Gate could at least 'take' the existence bonds from each person I placed before it because I merely facilitated the opportunity, I am not the one participating in the sacrifice.

It's rare to encounter anyone that 'generous' to the Gate.

But now, the Gate has the problem: what to do with your existence?

It only stores what it takes.
It cannot send you back.
It most certainly cannot keep you like you are at its pillars.

So, what does it do with you?


 

"Edward?" Hohenheim's hand finally came down onto the young man's shoulder. The grip stiffened when his son jerked with a gasping startle in response.

Quickly silent, Ed looked around the darkened room to gather his bearings, soon realizing that he'd lost his crutch to the floor. His father's hand had re-gripped beneath his only arm to keep him from falling.

"Lay down. You can't sleep standing against the wall."

Oh that's right, he'd gotten up to get some water but put his empty shoulder against the wall when his back had started to ache again. Years ago he'd been cut, stabbed, tossed around, and beaten up more times than he could shake a stick at, but he'd always bounced back. It wasn't so easy to do that anymore. Ed would chalk up his pain and exhaustion to yet another quirk for the other side of the gate – as annoying as all the others.

"Did I wake Winry up?"

He'd woken her up at least twice since they'd left. There was a sound he couldn't shake from his ears and a vision haunting his mind. The sound triggered the vision that would twist and play tricks on him so quickly that he couldn't adjust to the illusion. In Berlin and in Brussels, the early morning backfire of a car's engine was all he needed to hear to set that in motion. With a gasping start, he'd fling himself awake to break from it. His heart racing without just cause, Edward would fall silent and curse himself: why was he not mentally strong enough to combat this? He'd been able to handle so much already. It was too frustrating to bog himself down with it, regardless of how it did not seem to relent with each passing day.

At least his hand had finally stopped trembling.

"No, she's fine," Hohenheim answered the rhetorical question, though the hotel room in Dunkerque was small enough Ed could see for himself.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, silent again, Ed closed his dried out eyes with the hope his headache would go away and the burning would stop.

"Lay down and get some rest."

The voice was a little more instructive this time, but sitting up or lying down didn't change much; he couldn't sleep. It had been that way for days…

"…Edward"

Shut up. Just shut up. He was so sick of hearing his name. A carnival of things would set him off, his father's nagging voice was no exception. Like an overtired, cranky child, he moved away from the edge of the bed, sliding along the mattress until he could finally burry his face in the pillow. Ed could care less if he could breathe, his mind was busy throwing incoherent, irrational thoughts about. He wanted them to stop; he was too tired to organize them. Yelling at his father for no good reason would make him feel better by venting frustrations, but not at this pre-dawn hour.

The mattress at Edward's side sunk when his father sat down beside him. The two coexisted in an uneasy peace before Hohenheim caught Edward's attention. Turning his head, the younger man pulled his face out of the pillow, "Could you not-"

The knuckles of his father's index and middle fingers dug into his lower back along his spine, silencing Ed who flinched beneath the pressure.

"You should say something if your back is bothering you."

This argument had been in existence for as long as Edward had existed beyond the Gate. Ed had frowned upon himself for many of the early days in London. At the time, he'd bitterly likened himself to a crotchety, frail old man – through no fault of his own. His neck, back, head, chest, stomach; most everything from the waist up added to a list of miseries that gave him cause to be ornery and Hohenheim would take it upon himself to remedy that. It was one of the few things he could do to ease the stress, Hohenheim worked on Ed's back and neck in the London hospital and later after he'd gone 'home'. He eventually lost the battle with Hohenheim; unable to order his father to bugger off when he'd found himself too worn down by illness and physical exhaustion to protest. What annoyed Edward more than his father's constant presence, more than his father's persistent attention, was how well it worked; even if it was only a soothing hand, which had a tendency to put him to sleep. From his unwilling surrender, Edward discovered Hohenheim was able to offer a sliver of peaceful sanctuary at a devastating and very demoralizing point in time.

Never the less, it would be a cold day in hell before he'd gratify that.

"What time is it?" the murmur seeped out from the pillow.

"Nearly four."

Ed sighed, it was long past one when he'd finally laid down and around three when he'd gotten up again. He must have been leaning against that wall for some time before Hohenheim had found him, "What time's the ferry leaving?"

"Eight thirty."

"Then you know what, why don't I just stay up," digging his arm into the bed, he pushed his chest off the mattress, "two or three hours of sleep won't do me any good."

The stronger hand stopped Edward from getting up; holding him at the back of his neck, "Get as much sleep as you can, tomorrow's a long day."

Giving up far too easily, he let himself drop back onto the bed. Ed turned exhausted, bloodshot eyes angrily against his father, the vicious sound in his late-night tone rose, "Why don't you go to sleep?"

"Unlike some people, I went to bed at nine o'clock last night," Hohenheim pushed his thumb in high at the back of Edward's neck. Hohenheim frowned, watching Ed's involuntary flinch from a spot that liked to knot up on him, "How much longer did you two keep working?"

"Just after midnight," Ed dug his forehead into the pillow, "Winry couldn't get a thing done when we were on the train… it was too bouncy, she kept screwing up. She didn't want to go to bed until the ankle coil worked right."

"Did she get it?" he glanced over to her sleeping figure, curled up tight beneath the covers, not as use to the late fall, early winter chill as the others in the room were.

"She'd still be up if she hadn't," rolling his shoulder to get his father's hand away from the sore cramp in his neck, Ed slipped his arm beneath the pillow and dug his chin into the softness, "this IS Winry, after all."

Sitting back, Hohenheim allowed the faint resemblance of a grin to form on his face. Smoothing his hands over his own loose hair, pulling the free gold strands over his shoulders, he gazed out into the small space of the room the three of them had cluttered up. A deep breath was taken before his voice rose again.

"I spoke with Thomas on the phone the other day," the father took a lesson from his son and delivered an uneasy message without easing into the subject. The Hyland family was not something they had discussed since leaving London, each for their own personal reasons. The family would enter his thoughts from time to time and sat at the forefront during the train ride through Europe. He wondered how receptive Winry would be to the family, one of many reasons Edward did not want to return to London.

Waiting for Ed to pipe up, Hohenheim found himself with a great deal of relief when he said nothing at all, allowing the statement to digress, "they wanted us to come over for supper when we get into London, I told him we'd be delighted."

Hohenheim's concern lay with his son's reaction to his mention of the Hyland family, where as Edward's silent concern rested with the uncertainty of how to approach the subject matter. The father did not expect a resounding acceptance of the invitation, he did not even expect a compliancy response; Ed concurred by not speaking up. For each of them, it was a different sort of unease as they remained in each other's company.

"If it had been just Winry and I, he'd have insisted we stay with them," Ed severed the nerves between them, choosing to follow a train of thought different from his father's, "it wouldn't have mattered what you'd arranged with Dr. Wilson."

His gaze cast down in thought, Hohenheim's expression softened at the statement, "I know."

They both allowed the silence to creep in once more. Hohenheim's unease rose with each second his presence at the side of the bed went unquestioned. The exhausted body lay awake next to him, unwilling to surrender to any type of sleep.

Their existence in each other's presence carried the cohesion of a distorted dream rudely interrupted by relentless insomnia.

"Why did you stay in London for Thomas' wedding?"

Delivered in blunt Edward Elric fashion, this question would have come up eventually; Hohenheim realized that it was only a matter of time before his son asked. He knew that there had been external circumstances that had kept Ed generally withdrawn on the train ride from Munich to Dunkerque. Winry had recognized it too, but Hohenheim knew that the question had existed in the back of his son's mind for much longer than that.

In the spring of 1919, they had planned to detour through Greece before arriving in Munich for the fall semester. Eager to dissect the ancients of the country, Ed had left before his father, but Hohenheim had never met up with his son again until Munich.

Composing his thoughts, Hohenheim's hand came up and smoothed over his bristly, golden beard. The doubt within himself prevented him from distinguishing Edward's true motivation for the question: was it derived from jealousy, frustration, disappointment, or sheer curiosity?

During his first winter in London, it had been the Hyland children who'd exposed Edward to something beyond the sulking misery of his father's home. Thomas, two years his senior, and Julie, three years his junior, found Edward to be some sort of phenomena, or 'charity project' as Ed described the situation. With as much subtle encouragement as Hohenheim could put forth, the two young adults had dragged the miserable blonde out from within the household confinements and into society. Not that venturing into the city was something Edward had avoided, there was no denying his swell of curiosity about the city, let alone the country; but it was a venture he had preferred to move solo on.

As time moved forwards, Edward had curiously kept an eye on Thomas's venture into university. It became a tenure that had accidentally sparked Edward's re-interest in alchemy at his point beyond the Gate. Up until that time, when Thomas had been able to open a window for Edward to jump from, the Elric had viewed alchemy practices beyond the Gate as not only impossible but viewed the texts as extremely misleading to any novice who could not realize the severity of the errors. He had become viciously critical of what little documentation he'd found until that point, mainly due to fundamental flaws in most frameworks. However, the post secondary libraries not only had far better documentation, but they had an arrow pointing to ancient Greece as well.

Something profound existed in those words; concealed between the lines of documents. They were documents rewritten into standard English by a 'modern' society lacking the basic alchemical understanding to grasp the astonishing concepts found in the pages. Suddenly an endless ocean existed in his path, willfully polluted with scarce fragments of overwhelming wisdom he'd never even dreamed of.

And he couldn't even use it.

Ed's drive to return home had peaked and cascaded with relentless force on a fair summer's night that he and his father had been invited to the Hyland house for dinner, The dinner was a conglomerate of guests, the vast majority of which were Thomas' acquaintances from school, and that became the night the London sky collapsed around the Elrics and drove an emotional wedge between the two families.

It would take over a half a year before Edward would walk away from it; his father slow to follow, much to Edward's quiet dismay.

"A few weeks before the wedding, Thomas told me that they were expecting a baby. They hadn't told either of their parents, because if they had, they'd have been furious. His parents were sick and that flu was showing no mercy, so they asked for my support for as long I could provide it. Things were getting hard for that family; I couldn't turn their request down."

Hohenheim's hands slipped over his knees and the father pushed himself to his feet, slowly taking a deep breath as he moved.

"I stayed and I helped until I was able to get in at the university," his eyes flickered down to Edward; his son's head remained turned away, unable to make any eye contact or judge a facial expression, "I know that you wanted to remove yourself from that situation…"

Ed scoffed, the sound muffled by the pillow.

"But, beyond that, I needed to be there to watch it all happen – even if it was for my own 'selfish' reasons."

With his face turned away, Edward lay listening as his father moved about the room. The sound of the sheets came and went, the sound of the mattress being laid upon faded, and the sound of their breathing was all that remained in the darkness before sunrise.

"Did Julie get to hold the baby?"

Inside the humane bubble he so carefully guarded, Edward had harboured that question for over two years. Sadly, he would receive the answer that had kept him from ever asking.

"No, she didn't."

The butter knife shaved a little more of that humanity away from the wrong side of the gate as Edward curled up just a little, golden slits peering out from behind sore eyelids.

"That's too bad," his arm stretched under his pillow, slowly curling beneath his head.


"Hey babe," Havoc's cigarette slipped to the corner of his mouth, the heels of his boots landing on Mustang's desk, "you must have been busy earlier, I called but no one picked up."

Breda, Fury, and Falman picked their curious eyes up from the paperwork scattered across their worktable.

"Oh, no, I'm just glad you called me before I stepped out," with his boots hooked onto the edge of the desk and a stupid grin painted on, Havoc slouched deeper into the seat, "I'd have been disappointed if I'd missed hearing the lovely sound of your voice."

"He doesn't give up, does he?" Falman gave a faint smirk.

"Oh yeah? Yeah there was a lot of excitement the other night, huh?" A lecherous grin grew into Havoc's smile, "let me know when you're up for another one of those nights, we can make it a weekend."

Fury's brow rose, glancing between his companions as the three men made it no secret that they were listening, "Should the Lieutenant really be discussing things like that on the office phone?"

"You should hear him with the receptionist downstairs," Breda rolled his eyes, snorting out a laugh.

"Hey it's Thursday, I'm good for this weekend if you're up for it. I've got a quiet little spot not too far from your place; we can curl up there for some peace and…eh?"

Without flinching, the three sets of eyes and ears that had been working so diligently were now trained upon Havoc.

"Your mother's in town?"

A collective snort burst at the table, the men grinning to themselves as Havoc's expression slowly fell.

"Well hey, I'm game for dinner with your mom…" catching his audience from the corner of his eye, Havoc kicked the chair away from the desk, spinning until all they could see was the back of his seat. The grip on the Lieutenant's boots stuck perfectly against the window glass and Havoc returned to lounging in the room's most important chair.

Breda's laugh was the loudest, smirking at the other two officers, "Hey, it's Havoc, just ignore it."

"I'm not so sure Havoc should be making those kinds of calls on the secure office line though," pushing his glasses tight against the bridge of his nose, Fury gave a cautious shake of his head, "he could get in a lot of-"

A familiar creak snatched the trio's attention, shooting their focus to the office door, watching the wooden plug swung wide.

"… Shit."

The officers shot to their feet, stiffened hands stapled to their foreheads in salute for General Hakuro as hthe man stepped into the room. Following directly at his back was Lt. Colonel Armstrong, whose unusually steadfast and harsh expression sent a nervous wave through the chests of the three onlookers as the two superior officers moved through the room. The inquisitive eyes drifted over their shoulders as they watched the Lt. Colonel and General stop their approach at the front of Lt. Havoc's temporary desk. Nervous, with a twinge of curiosity, excitement, and fear for their friend, the three lowest ranked officers held the situation in their sights.

"Does around seven sound good? Alright, that sounds fine. I'll drop by about ten to seven; we can chat with your mom for twenty minutes, and head out maybe quarter after? I'll make the dinner arrangements for 7:30."

The midday sun did not allow Armstrong's looming shadow to cast over the Lieutenant; else, he would have realized much sooner what stood at his back.

"Alright babe, see you then," with Havoc's reluctant sigh, the conversation ended and his feet slipped from the window, "damn…"

It was Hakuro who wasted no time bringing the office to order, "Lieutenant."

Slowly, a wide, wary set of blue eyes peered around the leather chair before Havoc's moments exploded, spinning around and snapping to his feet. Suddenly entangled in the telephone cord, the length of the cord came up short and the phone tumbled off the desk, taking a stack of paperwork with it.

Silently, Armstrong shook his head as they allowed the suddenly disorganized officer a moment to pick up the mess he'd created.

"Sorry, Sirs," the cigarette fluttering in Havoc's teeth, "I had no idea you were coming this afternoon."

"Obviously."

Hakuro's blunt response tightened the tension strung through all listening ears.

"Gentlemen," Hakuro turned his relatively pleasant expression over to the onlookers, "would you excuse us for a few minutes?"

Havoc ventured an uncertain eye towards his colleagues, watching as they swiftly exited the room at the General's command. Havoc pulled his cigarette from his teeth and slipped it behind his ear, wondering what the heck was going on – the General and Armstrong were an odd couple at best.

"… Sir?"

Armstrong's harsh tone came crashing down upon Havoc, "Who were you speaking with on the phone, Lieutenant?"

His show of surprise was withheld, and his rising alarm kept under guard. Havoc ran questions through his mind, concerned why Armstrong was playing this game. The Lt. Colonel knew perfectly well who he'd been talking to, Armstrong had been the one who'd arranged for the call from Major Hawkeye to be re-routed from the receptionist's desk on the second floor to the office. The conversation was modified from an old Mustang tactic; he knew how to read it. What kind of situation was bringing this sudden performance on?

"My girlfriend, Sir?"

"Perhaps you should restrict your personal calls, Lieutenant…" his attention over his shoulder, Hakuro watched as the door finally clicked shut before returning his focus to the matter at hand, "to a time when you are not in the office."

"My deepest apologies, General," Havoc watched the disapproving look in the general's eyes, "I'll use more discretion next time."

Hakuro gave a light shake of his head towards Havoc, "Lieutenant, you need to show more than discretion, I'm afraid."

His jaw stiffened, "Of course, Sir, my sincerest apologies. It won't happen again."

"That's not what I meant," the general's arms folded, casting a blazing look of disappointment over the officer, "I'll be frank with you Lt. Havoc, your name has been thrown around a great number of times to be placed under performance watch, probation, and even investigation."

Havoc's hands slipped to his sides, the uncertainty and concern suddenly boiled within him, "May I ask what for?"

"Far too many of your reports have been late, misfiled or simply misplaced before reaching the government authorities. The activity logs for many of the people stationed in Brigadier General Mustang's division, which you are currently overseeing, have been poorly compiled and seem erroneous. The brass has become increasingly critical of your performance and are pushing to place you under probationary observation for the inability you've displayed in handling your position efficiently," sighing, Hakuro let his posture loosen, though his tone remained directive, "Lt. Colonel Armstrong pushed for me to come and discuss this with you before any action was taken. You should thank him; after the Marketplace reports went missing you were walking on thin ice with many people in investigations, not to mention the government. If your performance does not straighten out, I'm afraid you will have to be dealt with. Take this as your last warning, Lieutenant. I have no problem reassigning this office to one of my direct subordinates, regardless of anything Brigadier General Mustang has to say."

It was an unsettling implication, Havoc's actions were being monitored, far more closely than he'd suspected. He couldn't fathom how the brass came to realize all of his deliberate misfiling; he'd buried them so deeply in the military's mess that there should have been no way. Armstrong must have suspected or known about the suspicion and used the General as his method of conveying the dire need for silence. If the General's impromptu visit was the only way Armstrong could relay the message, it had to be serious. This exchange would become as much information as Havoc would get from the Lt. Colonel here on out. The independent investigation into Izumi would have to be pulled, as well as the one for Winry. He'd probably have to divulge the Winry case to the police if he wanted to have anything done for her now. His thoughts raced, doing a mental check that the records regarding the custody of Brigitte, Lt. Ross's leave and Broche's transfer north were as secure as he could have made them.

"Lieutenant Havoc."

The man's attention was grabbed again by the General's powerful tone.

"Ensure that your behaviour straightens out, you've kept an outstanding service record until now. I'm sharing this information with you as a courtesy."

His hand stiffening, Havoc's right hand shot to his temple, "Yes, Sir."

With the nod of his head, Hakuro turned away from the desk without a word, Armstrong following in stride. Nothing more was said between the two parties as the lumbering Lt. Colonel followed the General out. Flicking his cigarette from his ear, to his fingers, and back into his teeth. Havoc turned his back to the door, projecting his concerns out the window. Folding his arms, he listened for the door to click shut while the deep, troubling concerns to coursed through his veins.

"…Son of a bitch."

 


 

London, England. November 15, 1916

How absurd.

His hand missed the keyhole. It was unsteady; such an uneasy feeling to be so out of sorts. This shouldn't have been so uncomfortable.

Bundled tight in his scarf and jacket to keep the bitterly cold chill away, Ed's attention was elsewhere as his father fought with the deadbolt and doorknob. There was the skiff of snow blanketing the fallen leaves, the curious age of the buildings, and the growing interest about the destinations of the streets. The final passing thought was how horribly tacky the 'Welcome' mat on the doorstep was.

"Edward, you'll freeze if you stay outside in the cold," holding the door open, Hohenheim looked back to the porch pillar Ed leaned up against.

With a deep breath, Ed found himself trying to clear his throat, enjoying how nice the frozen air felt to ingest.

"Edward…?"

"For fuck's sake," his disgruntled voice snarled as he pushed away from the pillar, "I heard you the first time."

It was awkward. The last time Ed had been like this, Aunt Pinako had given him the spare leg she kept around. He'd never been so unbalanced for any length of time before, and for the life of him, he could not get used to it. His right calf burned, though he said nothing about it and opted to ignore it.

The last time Ed had stood for so long he'd had two good legs, even if that was only for a brief few hours.

He'd shift more weight to the crutch under his only arm, except that he'd done far too much of that already. The muscles in his shoulder were stiff & sore, plus his fingers had a tendency to go numb. The less the shoulder hurt, the less irritation the muscles and nerves in his neck and back felt. The sore leg was far away from everything else that hurt, he'd deal with that annoyance on its own.

Standing in the hallway, he squinted, adjusting to the inside light. His pale, drained expression slowly panned through the open kitchen attached to the front entrance. The dusty, golden eyes combed the wooden surface of the room, accented by earth-toned towels, dishcloths, and table placemats. Unable to place what it was that tickled his nose, Ed could have sworn that the house smelled vaguely like vanilla.

He startled as Hohenheim took hold of the scarf's end and began unraveling it from around his neck. Opting for the pain in his shoulder rather that the assistance of his father, Ed pulled away. Defiantly, his hand gave a firm yank on the scarf, allowing it to unwind and fall upon the floor. Holding steady with the support under his arm, Edward took to unbuttoning the long jacket.

Without a word, Hohenheim picked the scarf up from the floor.

Ed's hand eventually fell away from his task, his head and eyes remaining downcast while his irritation once again swelled. Slitting his eyes, Ed's hand clenched around the crutch trying to prevent himself from shaking with infuriation at the battle he was loosing with his jacket and the last two buttons at his knees. He could have sat down on the floor to finish the task, but then the old man would have to pick him up; he wasn't even strong enough, let alone able, to pull himself up.

Ed gave no acknowledgement when Hohenheim took care of the last two buttons.

"Have a seat at the kitchen table and take off your shoes…"

Ed kept his eyes away but his tongue seemed more willing to dance about, "Just one damn shoe."

"… And put it on the mat," the interjection did not faze Hohenheim's careful tone, "have a look around if you like, I need to tidy a few things upstairs."

He didn't dare do any more for his son, even if he felt Edward would be better off if he did. There was nothing the alienated father could do to stop the raging aura of frustration that would flare up; he could only look for hints that Ed was looking for a verbal combatant and diffuse the situation by stepping away. Edward's insatiable, vicious, verbal assaults had snapped on the hospital staff, and had snapped on him over the most ridiculous of issues. Hohenheim found it best to simply allow Ed to simmer down on his own or they'd both wind up at their wits end.

Flopping down into the wooden kitchen chair, Ed held a long exhale. He looked back through the room, frowning at the trail his shoe had made across the floor. Crossing the right leg over the left stump to unbuckle his boot, he let it fall from his sore toes and land with a dead clunk on the floor. Picking up on a passing thought, Ed considered poking around for something to drink but decided that his head was too heavy to care about what was inside his father's home. Ed turned to face the square, wooden table; he put his chin down on the blissfully cool surface, chilled by the opened crack of the window for fresh air. His head was hurting again – 'again', as in more than the normal pain – it made his eyes ache and he wrapped his arm around his face to bring that to an end. Emerging from the silence of his own discomfort, Ed's ears focused solely on the sounds of birds toughing out the winter as it filtered in from just beyond the glass panes. Ed's mind intensified the sound; he hadn't heard the birds that clearly since the last summer night he'd spent in Resembool. He engulfed himself in it, lived within it, enjoyed it, and used it to extinguish the echoing reminders of the hospital noises that danced the back of his mind.

It all vanished when he started to cough again.

Ed winced, the abused muscles at the back of his neck and shoulders strained as he tried to bring it under control. He hated how the sound of his own breathing wheezed in his eardrums. He'd continue to try and clear his throat of the feeling, even if it rarely worked. The thought of getting a drink from the tap was completely dismissed; the patience to figure out which cupboard housed the glasses wasn't present.

But this reminder of illness was easier to deal with than others; he could walk it off. Taking hold of his crutch, Ed pulled himself to his feet. 'Have a look around' he'd been told – why not? If he was going to have to stay here, he may as well know his way around.

Moving towards the hallway, an unidentifiable 'something' caught Ed's attention and he paused to look back. Tired, sunken eyes scanned the kitchen, trying to shed some light upon what it was that seemed to sit out of place. There was nothing he could recall, and as far as he was concerned, this whole world was out of place. The feeling was dismissed.

Edward didn't get very far, Hohenheim's house was not big and with no more than a few steps down a rug-covered hall he found himself in what must have been the 'family room'. The small brown couch and large rocking chair flanked the centerpiece table; everything seemed to face the screened off fireplace. The sheer white curtains were pulled while the thicker drapes remained open, a scattering of potted greenery accented the room, his quilt was folded over the back of the couch while the newspaper he'd picked up earlier that day had ended up at the table. Ed curled his nose slightly at the whole situation; it didn't have to look so pleasant, did it?

Tightening his frown, he wrote the room into memory. Ed freed his hand from the wooden support long enough to snatch the blue and green quilt from the back of the couch. Stumbling his way around, Ed let the crutch clatter off the floor while he let himself fall into the soft confines of the cushions.

He wasn't interested in sitting there for long. Placing the blanket on the floor, he slipped off the seat, straightening the blanket beneath him as he shifted. Ed stretched out his tired leg along the floor and lazily slouched over the low table. His hand reached out and flipped the pages of the newspaper before him, even though he'd read it twice already.

Nothing within the pages was interesting; it was all about the war and he was really fed up with hearing about it. It was rare to find something within the paper that did not directly result from something to do with the war, and he simply didn't care about it. Flipping the paper closed, Ed leaned his forehead against the table's edge, relaxing his shoulders and letting his body drain of tension. Eventually, his arm slipped between his forehead and the table's edge to prevent a permanent crease from developing on his brow.

It was so quiet in this house.

The peace was so much of a comfort that he couldn't claw enough energy to dispute. It was an outrageous slap in the face that his old man had a place of silent sanctuary. Constantly in motion, the hospital continually drifted in and out of chaos regardless of the time of day. He'd grown accustomed to blocking it out and finally sleeping through it; but now, beneath Hohenheim's roof, tranquility existed. Ed took refuge in the knowledge that there was no one around to watch him enjoy it.

 

     It started over 2 months ago upon the cold cobblestone street, glazed with water and sprinkled with debris. The raging sound of a fire, the nearby building collapsing, people's screams had been drowned out by the sound of his own pulse banging in his head. The severe dissociation with the world left him delirious. Before realizing that he was even in London, Ed had realized that he was without his arm and leg once again. His wounds were fresh and open, the precious limbs Alphonse had given him for a few fleeting hours had been ripped off his body. Lying silent, soaking in his own blood within the street, the murky red mixture of blood and street filth soaked his hair and dampened his clothes. There was nothing he could do about his wounds.

     Edward had never forgotten what it had felt like to loose his arm and his leg to the Gate, but this pain was far beyond unbearable and felt nothing like the first time. The memory of the Gate's reclamation of his limbs was non-existent. Awareness of his first moments after returning to London soon vanished. He had no idea who found him or when he ended up in a hospital bed. At the time, Ed could not understand why this instance completely overwhelmed him. He came to understand that nothing felt the same as it did back home; it was an irreparable imbalance to his existence that could not be corrected beyond the Gate.

 

There it was again. Ed's forehead pulled away from where it rested; if he were going to start coughing again he'd rather not be hitting his head into a solid object. He'd learned to keep his eyes shut or the pain in his neck, that started high on his neck and ran along each side of his spine, would hurt his eyes just that much more at every convulsion. His arm trembled slightly as Ed gripped the table's edge to remain balanced; cheeks burning, ears ringing, eyes watering. His fist would find its way through the wall if he could ever find the energy to do so.

 

     In the dark silence of his mind, he remembered the sudden insurgence of an unidentifiable voice stating that his injuries were serious and they would see how he faired the night. Yet, in the morning, he cracked an eye open in the early morning, cleared his throat of a nasty feeling, and asked where he was. That verbal exchange was the last time Edward willingly held a conversation with the staff. Their questions came and he could not answer them: place of birth, address, phone number, parents, relatives, contacts, school, doctor, priest… all he provided was his name and age.

     Starting later that evening and continuing on for the next several weeks, Edward's recollection of the hospital stay came to around seventy-two hours. At first, when he'd made the passing comment about how he felt like utter shit, he'd been told that they were worried he'd picked up an infection, possibly in his bloodstream, when he'd been in the street. It was to be the cause of his rising fever, chills, and swelling lethargy. The misdiagnosis was satisfactory until Ed began awakening amidst dizzying and breathless sweats. He fell to the ailment too quickly to understand what was happening. The dizzying disconnection with reality gained a moment of coherency at the command of Hohenheim's hand slapping his burning cheek. According to the estranged father, they'd been holding a disjointed conversation about how to raise Aquoria out of the water by making it float somehow. It wasn't until Ed gave a coherent, though incensed, response that Hohenheim understood the young man hadn't even realized whom he'd been talking to until that moment, let alone been aware of the left-field conversation.

 

Edward cursed while undoing the top button of his loose, white collared shirt. The two nerves pinching high on his neck tightened with every convulsion. Balanced awkwardly by the shorter leg stump, Ed rose to his 'knees'. The dryer his lips got, the hotter his cheeks burned; the hotter he felt, the more difficult Edward found it to breathe. The frustrated fist Ed lifted above his head never reached a downswing. Startled, his eyes widened at the muscular hand that gripped beneath his chin. Before Ed realized what was going on, a second hand came down not once, but twice, high across his back. If there had not been that stronger hand, the weakened Elric would have crumpled to the ground.

 

      Around the time the cough developed, Hohenheim told his viciously miserable and volatile son that the doctors had re-diagnosed him with pneumonia. The statement ended a frustration filled, one-sided argument in which Edward had been telling his old man to stay the fuck away from him for any and every reason he could dream up. He didn't ask his father what that was… exactly, but not long after the man left his bedside he asked one of the nurses. The question was an honest one on Ed's part, but it did nothing but concern the hospital staff about his state of mind, something that was already in severe doubt. To rub salt into the frustration wound, no one did him the courtesy of answering the question.

     At some point the question was relayed to Hohenheim. Quietly the next afternoon, as Ed had buried his burning, aching face into the lifeless hospital pillow, the father's hand slipped into his son's loose, tangled mess of hair and the old man crouched down beside his bed. It was odd for the noise in the ward to be so low, and Hohenheim's voice slipped in beneath the existing hum. The words Edward reluctantly listened to finally explained that where Amestris excelled in alchemy, this world excelled in mechanics. Where medical science flourished at home, here, chemical and biological sciences were only in their infancy. This world had diseases that were treatable back home, or abolished, or simply non-existent. Neither of their systems had immunities for what lurked in this civilization. Before Ed gathered up the energy to slap the hand away, Hohenheim presented the crushing tone of voice that set him apart from every other man and established a foundation for the hierarchy between father and son. He would make it perfectly clear that there was no medical procedure that would fix what was happening. His lungs were infected, filling with fluid and if he didn't want to die from it he was going to have to do away with the chip on his shoulder for a little while.

 

"Did it clear?"

Even if Ed wanted to tell Hohenheim something to the contrary, whatever was sitting up in his lungs had moved, and the crackle in his breathing had dispersed. Exhausted, he closed his eyes, focusing on catching his breath, fighting off the persistent cough.

Why, of all the people in the world, was he under his care? Why did he get to see him in such a terrible state? With each passing day his self-respect and pride would be chiseled away a little more. Ed's inability to care for himself was degrading enough, and then to allow assistance from one of the last people he wanted to have around was infuriating. The damned old man had no right, no right to him at all. Yet, no matter what Ed had screamed at him, the fool always returned. His constant presence and insistence that he could play some sort of guardian's role would continually drive him mad.

 

     In the end, it wasn't as though Edward could get up and walk into the city life; the most frustrating part of his reluctant agreement to the man's presence was that Ed chose to be with him. It was a terrible pill to have to digest, the idea he would rather stay under his old man's care than be sent off to some facility.

     The choice was his to make. Would he carry the title of being his father's son? Or, would he allow himself to be sent to a care facility and permit the world to label him 'disabled'? Eventually, he chose the former.

 

Ed never realized the exact moment he'd finally stopped coughing, though he was perfectly aware Hohenheim was still at his side when the old man picked him up and put him face down on the couch. Taking one of the pillows, Ed scrunched it up beneath his face, listening as Hohenheim picked the quilt off the floor. Before the blanket fell over him, Ed peeked out to the room and quickly caught the barren surface of the coffee table. Yet again, something in this house was out of place.

Loosing interest and turning away, Ed's hidden expression soured when Hohenheim sat down next to him. His nose wrinkled when the old man's hand came to rest on the middle of his back.

"There's a room upstairs for you, did you want to sleep in it tonight?"

"No."

"Do you want something to eat?"

"I'm not hungry."

Glancing towards the curtain drawn window, Hohenheim slowly shook his head, "You haven't eaten since quarter after seven this morning, you should–"

"Are you fuckin' deaf?" Ed's answer was far more forceful than the first monotone response, "I said I'm not hungry."

Hohenheim kept his voice quiet, attempting to preserve the remaining peace within the house, "I'll leave a cup of tea on the table for you, alright?"

"It's your house, I don't give a damn what you do," even if his voice was lacking volume, the complete disregard for his father's gesture was prevalent.

Yet, there was no movement on Hohenheim's part. Ed shut his eyes again, hoping to block the world out. It was not long before he felt his father's hand rub over his aching back. His patience had ground to nothing long ago and Ed childishly wondered if the old man was deliberately trying to aggravate him today. Laying silent, summoning his strength, Ed tried to find the energy to lay down his definite position that he wanted Hohenheim to screw off. Before he'd be given a chance to snap his tongue, he heard the house door close. Wondering who on earth could be coming in, Ed quickly looked at the coffee table as the newspaper landed on it, jiggling the teacup.

Ed blinked; so that's what had been missing from the table, "I already looked at it, just throw it out."

"No, you read yesterday's paper," Hohenheim's voice mused.

"No," Ed began to wiggle himself upright, "I bought a new paper from the kid outside the hospital."

"I know," the corner of Hohenheim's lips had curled as he stood behind the couch, "but that was yesterday morning."

"No, it was this morning," waiting for his father to retort, Ed's aggressive disposition slowly slipped away the longer he looked at the man, watching the faint concern on his face. The argument slowly crumbled to dust. Suddenly concerned, Ed's attention turned to the paper on the table. His complexion couldn't have grown any paler when he realized the old man was right, the front page was entirely different. A knot twisted in his chest as he reached out and stuck a finger into the cold tea sitting on the table.

"You were just…" Ed's shoulders sank as he tried to adjust the situation in his mind. Among a million other concerns, he asked himself how Hohenheim ended up behind the couch when he'd just been sitting next to him.

Picking up on the disoriented feeling Edward threw about the room, Hohenheim drifted to his armchair and allowed the boy time to organize his thoughts.

"You put me on the couch and asked if I wanted something to eat. I said no, you said you'd leave me… tea," his eyes narrowed at the cold teacup on the table, " you put your hand on me and I was going to tell you to screw off… but then the paper landed on the table…"

"Edward," barely seated, Hohenheim soon realized something was missing, "you were tired, it was one in the morning…"

"No it wasn't."

"… I rubbed your back for nearly an hour, you were sound asleep."

It was out of character, and with the misunderstanding of his day the distraught tone in his voice strengthened, "We got here at 1:30 in the afternoon. I was in the kitchen, then I came in here, looked at the paper, and then I couldn't stop coughing…" his expression interrogated Hohenheim for an explanation.

"You fell asleep in the kitchen. You had your face in your arm when I came down, it didn't look like you were going to fall out of the chair so I left you there. I put your shoe away on the mat and cleaned up the floor," he looked on as Ed's expression fell, realizing what it was that had been bothering him when he'd left the kitchen, "you were there for three… maybe four hours. I found you in here later, sitting on the floor; you had your head down on the table. I put the paper in the trash. I didn't hear anything from you until around nine o'clock when you started coughing. It took a while to fade, but you fell asleep," Hohenheim's expression softened to counter the mortified look developing on Edward's face, "I didn't move you until around one because I didn't want to wake you up, but thought you might want a real bed. I left the tea on the table before I went upstairs."

"That whole day went by…" at the edge of his seat, leaning over the coffee table, Ed's eyes focused on the 'incorrect' date of the paper. It was shameful, it was embarrassing, and his father had been around the whole time – to watch over him, to care for him, to ensure his safety – as he unwillingly demonstrated his best attempt at narcolepsy. The inability to function normally, to care for himself, to simply unbutton his coat, was getting more infuriating with each passing day. 'Edward Elric' couldn't possibly be this dysfunctional. He was aware that he'd slept a great deal at the hospital; there were points where he'd been so under the weather that he'd lost days at a time. For some reason, that was easier to rationalize; not only had he been in a spot where there were no time and date reminders allowing him to realize what he'd missed, but when you're in a hospital, you're supposed to sleep! A few weeks back he hadn't even realized what month it was until someone had mentioned it in passing. But now, if he felt fine enough to be up and walking around, what the hell was his body thinking it was doing?

"Edward, you're not feeling well, there's nothing wrong with that."

"No," the remaining strand binding his frustrations weakened as Edward's voice cracked. This time when his fist rose, it came crashing down upon the smooth tabletop. The impact rocked the teacup, tipping it over the newsprint, "There is EVERYTHING wrong with 'that'!"

 


 

Central City, Amestris. May 1916

The back of Izumi's hand wiped the sweat from her forehead.  She slid her chair to the right until she was protected beneath the patio canopy once again, "I hope those two are keeping themselves out of trouble."

The uniformed officer seated with her laughed, "I'm sure Clause will keep Alphonse out of trouble, she came in to visit me last month and lived in the marketplace. She knows her way around."

Izumi moved her empty glass aside and relaxed her expression for the girl's father, "Does she visit you regularly in Central?"

Finishing off the last swallow of his drink, Clause's father shook his head, "No, this is only her second time into Central. I had a few days leave and thought I'd surprise her with tickets. I'm normally out East."

Izumi's eyes drifted out into the crowded roadway and began darting through the people, idly wondering if she could still spot the two children in the outskirts of the market. "You're stationed out in the Ishibal settlement?"

"That's right. People can say what they want about the new government's 'democracy', but they practically conscripted all the men in town when their recruiters showed up. I agreed under the condition that I worked with restorations and warned them they'd have a deserter on their hands if they pulled anything. I was shocked when they honoured my request. They've kept their word so far."

Humming in response, Izumi's attention moved away from the bustling street and up into the clear, mid-day sky as she listened, "The government has been trying to change the perception of the military, especially after the State Alchemist Inquiry."

"Even so," the man's voice developed into a cold, hard sound, "there is still too much politics and rhetoric in the peacekeeping measures. We're trying to help people and keep getting caught up in government nonsense," with a sigh, he pushed up from his seat, "but enough of that, no use worrying about red tape while I'm on leave. I'll grab us something from the parlour to cool down with."

Izumi held her glass up for Clause's father to take, then relaxed into the back of the chair, "Thank you."

The noise from the streets and adjacent restaurant patrons muddled together to form a vibrant hum of lively background noise. Izumi tiredly held her eyes open, setting her drifting thoughts free in the rich blue sky above the eatery's rooftop. She folded her arms loosely and let the tension slip from her shoulders to enjoy a few moments of relaxation.

"Excuse me?"

The voice was a little too close for comfort. Izumi brought her focus back down to earth and she swept around to address who'd piped up behind her. A slender, frail looking young woman stood over her. 

Izumi's eyes narrowed, "Can I help you?"

"My apologies. I don't mean to intrude, but I saw two children with you and your companion earlier and I believe one of them may have dropped something."

Straightening herself out properly in the chair, Izumi looked up at the finely dressed, but thin, fragile woman. A hand-knit shawl hugged her neck, draped long over her shoulders, and carefully concealed her entire torso. Her jet black hair made her pale complexion stand out. She seemed a bit like a porcelain doll if they came in adult sizes - one wrong move and she’d shatter.

Izumi shook the cobwebs out of her head, "What did they lose?"

Extending out from the security of her body's decorative veil, an arm slowly emerged and the woman placed the item in question on the table. The silver chain fell from her fingers, in a controlled, almost calculated manner, and she wrapped it around the circumference of the State Alchemist pocket watch she presented.

"A young man dropped it; he had short, golden brown hair, grey eyes, and there was a young lady with him."

Silent, listening to the woman's words, Izumi interrogated the military emblem etched into the silver lid. What the hell was this bullshit? Why did it have something to do with Al? "You're mistaken. This isn't ours."

"Isn't it?" the woman slid to Izumi's side, her floor length dress sweeping the dust along with her, "the people around me said it was in his hands before it was lost. Could he have been holding onto it for someone else?"

"Unlikely," Izumi's gaze picked up an air of ferocity and she held the dark haired woman prisoner in her eyes.

"Such a shame, it looks like the real thing. It's a pity that someone has lost it."

Izumi began to counter the conversation, "Well, the 'State Alchemist' distinction was expunged from the military after a government inquiry into the Ishibal atrocities. Unless someone plans on melting it or using it as parts, a thing like that is worthless now."

"Yes, that's quite true, isn't it?" the woman dipped her rich, violet gaze into the depths of the dark anger Izumi was projecting, "the patio is bustling with people this afternoon, am I imposing too much if I ask to join your table?"

"Yes, you are," Izumi wanted nothing to do with this unsettling wordsmith. Izumi wanted to grab Al and get as far away from this woman and this city as possible.

A theatre actress' poise played in the woman's voice, teasing false hurt with her tongue, "You'd refuse a request from the prime minister's wife? Who taught you to be so inconsiderate?"

Angrily, Izumi reached out and swept the watch off the table, "I've never cared for the military or the government. I don't care what your game is now."

The watch cracked off the cement and clattered through the pebbles, stopping against the leg of another chair. 

From the moment it had been placed on the table, the moment her words came out in just that way, the fear had cropped up and she'd known – they'd both known. Izumi clenched her teeth and watched satisfaction wash like a content wave through Dante's new look.

"You should not dismiss me so quickly."

Izumi wasn't about to let this woman watch her come apart at the seams. Stabbing her elbows into the table and setting her chin down on her laced fingers, Izumi challenged her former instructor, "Are you threatening me?"

"No," from beneath the secrecy of her shawl, a single hand emerged again to pull out a vacant chair. Smoothing her dress, Dante sat down uninvited, "I'm offering words of advice."

As quickly as she'd sat down, Izumi stood up, sharply knocking her chair back from the table without another word.

"Edward Elric is inside the Gate, is he not?"

Izumi's jaw tightened, "I have nothing to say to you."

The proclamation was disregarded and Dante wove her words around an uncooperative student, "That's the only conclusion I could come to seeing the younger brother as he is now, and the only reason I can think of for your return trip to Dublith." As elegantly as her withering muscles would allow, Dante crossed her legs.

Izumi's arms folded, her back to her counterpart, "What we're doing now is none of your concern. You have no reason to get involved in our lives again."

"People who allow themselves the opportunity to be exploited should not shake their head when they find themselves at another's mercy."

"Allow themselves?" Izumi pivoted quickly, casting her rage down at the seated figure, "no one is allowing anything to happen. The only way for you to carry out your 'business' is to create situations where people can be taken advantage of when they're at their weakest. The Elrics, the military, Lior, Ishibal…"

"Ishibal is very dear to me," a sweeping grin laden with malice was turned over to Izumi, "a brilliant people, Ishibal has continued to succeed where all others have failed. I am only able to mould the future as I see it today because of their sacrifices and Ishibal's contributions have been beautiful."

"Beautiful?"

"Once, I had beautiful red eyes too…"

Izumi's brow rose, digesting the implications of the statement and watching the confident words flow from the woman's moving lips.

"The scarred man of Ishibal gave himself and the city of Lior to me in the most beautiful philosopher's stone I've had in ages. His brother was so close, but created something I could not use. Even more wonderful before that was a curious man who came to learn why the Ishiballan religion forbade alchemy, and was outcast for it. He carried the knowledge that would be passed on, graciously continuing my opera."

Her curiosity snared in the web of implications, Izumi listened as Dante's words flowed out of her mouth without hesitation. A script: decades in the making.

"I'm uncertain if he's bowed down to old age yet. As a young man, he and his lover developed and refined all sorts of methods for alchemy in secret; fueled by an ancient curiosity. It was in an old, rare text authored by a man who signed as Von Hohenheim that the couple discovered the proposal for Diana."

Lowering her defensive posture, the name of the Elric father coming from Dante was disturbing. The entire story was unsettling for Izumi. As her former teacher, Dante held the unique position of being someone Izumi would not forcefully lash out against, finding herself as the only woman who could leave this student puzzled and silent amidst confusion. The ancient woman relished that position, knowing that Izumi's 'superior knowledge' of alchemy was only the select information she'd fed her for so many years.

"Mind you, the research behind Diana's proposal was hundreds, if not thousands, of years older than my own existence; folklore from my youth which no longer exists," her head turned slightly, casting her gaze up to a former pupil, "but the first time I saw what was within the Gate and with each subsequent encounter, myself and that foolish man I once loved understood that within the Gate was the type of existence far beyond our understanding."

Listening carefully to each word spoken, absorbing the information, Izumi stared back into the malevolent storyteller's enthralling expression. After all the lies, the deception, the gross disregard for human life, the story conveyed to Izumi's ears could not be disregarded.

"Our first Philosopher's Stone allowed us to arrive at the Gate's door more often than any before us. It may have been an intolerable tease at an unreachable knowledge, but each time we stood at the doors we seemed to inch closer and closer to understanding the frightening image of mankind; almost able to taste the swell of knowledge there was to grasp. Many years later, that same husband of mine suggested: Could the horrors we see at the Gate's doors not be the knowledge and nightmares existing within the Gate, but be fragments of an existence elsewhere? Perhaps there was not only a type of hellish existence within the Gate, where the dead minds and souls of our loved ones reside, but one beyond it as well."

Izumi's raging tension drained away as the woman's voice continued to spiral through her ears. The daunting and unforeseen proposal pulled a nightmare of images to the forefront of her mind's eye. An assault, buried for years, now played again.

"Maybe what the Gate shows you is a warning," turning away, a sigh incurred before an old regret resurfaced, "though we could never find out if there was such an existence beyond the Gate and could only theorize how to confirm it."

Quickly digressing, Dante quickly cleared her lament, "The prospect of another type of mankind enthralled those two Ishiballans, and the couple explored the idea of Diana for several years. What they came to discover was that Diana existed with a condition. From that, the couple came to understand why their God forbid alchemy. Unfortunately, the Ishiballan way of life embedded such high moral standards into every man and woman raised under the church's blanket, that even a dissident couldn't find it within his heart to devastate society that way. Soon after they began searching for alternatives, the Ishibalan man discovered his wife had died while traveling through the south, her carriage crashed on the outskirts of Dublith. Days later the Ishiballan church leaned what they had been doing."

Her hand swept out from beneath her shawl, gripping the end of the table as she slowly rose to her feet, "There was only one survivor from the carriage crash that claimed his wife's life. A woman crawled out of the wreckage with barely a scratch. I'm sure you've met that sole survivour before."

A myriad of curses and accusations formed in Izumi's mouth as she clenched her jaw, her eyes slit like pins.

"So, the unanswerable question for you remains," the dark strands of hair fanned over her shoulder as the strong purple eyes drove into Izumi, "if you are seeking Edward Elric, are you looking for him in the nightmare of the Gate, or do you need to surpass your predecessors and find what exists beyond the Gate?"

Edward Elric, Alphonse's elder brother, was inside the Gate, thrown at mercy of a higher existence in order to reinvent his brother's existence. There had never been any doubt, nor questioning of the fact that once taken by the Gate you became its property as part of an exchange; equal or otherwise.

But this…

The words continued to flow without care as Dante gazed off into the crowds, "He did not die like Trisha Elric, whose body's existence came to an end allowing her mind and soul to exist within the Gate. His body was not taken like Alphonse Elric, and held at ransom by the Gate because of an incomplete alchemical equation. Edward Elric gave himself – his entire existence: mind, body and soul – to our beloved Gate to do with as it pleased; else the younger brother would not be standing as he is today. Those circumstances are different from the others. I would not expect to find him sitting by the doors when you finally arrive to take him back. The Gate had to put him somewhere to exist like that."

The noise of the bustling street rose into their conversation, yet the echo of the surrounding sounds was incomparable to Dante's blistering voice tearing through Izumi's head. The frustration and curiosity boiled inside of her, emotions reaffirmed themselves as her expression hardened. Her toe dug into the patio deck and Izumi spun around, holding her voice low, unable to sully the furious tone.

"I know that Edward sacrificed himself to bring Alphonse back, but that doesn't explain why you are telling me everything else! You don't care about that family."

With the shrug of her shoulders, and a sweet, malicious grin decorating her pale complexion, Dante's tone flooded with confidence, "I have my reasons, I'm sure you realize that. But, I don't have the patience to wait for you to discover things on your own. I'm disgusted enough by this world's ignorance, so I place higher expectations on my students, former or otherwise. The decades of failure you will endure is a far too painful thought, I do not want to sit back and wait to see if you come up with a solution. Diana can only be effective for so long."

"Is your riddle finished?" Izumi snarled, fighting with herself to not raise her voice and draw the attention of the people around her.

The riddle twisted at the deafening echo of gunshots ringing out within the streets. The hum of pedestrian traffic transformed into shrieks of men, women and children. Those voices were unable to drown out the rapid gunfire that went in chorus with the chaotic stampede of bodies.

Izumi stalled for only a moment, panic flooding into the streets and flushed into her veins, "… Al!"

"They're early…" Dante's uncompassionate eyes blinked wide.

Izumi whipped her snarling voice around, "EARLY?"

"By ten minutes or so…"

The automatic fire began drowning out so much that echoed: the shrieking voices, the shattering glass, and the thundering movements of people's feet. Their moment, their conversation, and their relationship threads were set ablaze as Izumi dismissed the existence of the malevolent puppeteer and refocused with every intention of charging through the terror flowing through the streets.

"Izumi!"

There was no other person who could command her with such ease; it was a string too hard to burn after so many years. Her fists clenched, Izumi turned back to the only person she'd ever allowed to hold authority over her.

"You don't have a firm grasp on what you're dealing with. You have only seen the Gate once. You have no documentation, no references, only your vague, personal experience. Have you deluded yourself to that boy's ambitions so badly that you can no longer remember the power the Gate held over you?" The storyteller's tone Dante had carried no longer existed and the woman's voice rose above the suffocating sound of fear swelling around them, "It seems Edward may have taken a page from his father's book without ever realizing it. So, if you want the only other man on this landscape who knows the contents of Hohenheim's Theory of Beyond the Gate, you should hurry east before I ensure that information flows from no mouth other than mine. Distrust my motives if you want, but I suggest you go, or risk every mistake man has made before you."

The ground beneath their feet heaved, the sound of a deafening explosion ripped through the air. Screams at Izumi's back magnified as a filthy fog of smoke thundered into the street. The gunfire faded, replaced by the roar of a flame that rose up, licking the delicious, blue sky before sinking into the haze.

"The hands of time are falling down upon the scant remains of Ishibal very quickly."

A dull vibration became a permanent sensation in the streets; the hands of time were crashing to the ground in a selected portion of Central City. Without a word in reply, Izumi vanished into the shrieking bedlam.

Pushing past toppled chairs in the smoggy patio eatery, Dante reached down and reclaimed the token watch. She slipped her way through the deserted mess, disinterested in the mayhem, pulling the ends of her shawl up to shield her face from the thickening smoke and dust.

She carved a path through the spiraling world that no other had taken, the violet in Dante's eyes shone clear in the sullied, murky air.

 


To Be Continued...


 


Visual Update

Until now, Ed had been styled in his Shamballa outfit.  Those clothes were ruined in Returned to Parent, so this is Ed's look going forward.

 

 

 

Also Winry sketches, since she's begrudgingly trying to fit in :)

Notes:

This chapter was formatted a bit differently - its groundwork for much that's upcoming.

Assumptions are going to start coming up on the Amestris side about the process of crossing the Gate, and they're not all going to be right. No one on the Amestris side has a complete understanding of how it works (even Dante) so there's going to be both right and wrong assumptions made (and the Gate's probably laughing at everyone in the process).

Because Izumi's side was a flashback, I touched on a few things that I mentioned very early on in the story plotline to refresh them.

Chapter 20: Eyes on the World's Other Side

Summary:

Brigitte's belongings begin to shed light on a much larger picture, while Winry learns one of the reasons why Ed did not want to return to London.

Chapter Text

Independency.

The lives on either side of the Gate are independent of each other.

The Edward on this side of the Gate is dead.
The body that matches my father's current body is also dead.

But we're from the other side of the Gate, and still alive.

The time lines of existence for those two identical people have nothing to do with each other.
Your birth date and death date have no influence on one and other.

The determinants of existence for those two identical people have nothing to do with each other.
Your parents, friends, and relatives are not the same at all.

Yet the world on this side of the Gate has something of everything from back home.
But lacks every moment that shaped our lives.

 


 

The click of the car door didn't overpower the natural afternoon sounds drifting beneath the trees that stretched high enough to scratch the crystal ceiling. Looking for suspicion among the serenity of the long, dusty back road, Mustang left his shoe print in the street as he stepped out of the car. With his hand to his forehead for protection from the blazing sun, Mustang slowly took in a panoramic impression of a small, aging, and forgotten community, untouched by modern delights. Beyond the wind's tease of the trees and the birds within their leaves, no sounds beyond the quartet's own could be heard.

"This is it?"

Roy glanced over the roof of the dirty-white, rusting car they had picked up in the town they'd placed the phone call to Havoc at.

"These were the directions Havoc gave you," Mustang replied to his supporting officer as she stepped out into the countryside air.

The last two passengers, Alphonse and Izumi, joined the congregation on the side of the gravel road, taking in the bright, mid-day wilderness with the same perplexed reactions that the two Amestris officers carried.

"It's nice," Al shut his door, stepping around the car, deliberately scraping his feet through the soft, top layer of dust on the dirt road, feeling the heat of the midday air wrap around his body like a blanket and soak into his skin.

Mustang moved away from the swell of confusion that stood around the car, curiously continuing on foot along the path they'd traveled.

Rusted and ajar from their upright perch, old tin mailboxes sat precariously upon wooden pegs planted into the soil; meters upon meters of distance between each one as they faded off into the distance. With the graces of Mother Nature shielding and separating each spacious plot of land, grown over tire and footpaths served as walkways to the front of each house they had passed and each one to come.

The incursion of Izumi's voice interrupted Mustang's train of thought, and he looked back at the adults trailing lengths behind him. His brow rose, noting the absence of Alphonse; Roy turned, following the direction of the women's gazes towards a footpath that lead beyond the greenery encompassing the house it protected.

"Major."

Both women turned their attention over to Mustang as he motioned for Riza to follow Alphonse on his curiosity trek.

Stepping free of the surrounding hedge, curiously defying Izumi's caution about wandering away, Alphonse waded through the knee deep grass. This little world, and the worlds next to it, hadn't been cared for in years. Stepping up to the side of a house that was once white, the rain had eroded away much of the colour, bled a dirty brown into much of the siding and provided a place for mold, mildew and weed vines to grow uncontested.

"Alphonse?"

The young Elric looked over to Major Hawkeye as she slipped into the growth surrounding the house.

"Don't wander too far; we don't know what we're looking for out here."

"Alright," Alphonse spoke as he swept away the layers of dust on a wooden window ledge away, rising high on his toes to peer into the sunlit room of the house. Devoid of curtains, property and life, his eyes traced through the room, wondering what sort of existence had been there before.

"No one's been here in a long time," his voice was wistful, lost in the daydream of a peaceful, rural world he could liken to Resembool's.

"A very long time," Riza pushed aside the fallen limbs of trees, long since collapsed beneath rain, wind and snow.

Stepping away from the side of the house, Al slowly made his way around it. Perched at the building's side, he looked out into the weed and wild flower filled clearing that had once been the backyard of the family that had called this place home. Wading into the tall reaches of greenery, Alphonse came to a stop; squinting beyond the growth of tree's and shrubs at the yard's end.

"… Major…"

Her voice lifted, "Riza is fine Alphonse, I've told you that."

"… There's a lake out back."

"Pardon?" Riza's tone dropped, caught unprepared by the statement.

"No really, come see!"

Pushing past the obstacles on the opposite side of the house, her concerns heightened as she realized that Alphonse had vanished from the yard and into the trees beyond it. Sweeping her way through the overgrowth, Riza made her way into the obstacle course she had to manage within the trees. Fighting her way through the shrubs and fallen growth, she made a frustrating exit into the clearing beyond the trees. Stopping in mid stride her eyes shot about carefully as she scoured the stretch of lakeside before her. Finally her attention fell over Alphonse's stout figure dancing about on one foot in the thin strip of lakeside sand while he tried to pull off a shoe.

The wilderness shrouded and protected a lake as clear as the sky above it in a spot best described as 'the middle of nowhere'. Riza's hand slipped to her side as she moved further away from the wilderness' edge, the clay ground beneath her feet felt like cement as she stepped closer to the point where the hard bed dipped beneath the white, sandy lakeside. The clear glass of the lake's surface reflected a clear mirror image of the horizon at the opposite end. Accompanying the grime and mold covered boats beached on dry land, a few rickety piers jetted out into the image drawn atop the water.

Sliding the beige jacket from her shoulders, Riza turned to see Alphonse, who had managed to take off his shoes and was now holding them by the laces, wander a solitary path along the water's edge. In unison, the attention of the two lakeside explorers was suddenly grabbed; the displacement of the image upon the water's surface was hard not to miss. A distortion, much larger than any bird or fish could have caused, smeared the natural picture that had caught their eye moments earlier. That was all that was needed for Alphonse to burst forward and sprint towards the closest dock.

"Alphonse, stop!" Riza followed swiftly, her voice ringing with subtle frustration towards the boy's constant lack of caution.

Alphonse's bare feet dug the first deep crevices to be placed in the sand bed in years as he ran. The alarm present in Riza was never a fleeting thought in Al's thoughts. As the young Elric saw it, what sort of danger did someone floundering about in the water pose to him? His feet created a dull, hollow echo off the wooden pier boards, the bottoms of his feet leaving behind the sand that stuck to him. He ran until he could go no farther, stopping on the final plank, his toes hooking around the edge of the final board.

The disruption of the water's shine stopped as Alphonse looked down.

"Alphonse!" Riza's voice hollered, standing annoyed at the ground-based boards of the pier. The boy's head shot around finally to her call.

"Al!" the voice squealed from the water's surface, a soaking hand slapping onto the pier.

Riza's brow rose at the voice and Al turned back around. Kneeling down, Alphonse helped a familiar face pull herself out of the water, curiously noting the red tinge of a sunburn that had manifested itself in her face and over her shoulders.

Rising to her feet at the tip of the pier, a soggy, white and pink dress left a hefty puddle upon the wooden boards as the water disturbance, known to Alphonse as Brigitte, shook her hair out and burst into unintelligible monologue.

Alphonse's confusion swirled around; the foreign tongue was more alien than it had ever sounded before, his blank expression could not be overcome by the delight in his companions voice. Brigitte's voice finally faded, matching his lost gaze with her own sudden perplexed look. Sweeping his hand up through his light, golden brown hair, Alphonse turned his attention to Major Hawkeye, who was standing only steps away.

The uncertainty the young Elric projected only tightened the lines developing on Riza's forehead. Her right hand came down upon her hip; a hair's length away from the handle of her pistol. With her hand precariously perched, Riza stiffened her expression as Alphonse's gaze widened in obvious surprise. The Major cautiously flickered her eyes over her shoulder towards the shore.

"Major…?"

The tightness vanished at not only the recognition of a voice, but a face, "Lieutenant… Ross?"

Adjusting her white shirt beneath the burning sun, Maria Ross stood barefoot in the sand at the beginning of her pier; her jeans rolled to her knees, looking back at Hawkeye and Alphonse with much less confusion than what surrounded the three standing over the water's surface.

"I was expecting you to be coming in the front door."

Slowly squaring up, lagging in her movements as her thoughts tried to put a puzzle together, Riza's hand slid back to her hip, "...Is that so?"


Her mitten-covered hands gave a firm yank on the wool hat until it covered the top of her ears. Sinking down into the confines of her coat, Winry folded her arms tight across her chest and dawned a sour, disapproving look, "Why's it so cold out here!"

"The wind is blowing in off the river," Hohenheim snapped the jacket collar up around his own neck, his attention focusing on the landscape slowly drawing closer to the boat's uneasy approach.

"October's not supposed to be this cold," Winry whined, her voice as bitter as the chill that bit her. Glancing over the ship's side, she searched for what held the man's attention, "the train took us through snow already. Snow! In October!"

"The snowfall comes a little ahead of schedule sometimes," the old father mused, "and it's the end of October, this isn't uncommon in some places."

Her scowl disapproving of all the things she could not control, Winry turned her attention back to the people mulling about on the deck of the boat challenging a harsh sea, "Half these people are sea sick… where's Ed?"

Turning from the vantage point, Hohenheim took a quick scan of the crowd, "I haven't seen him in a while; he might have gone below deck."

Winry slapped her glove-covered hands on her cheeks, burnt red with chill, and promptly stood up, "I'll go find him."

"That's fine, stay back from the edge of the boat, if the boat beings rocking without warning you don't want to go overboard," Hohenheim smirked, hoping that the warning would convince her to seek warmer shelter, rather than bitterly engage the chill.

Without a response to the suggestion Hohenheim gave, Winry snatched up the black case at her feet and stomped away. Her arms still folded to seal her warmth, Winry slipped her way around the two dozen or so people who'd also ventured out into the cold. It wasn't as though you could see much; the thick, grey cloud hung low above the boat, obscuring the land they'd left and disallowing a view of the place they approached. The people taking in the damp, foggy view seemed unaffected by the elements;, she couldn't understand how that could be. People were allowing their ears and fingers to be exposed, if they didn't cover them up soon they'd surely freeze and fall off!

On a bench several feet back from the boat's side guard railing, a solitary figure sat, attention thrown overboard into the bitter scenery with nothing more than a jacket and scarf for protection.

"Ed?" Winry called for his attention and did not receive it.

His back was to her and the blond ponytail whipped around his head carelessly in the harsh wind. He didn't face forwards to the approaching British landscape, nor did he cast his gaze back to see if anything remained of the mainland; Ed merely cast his eyes out into the dark, grey waters, covered by the smoky ends of the cloud they sailed through.

Winry's expression twisted the longer Ed didn't reply, watching him slouch forwards and give no care for how his crutch lay dumped on the ship's deck next to him. He better not treat her leg the same way, since she was almost finished with it. With a fist clenched in one mitten, and the other clenched around the handle of her long, black case housing the appendage she'd sworn at dozens of times out of frustration, Winry stomped over to the unresponsive figure.

"Wake up, Ed!" her hand slapped down on his shoulder.

Winry withdrew her grip on his shoulder nearly as quickly as the startled gasp came from Ed's mouth.

"Sorry," her apology came as Edward's melancholy gaze turned over his shoulder to her. He shook his head and returned to his silent vigil into the disrupted waters.

Rubbing her chilled hands together, Winry stepped around the bench and interrupted his solitude. Defying the scowl on his face, she redid the white scarf wrapped around his neck, "Your ears are red, where's your hat?"

"In my pocket."

Practically uncontested, Winry fished it out of his jacket and swiftly pulled the wool toque down over his head. She felt like a mother fighting with her stubborn child, "What was it doing in your pocket?"

Another lifeless response emerged, sounding just as desolate as the first, "I couldn't get it back on."

The response put a pause in Winry's actions, momentarily hesitant before resuming her banter to preserve as much normalcy in her world as possible, "Why'd you take it off?"

"It was itchy."

Sighing, Winry bit down on the tips of her mittens and pulled her hands free. Kneeling down at his feet, she sat up high and stuck her warm fingertips on his cheeks, her thumbs pushing into the darkened skin beneath his eyes. Now she had his attention.

"What are you doing?" Ed tone was far too harsh, wrinkling his face as he tried to lean away.

Winry again challenged his aggression with a sharp hiss to her much quieter voice, "You look like you haven't slept in days. Your dad keeps talking about all these people we're going to meet and places we can go, but you look like you crawled out of a graveyard. What do you suppose they're going to think when they see you?"

Scowling, Ed jerked his head away from her touch, "I don't care what they think."

"You should," with a frown, Winry moved from her crouch and sat down next to him on the bench, "maybe we could go down below and get out of the weather before your face turns any redder, it looks like you're going to sun burn in the cold."

"It's fine," Ed sighed, tugging on the fuzzy hat covering his hair, "I got used to this a while back. This'll be my sixth winter in this place; it's not so bad anymore."

Winry took his hand away from playing with the hat; her stomach twisted when she felt it, since the hand felt as cold as his automail hand. If she hadn't looked down to reassure herself that Ed's hand was flesh and blood, she wondered if she would have been able to tell the difference, "Where's your mitt?"

"Who knows," it was the first time Ed registered the rising tone Winry had begun to use, picking up the frustration thrown towards him like the waves crashing against the boat, "I put it down somewhere for a few minutes and when I came back it was gone. I have no idea where it went."

Ed wondered if it was a good thing that she didn't respond; he didn't feel like sparing with her over a mitten, hell, he didn't even feel like holding the conversation she was forcing him into. There was something about permitting his mind to drift away in the sea that allowed him to free himself from the confines of the world. The air's moist chill didn't bother him, since it felt like a cold patch touching each of his sore muscles; he could tolerate the frigidness in exchange for the freedom from the empty daydream this world was. It was a blissful, numbing sensation.

"You should be more careful."

Lifting himself from the drifting state of mind he'd fallen into, Ed cast his gaze down to the bleach-white left hand resting limp in Winry's lap. Her bare left hand cradled it while the right hand, sheltered by her fuzzy, brown mitten, moved swiftly to try and return warmth to his palm as it bled a raging chill into her finger tips.

The curtain of Ed's hair shielded the distraught reaction that came into his eyes. Silent for far too long, he turned away, gazing towards the land he knew they were approaching but could not see through the mist, "Maybe we should go inside…"

Because he still couldn't feel the warm touch trying to restore feeling in his hand.


"Dammit, why didn't anyone tell me that the residential side of Central is so…" resting upon a wooden, street-side bench, Russell's elbow came down on his knees and his head was quick to follow into his hand, "confusing."

"Mrs. Curtis gave you the address, didn't she?" sitting up, Fletcher reached across his brother's lap, trying to get a hold of the shoulder bag of supplies the pair had taken with them, "maybe we can ask for directions?"

Shoo'ing his brother away, Russell's free hand gripped the bag firmly, pulling the shoulder strap across his chest, "Yeah she did, but let's leave it in there so we don't lose it. The envelope and the address are in the same spot."

"Alright," slouching back in the bench, Fletcher's hand flopped into his lap, eyeing the mid-day street without any life on it, "maybe we're in the wrong end of town?"

Russell's first thought echoed in his mind and blew out of his mouth, "We better not be, I don't want to walk across this city any more," yet his second thought came across with far more care, dulling the frustration in his voice, "We just need to pick up a map of the city and we'll be fine. Don't worry."

The boys rose to their feet, and with a hint of eager delight, Fletcher quickly followed his brother's signal to follow in his steps. There was a corner store at the end of the block; surely they could find directions there.

Central City's residential district seemed different than the rest of the city. In a place bustling with activity, business, politics, economics, military functions, there was the protected world within the world where everyone retired to from their hectic days. Whereas the rural towns and smaller cities had their residential districts, the atmosphere made Central's housing district feel more like a sanctuary. The blazing summer's heat radiated off the black roadway and pulled a vibrant green from the lush front lawns. Protection from the elements existed at the side of the road; thick, aging tree's lined the sidewalk, shielding those who wandering through the peace. Occasionally, a scalding breath of sunlight escaped through the canopy of leaves.

"Brother…?"

Russell's eyebrow rose at the tentative call of his name.

"Where do you think they ended up going to? Alphonse and Mrs. Curtis didn't seem to know too many details when they said they were going with the officers."

The elder Tringham's hands slipped into his pockets while the hard soles of his shoes scraped along a cement sidewalk scarcely coated with pebbles, "I have no idea where they're headed, and I think that Mustang took too much pleasure in telling me that it was none of my business. But, we should worry about getting home," taking a hand out from his pockets, Russell patted the bag on his hip, "this is just a favour for Mrs. Curtis."

Russell leaned into the glass window of the shop door with his shoulder and found himself instantly overwhelmed by the smell of fresh baked bread as the door chimes rang overhead.

"Good afternoon boys," the voice of an elder shopkeeper called out as the door accidentally slammed shut behind them, causing the boys to jump.

Quickly gathering himself, Fletcher perked at the delightful call, "Good afternoon, Sir!"

"G'afternoon, Sir," Russell gave a slight wave of his hand and a cocky turn of his smile in response to the greeting.

"Sorry about the door, it's a bit out of sorts. But, if you need help finding anything, just let me know."

Spinning on his heels, Fletcher flashed his big grin for the clerk, "Actually, would you—"

"It's alright, Fletcher," Russell grabbed his younger brother by the overall strap and pulled him along the racks lined up beneath the window, finally calling out, "thank you, Sir!"

"Brother…" the younger sibling whined in protest, straightening his clothes, "why don't we just ask him if this street is around here?"

The smirk ever-present, Russell waved his hand in dismissal, "You weren't listening, I said all I need…" beside the newspaper and magazine racks, the two boys stopped and the elder brother's finger skimmed over a section of folded maps, "is a residential map."

"But if the man knows, then don't waste the money!"

Russell's hand came down upon his younger sibling's scruffy hair and messed it up even more, "We won't trouble the man, don't worry," he quickly snatched up what he'd been searching for from the rack, "I have everything under control, have faith in your big brother."

Fletcher's face twisted with doubt, looking disapprovingly at him as he sauntered back to the counter, "Your head is getting bigger again…"

"What?" Russell blinked back over his shoulder.

"Nothing," the younger sibling finally trotted after the other, standing silent by his elder brother's side as the young man carried on some variety of small talk that did not peak his interest. Finally paying for their new map, Russell tugged on his brother's overalls once more and the little boy meandered after his brother, holding onto the door handle of the shop long enough that it didn't slam behind them.

By the time Fletcher looked up at his brother again, the young man had the map unfolded in front of his face and all the younger sibling could do was frown.

"Brother…"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know what street we're on?"

Scowling, Russell lowered the map from his line of sight and looked up at the intersection signs, "Yep."

"Do you know where that is on the map?"

"Of course I do!"

The younger brother's hands came down on his sides, "Can you show me?"

Narrowing his eyes and wrinkling his nose, Russell stared back down at his little brother, "You think I don't know where we are…"

All Russell received for a response this time was the innocent gaze of a suddenly sweet looking sibling.

"Fine. I'll show you where we are!" snapping the map wide in front of his face, Russell found himself quickly scouring the mess of streets and avenues scattered over the map. His interrogation of the lines ceased when he heard the snap on his shoulder bag release and Russell quickly looked down to see his conniving little brother take the envelope from his pouch.

"Fletcher!"

"Be right back!" and the boy moved through the store's door before his brother could grab hold of him. Quickly following, Russell tried to catch Fletcher before he vanished behind the door, only to recall the broken hydraulics on the shop entrance as he walked into a closed door that had slammed in his face.

Taking a sharp, deep breath, Russell threw the door open again to see his little brother standing upon his tip toes at the shop counter. The shopkeeper looked up from Fletcher for a moment to the annoyed expression the elder brother wore before the other sibling's voice asked for his attention once more.

"We're looking for that address and we don't know how to get there."

Pushing the bridge of his glasses against his nose, the elder clerk eyed it, "… Isn't this Mrs. Hughes and little Elysia's place? That's not too far from here at all."

Russell's sigh of surrender to his little brother prevented Fletcher from ever considering any sort of 'I told you so' response.

Taking the pen out from behind his ear, the clerk gave Russell a curious look as he placed it down upon the counter, "You know, Mrs. Hughes and her daughter came in here to pick up milk this morning and I don't recall her mentioning that she was expecting visitors."

"Yeah…" Russell strummed his fingers on the counter, "she doesn't know we're coming."

"It's a surprise," Fletcher piped as he tucked the address Izumi had given them into the same sacred spot in his overalls that another important document had once been hidden.


"Hohenheim!"

Standing amidst the activity at the landing docks, the generally straight posture Ed had maintained broke down at the echo of the voice, "You've got to be kidding…"

"My Lord, Hohenheim, do you look fit as ever!"

"Charles! You shouldn't have stuck around," Hohenheim's voice scolded playfully.

"We're four hours late…" Ed's expression fell flat as he rolled his eyes away, "and he's still here?"

Amidst the chaos of reunions and disorganized redistribution of luggage, the Elric and Rockbell contingent was lucky enough to be among the first to have their baggage returned to them. Such a prize meant they were also among the first to claim the warmest location along the riverside, sheltered from the tiring wind at the side of a building. There was no point going inside, it was far too crowded and their baggage would be far too cumbersome to deal with in a cramped, densely populated area.

However, they had only been on dry land no more than 20 minutes before the all too familiar voice had rang out.

Shifting her eyes between the laughing reunion and Edward's disgusted expression, Winry found herself poking Ed's shoulder, "Who's that?"

"The guy we're staying with," he snorted out, "friend of my dad's."

Put off by the lack of care in his voice, Winry adjusted her jacket as she looked back to a far more pleasant pair of acquaintances, "Everyone is a friend of your dad's and no one's a friend of you."

The comment didn't seem to faze Ed who continued looking off into the crowds of people mulling around them.

"Edward!"

That call, however, did faze him and Edward's hand twitched around the bar of his crutch. Letting the annoyance slide from his expression, Ed turned towards the man with the blankest expression he could conjure up.

"My goodness, you are a ray of sunshine in our lives, aren't you?" the man deliberately toyed with Ed, two strong hands landing on what remained of Ed's shoulders, "Hohenheim, your son has lost so much of that childish look he use to have about him. He's growing up with a strong and angry jaw line."

"I know," Hohenheim gave a crooked smirk.

Patting his hands firmly over Ed's stiff shoulders, Charles Wilson took a step back from him, "Have you forgotten your manners or has English become too much of a foreign language for you?"

"You want me to say hello?" Ed muttered flatly, rolling his eyes, "'long time no see'… or something?"

"Something like that would be quite fitting, actually."

"Hello Doctor Wilson," he spoke even stiffer than how he'd composed his previous statement, "long time, no see."

Hohenheim's scolding tone lashed out, "Edward Elric…"

"What?" His eyes narrowed fiercely, his voice snapping the reaction onto his father for the use of his name in such a way.

"Ed!" Winry's hand ended the escapade before it developed further; slapping him across the back of his head and defiantly challenging his ferocity, "grow up!"

Defying the rising frustration swelling around Ed as he shot a glare back at Winry, Charles gave a few strong taps of his finger beneath Ed's chin before stepping back with a grin, "I hope you didn't sound so pained when you were re-acquainted with the lovely young lady next to you."

Ed scoffed, wiggling his jaw, "Hardly."

Winry giggled at the man's provocation of Edward as Mr. Wilson placed himself in front of her, "I believe Hohenheim told me your name was Wendy Rockbell."

She blinked, the grin falling away as he addressed her, "No, it's Winry."

"Winry?" Dr. Wilson raised an eyebrow, a mused grin crossing his face, "That's a very unique name."

Pausing, Winry looked up at him through narrowed, curious eyes; 'Wendy' was a far weirder name than hers, "It's Norwegian."

Ed's hand slapped over his face and Hohenheim's stroked his beard as Winry glared over to the two as they seemed to twitch in place. Both men wished the time between Winry's sarcastic quip and Mr. Wilson's eventual reply hadn't lasted so long.

"Well," his response was choked out through a grin, "it's a fine name none the less."

"It's mid-afternoon Charles, and I don't think anyone's had lunch yet," deciding formalities were finished and the topic needed a change, Hohenheim lead the conversation in a new direction, "shall we head out before clogging up your flat?"

Dr. Wilson was more than eager to accept the idea, "Sounds splendid. With that kind of a delay you must be hungry."

Bending down to pick up the luggage at her feet, Winry blinked as the doctor snatched her bags from her finger tips. The only bag he could not take from her grasp was the case that proudly housed Edward's replacement leg, giving a silent refusal by holding the case behind her back as the men continued their conversation. She took a glance over to Ed before following the men street side in search of a ride; again, the look in his eyes clearly said that Edward had drifted years away from where he stood. With a tug on his sleeve, he returned to the world he existed in and slowly followed alongside Winry.

"We should only have something light though," Hohenheim nodded in thought as his feet brushed over the street beneath his feet, suddenly reminded of a conversation he'd carried on days ago "I spoke with Thomas before leaving Brussels-"

Charles lit up at the mention of the Hyland family, "Oh that's right, he mentioned that!"

"…I told them I expected to be in on Thursday and suggested we meet before dinner at five. It's almost three now."

Glancing back, Dr. Wilson cast a cautious eye upon Edward, watching for a reaction in his deadened expression, "I spoke with Thomas earlier today; he suggested that everyone rendezvous near the bridge in the park near their old house. You can see the palace in the distance from a few spots, Winry might be interested in seeing it."

"She might be interested," Hohenheim cast his attention over his shoulder. The demeanor he kept up with his companion fell away as he watched the stragglers make their way behind them. The father finally stopped to allow the trailers a chance to catch up.

"Apparently, Margaret has been going on and on about Edward, and it's all Thomas' fault too," Dr. Wilson made sure that he had Hohenheim's full attention before continuing, "The pretty thing can't wait to meet him," Charles' grin grew delightfully crooked at the thought, hoping to return to the far more pleasant feeling that had been around his friend moments ago, "your boy will grin from ear to ear, she's a beautiful charm."

"I bet she's growing up to look like her mother" Hohenheim pushed a grin into his cheeks.

A laugh accompanied Charles' nod, "She has her father's personality and her mother's eyes."


Almost an hour had passed since four new bodies had stepped into the Ross cabin.

Nearly half an hour had passed since their first meal all day had finished.

Fifteen minutes had passed since the contents of Brigitte's wallet had been handed to Mustang.

Ten ticks of the minute hand had passed since Maria had taken them into her father's study.

An old, aging study was part of the back corner of the Ross cabin and the sunlight burned into it through the shield of closed drapes. Pushed against the wall, a writing desk showed deteriorating signs of its age as the wood rotted away. The dip calligraphy pen sat in a silver holder at the side of the desk, precariously challenging gravity, supported by the strength of dried black ink that glued it in place.

But that table wasn't to be touched; unfolded in the center of the room was an old card table, decorated with irremovable crayon and finger paint. By Maria's hand, fifteen years worth of dust-sealant on the table's surface had finally been swept aside.

Seven minutes had passed since Maria distributed three pictures of the Thule hall that Havoc had been able to develop from the nearly ruined roll of film in Brigitte's camera.

Once, children had hovered over this table, enthralled by the mystery of a story etched into the pages of a bound novel. The decorative colours upon the table may have dulled over time, but the scratched surface once again held a riveting mystery.

A minute, give or take a boisterous tick from the unstoppable seconds hand, had passed since Alphonse stood amongst four other adults and a mystery child looking into eyes from another side of the world.

Frozen in another time.

An existence portrayed in monotone; a life without colour.

It left silence so thick you could grasp it.

The stern, steadfast expression the two most senior officers had carried themselves with had cracked. Now they stood looking down upon an image which threw reasonable thought around the room in a tantrum. Maria took in a startled breath as Alphonse stirred the unease. She, as did the others, watched as the young Elric dashed out of the room without a word. Turning out the doorway, the boy's bare feet slipped on the wooden floor planks, and though he floundered, he refused to drop a knee to the ground.

There was an explosion to suppress and his hands clenched so tight at his sides his knuckles had turned white. Yet, delicately slipped between those fingers, the white back of a photograph flashed back at those watching his departure.

The sound of his feet pounding through the cabin echoed for all to hear. The sudden frustrated scream Alphonse let out when he couldn't find what he'd rushed to find resonated even louder.

Izumi stepped away from the group, taking a burden of knowledge with her.

Al's hands shook. He couldn't pick which emotion was causing it; perhaps it was the combination of them all. He fought with the lock on the patio door until it clicked and the latch released. Not wasting a moment, the door was thrown open and Alphonse tore out the door, ignoring the sting of boiling ground beneath his feet.

"Brigitte!"

He'd moved so fast he suddenly found himself in the sand; Alphonse spun his feet deep into the fine white grains, squinting tightly as he tried to see through the sun's hot white noise. Looking back into the towering green life that surrounded the houses, his eyes widened as a pair of white legs dropped from one of the lower branches. No attention was given to Brigitte's annoyed reaction for disturbing her from the coolest place in the area. Her voice was background noise in Al's ears, as was the sound of his breathing and racing of his heart.

The moment her feet touched the ground, the girl nearly jumped back in surprise at the force Alphonse approached her with, stiffening in concern as he grabbed her arm. Wide eyed, without a word in her vocabulary she could use to question him, Brigitte watched as Alphonse hunched over, his head bowed as he tried to slow the race in his head and gather his breath.

"You…"

The displaced girl's brow rose; waiting for a question. Her attention momentarily flickered over to the patio door as Izumi's sandals touched the ground.

Again Alphonse startled her, grabbing and opening her hand. Into her palm Alphonse placed the image he'd take away from the sights of the others.

"You need to tell me if you know who that is."

A blank expression was all Brigitte could respond with, looking back in confusion at an image she'd taken months ago. Carefully taking the image in both hands at its corners, Brigitte's attention slid back and forth between the desperation in Alphonse's eyes and the quiet approach of Izumi.

"Ms. Ross said that these are yours. The officers in Central think that your camera took this picture…"

Brigitte pulled away from Alphonse, slipping the white border of the picture carefully into her fingertips as to not touch the image surface. Al's behaviour was startling and she could not understand where his panic came from. She wondered if he was pale from the reflection of the sun, or if he was honestly that out of sorts. Again she looked over to Izumi who'd stopped before getting to them; the alchemy teacher's left hand cupped the elbow of the right hand covering her mouth. The look in her eyes made the young adolescent want to run into the sanctuary of the surrounding bush. Izumi's eyes dissected her; the look was invasive, intrusive and frightened her without an understood cause. Standing back at the door, the officers now looked on; searching with their own eyes and ears for the same things that Izumi wanted to know.

"Brigitte…"

Again she looked back at Alphonse; she gave preference to his rising tone over the crushing look placed upon her by the others.

"Please," Al's hands brushed over his face and swept through his hair as he straightened his posture, "you need to find some way to tell me if you know who that is."

"Alphonse," Izumi's quiet voice interrupted, "she doesn't understand what—"

The sudden wide, grey eyes Alphonse dawned pushed his sensei back into silence. At his chest, Alphonse gripped at his shirt. Jaw tightening, he stripped the panic from his voice and addressed Brigitte once again, "I told you my name was Alphonse. Alphonse Elric."

"Oh?" Brigitte's concern dropped as quickly as Al's had. The light of realization that fuelled Alphonse was not the same one that suddenly made the lost child's heart race. With the flick of her wrist she slipped the picture between her index and middle fingers and held it between them.

"Your last name is Elric? This is Edward Elric."

There had never been a hint of doubt in his mind that the foolish look of surprise in that black and white image belonged to his brother. The enunciation of his brother's name by a wayward girl's voice was nearly deafening. The sudden release of tension nearly overwhelmed Alphonse; it was refreshing, relieving and utterly weightless. All the air he gasped for earlier flooded into his chest with ease. The dizzying feeling was astoundingly delightful.

"Are you related to him?"

Brigitte blinked as Izumi delicately took the image from the girl's grasp, "Edward Elric…"

"Do you know him? Can you call him?" she tilted her head up to try and catch the distant gaze in Izumi's eyes. Every syllable she spoke brought more unease to the sound of her voice, "Does he know I'm here? Can you tell him to call my Mother?"

Lurking back at the sidelines, watching the scene unfold, the three officers gave a subtle exchange of glances. Mustang was the first to move from their initial stances, adjusting his eye patch before releasing a slow exhale. Finally, his arms folded firmly across his chest and a striking look of discontentment crossed over his face.

Slowly shifting away from the wall, Hawkeye's fingertips rested gently on her chin as she looked on in thought, "He looks so much older in that picture…"

Mustang didn't glance over to his right hand officer, opting for the continual grind of his jaw as he weighed the information in his head, "That picture can't be more than 6 months old…"

Maria leaned against the doorframe, her gaze soft as she looked to her superiors, "But he looked like..."

"I know what it looks like, Lieutenant," Roy's focus fell over Brigitte as the girl waded through an unanswerable mess of confusion, "and I have no doubt that's why that child is here with us and not in Central."

Interrupting the train of thought was a voice, though it was not so much what was said, but the manner in which it was spoken. The exuberance, excitement, relief, and delight poured out through the restraints that tried to maintain the maturity of those surrounding him.

"Sensei, my brother's alive somewhere!"

Wherever that somewhere was seemed irrelevant. Firmly in his hand, Alphonse held the picture; the visual representation of everything he wanted to have back.

There had never been any mention of that doubt before; the question of the elder Elric's existence was nonnegotiable in Alphonse's mind: somehow, somewhere, existing within the Gate was Edward Elric. If Alphonse's body had existed that way for five years, no doubt his brother's could find a spot within the Gate. But this was different; this showed not only existence, but hints of life. Parts of the 'some'-such questions no longer lingered with a multitude of possibilities.

'Why' suddenly became an ugly foe.

Izumi watched as the young Elric held his prize proudly, beaming with the radiance of the sun he now challenged. The flood sweeping around him couldn't help but make the teacher laugh. She stood along side the most foolish of pupils.

'Why' would be a demon they could face another day.


It was an odd expression that crossed Ed's face and, for the life of her, Winry couldn't figure out what he was giving such an inquisitive inspection of. They'd been early, because Hohenheim didn't want them to be late, and found themselves wandering the park for twenty minutes. Finally, Ed gave up on what he called 'pointless wandering' and sat down upon a wooden bench at the side of a path. Thankfully, the wind had died down, though it swirled into their faces every so often to remind them that shades of winter had blown in with the morning's storm. Despite the much calmer afternoon, the pair had barely found a soul in the vicinity and Winry soon proclaimed the elements had scared away all the 'sane people'.

And now, she found herself shifting on the park bench, watching as Ed's hand hovered over the handle of his crutch. There were only trees for him to see; trees engulfed at their bases by the entire brown fullness that had once hung dead on the branches. Both agreed it must have been a lovely fall scenery days before the wind had charged in and pushed autumn closer to winter.

"Ed?"

"Oh…" he sat back, slapping his hand down onto his thigh.

Winry's eyes darted around to see if she'd missed something, "Um, Ed?"

"Hm?" a childish look of curiosity greeted Winry as he turned to face her, leaving her far too perplexed to ask too much.

"… What are you looking at?"

"Oh," he turned away, pointing a bare finger out towards the barren skeletons of the trees that continued to be accosted by an intermittent wind, "the groundskeepers cut off the lower branches on those trees. I wasn't sure if we were in the right spot, but I guess they were trimmed."

There was a strange sound to his voice; it was so lost in thought that he sounded aloof. Winry definitely approved of this detached sense of nostalgia, even if exhaustion continually radiated off of him. She'd picked up his gaze dancing through the city as they made their way around in the afternoon; where ever his mind wandered that afternoon managed to drown out the aggression that Dr. Wilson had been toying with when they arrived in England.

"Really?" Winry rubbed her mittens together hoping for some extra warmth to her fingertips, "Say, we're supposed to meet that family for dinner but the sun's setting and it's cold. Shouldn't we go find your dad and find out what's going on?"

Without an initial answer, Ed cast his gaze over his shoulder, looking back down the path from which they'd walked before. Winry's attention rested upon Ed as he came to face forward once more, "Nope, here's fine."

Winry ruffled up beneath her jacket, "Ed, quit being such a s-"

"Uncle Edderd!"

"Eh?" Winry's face blanked, only catching the flash of an impish, dusty, light blue coat flop over the bench on the other side of Ed. Two stubby legs dangled out from the jacket, decorated with tiny black boots and white stockings.

"Edderd?" attempting to peer around Ed to catch a glimpse of something more, Winry couldn't help but giggle at the squeaking voice.

Hunching over, Ed dipped and turned his head to catch a better glimpse of the companion that was suddenly at his side. With the same alienated tone he'd been using with Winry, Ed gave an awkward smirk for her, "And I bet you're Margaret?"

"Yes!" a bundled child glowed back up at him; stringy, brown hair leaked out from beneath her hat and framed a pudgy, rosy face. A childish lisp came from her lips as the chirpy two-year-old plunked herself squarely on the bench, "Daddy says you are Uncle Edderd."

Winry lifted her head higher, watching Edward sweep his left hand beneath the child's knee length jacket and pull her onto the bench.

"You're not a monkey Margaret, sit properly like a young lady."

"Mummy says so too!"

It was most likely the most un-Edward like thing he could have said and the most outrageous sign of the type of corruption society had spent 5 years pounding him with. Winry found it unsettling and somehow amusing to hear him lecture a child; the unease created by his voice was pushed aside as Winry mused over the child's term.

"You're her 'Uncle Edderd'?" she teased, giving his jacket sleeve a tug.

The pads of the soft mittens slapped down over her legs, "Uncle Edderd!"

"I guess," Ed wrapped his arm around the bundle of child and swept her onto his lap, "Margaret, my name is Edward."

"Uh-huh, I said Edderd."

Winry tightened her cheeks to prevent her giggles from escaping as Ed let the comment sit with a lengthy pause.

"…And this is my friend, Winry."

Scrambling up from Ed's lap, little Margaret came to her feet upon the bench and came to stand at Winry's shoulder. The child's hair fell into her face without care and a set of silver eyes looked into Winry's.

"Hi!"

The sudden tremble that shot into Winry's hand quivered as she slowly brought the hand over her mouth. It was a horrid, ghastly sight to look at. She gazed into a set of eyes she was so certain she knew perfectly well, revitalized with an infusion of youth and innocence.

"Ed…" all Winry's voice could do was tremble in response, "she's…"

His left hand came down to wiggle the toque upon the child's head, "She's Margaret."

"Yes!" the child chirped.

Slowly straightening her posture, Winry's gaze never left the child. A sinking, disgusting feeling turned her stomach as she pulled a glove off and cupped her warm hand around the frame of the child's jaw, "Ed… she has Al's eyes… I'm staring back into Al's eyes…"

"That's why I figured she was Margaret…" Ed's attention turned over his shoulder again. A crowd stood down the path to watch the scene unfold. From within the group of four observers, two arms rose with a wave for the child and two young adults upon the bench.

"Mummy! Daddy! This is Uncle Edderd and Winny! They're here!"

Slowly Winry swallowed and turned to see the formation of individuals that had gathered down the path. The crowd spun her stomach; the sight behind her turned it so hard that she was certain she'd be sick if she moved too fast. And then there was Edward's voice again, echoing with the remnants of an old, painful memory. It was a perfect couple, the parents of the child standing at each other's side. The mother's arm was wrapped around the father's arm, grinning with a delight that existed around them, and them only.

"You know, when I left England, I didn't tell them I wasn't planning on coming back. I didn't really tell anyone except my dad where I was going. I brought up alchemy to Thomas a few times and he thought I was crazy. Patti said that people were wary of that kind of 'witchcraft'. But if I wanted to get home, I didn't think staying in England was going to get me anywhere, so I left."

In the back of her mind, lingering behind the disturbing confusion rested the thought that Edward had done similar things before. He'd tried to leave his past behind, start anew and create a new life to live. Backtracking was not something he was very adept at doing.

"How is this even…" Winry's eyes returned to Margaret as the little child waved to the crowd. Her fingers stiffly interlaced, elbows locked, and shoulders stiffened as she pushed her hands into her lap. So many questions had to be asked and there was so much she wanted to know. Winry quietly wondered which was the harder of the two tasks: gathering the courage to ask Ed the questions, or being in his shoes and having to answer them.

"How old is…?"

"Twenty six, I think."

Winry let the bizarre information settle in her head. Someone was driving a skewer into her skull and the perk Ed forced into his voice was the metal rod, "That's five years older than you. How's that possible?"

Margaret caught the pair's attention once again as she began bouncing on the bench. Ed's arm reached up and took her by the waist once more, pulling her off her feet until she settled down.

"On the train out here, Dad and I told you we theorized there were all types of people from home mirrored on this side of the Gate. Even so, time and lifelines between this side of the Gate and home are not in sync. There was another me on this side of the Gate, but not only did he have different parents, he had a different birth date as well; he was a year younger. When I came through the Gate originally, I was 16. I was matched up in the time frame where that Edward was also 16, it just happened to be a year later than it was back home. When I came back over a second time, the Gate dumped me within the last known timeframe the other 'me' had existed. A similar thing happened with my dad."

"What about me…?"

"I'm certain that the baby you talked about and Dante did something to throw things out of order," Ed's nose curled a bit at the thought.

Once again, Winry looked back at the group of adults, allowing the scene to do nothing but crush down on her soul. The story she'd been given on the train was a headache worthy explanation, and Winry's hands came to her mouth again as Ed spoke up once more.

"Everyone's existence on this side of the Gate is independent of the restraints found on the other side. The Winry on this side of the Gate might actually live in Norway, but right now she maybe ten, twenty or even thirty years old."

Slowly she nodded as the information digested once again, "Because the lives of the people on this side aren't affected by the events in the lives of their other selves…"

"And vice versa," Ed pulled Margaret's hands away from her mouth as the child chewed on them, "people would be dying left, right and center back home if their lives were dependent. On this side of the Gate, people sit on death's doorstep and make frequent visits."

The little child lifted her free arms into Edward's face; he leaned his head away as she padded her hands over his nose. The child giggled as she pointed to his forehead, "Uncle Edderd's hair goes up."

"Margaret! Come here for a minute!" It was a gentle voice that called out, full of unmistakable warmth.

The voice brought Winry's hands clawing up to her ears as Edward placed the child down onto her feet, "I'm so sorry I wanted you to bring me here…"

"This is my dad's idea, not yours," with the child out of earshot, the resentment flooded into his low voice, "I don't know what the hell he's been thinking lately."

The footsteps of a lovely voice in a perfect body approached. The steps ended long before reaching the bench as the little girl jumped into her mother's arms.

"Margaret-love, why don't you ask Edward and his friend," the voice swept by their ears, a softness that infiltrated the harsh fall breeze, "if they'd turn around…"

"I'm so sorry…" Winry's hands cupped over her mouth. Her eyes flickered to Ed as he shook his head, rocking his jaw before finally straightening his back. How it must have hurt.

"… so I can have a picture of you three?"

"You know Winry, Al inherited Mom's eyes…" Edward turned the heavy gaze over his shoulder, looking into the delighted expressions of a woman and her daughter.

"The colour is a lot like Al's, but I think Margaret's eyes look more like my mom's."

Long and slender arms wrapped around the child trying to escape her mother's care. The woman kneeled; the oval eyes looking back at Edward were not a gentle green, but a brown to match the shades in her hair. She tucked the loose strands of her hair behind her ear. There were no lengths of flowing hair, rather soft waves of brown hair, just a shade or two off dancing around her shoulder. The nippy breeze was trying to brush enough pink into her cheeks so that they'd come to match today's chosen shade of lipstick. Those lips quickly pursed, concealing that voice and subduing any more of her smile.

The differences were not enough, the moment he'd met this woman Edward was slapped in the face by how she carried his mother's poise. The way she moved, her gentle posturing, style of speech and tone of voice was something he had desperately struggled to differentiate.

How dare you.

Her expression softened, as did Ed's. The corners of his mouth came to curl, and he turned forwards again upon hearing the scampering of feet patter towards him.

Vigorously, nervously, Winry's hands rubbed over her knees; holding Edward in the corner of her eye, "What's her name?"

"Patricia."

"Ed no…"

"We call her Patti. She's Thomas's wife."

"Uncle Edderd!"

Ed straightened his back, not immediately responding to the hail, "She's really nice, actually," spoken as though he carried the hope she would, "she makes a great roast, one of the few things around here that doesn't taste like cardboard."

"Uncle Edderd?" the mitt-covered hand came to tug on his sleeve.

Edward Elric spun around on the old, wooden bench. Tilting his head with feigned amusement, he took the only hand at his disposal, reached out and placed it down upon the top of the child's winter hat, "what is it?"

"Smile for Mummy!" was the chirp he received.

Ed's eyes moved over to Winry, the drained gaze watching as she slowly turned herself around as well. He did not aid the child as she crawled up onto the bench and placed herself proudly between the two people who were never meant to be a part of this picture.

"Winry…"

Her feet swept aside the crusty brown leaves scattered at her feet; scattered everywhere. The leaves covered the ground as far as the eye could see, ripped from their place in the sky, drained of their lives, and left for dead in a withering state.

Winry had yet to look over.

"Smile for her."

How fate had the audacity to play such a cruel joke on everyone was something Winry could only wonder.

 


To Be Continued...


Chapter 21: Delirium Ghosts

Summary:

Ed struggles with his surroundings while Roy, Izumi, and Al begin to get information out of Brigitte.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

I'm tired of this.
You brought this on yourself.

I want to go home.
That's too bad, isn't it?

What gives you the right...
I don't think you should be talking.

Do you know how sick I am of you?
Well, who's fault is that?

I don't suppose you'd go find something else to do?
I'm appalled you think you deserve that.

I just thought I'd check.
Touché.

I won't apologize for anything.
And this is what you get, little man.

I'm going to get home.
The rock face is sheered off.

I bet you polished it, too.
I might have had a hand in it.

I'll climb it.
There'll be no net provided for you.

That's never stopped me before.
I look forward to the show.

 


 

Laughter floated in the air, mingling in the haze created by Dr. Wilson's pipe.

"No, no honestly," Patricia couldn't contain her giggles, "Margaret was running into my furniture long before she could stand on her own two feet. She'd prop herself up on all fours, pick her arms up and scamper across the carpet until she either bumped into the chesterfield or fell down. It was the strangest sight."

"And it's all Thomas' fault too that the child tries to sprint," smoke filtered from his mouth as the doctor spoke, "in the summer he took her to see a friend at the university track while the runners were on the field."

A voice shot out from another room, "Would you stop telling that story!"

Among the giggling adults, the aforementioned child had found herself a new perch, delightfully positioned on Winry's knees. Tiny Margaret may have been most content there because she received the most freedom.

Of the four corners of the cozy family room, Winry occupied the far left while Ed occupied the nearest left. The two had sat down in their respective seats and not moved. Aside from the occasional question thrown Winry's way, neither voluntarily brought conversation upon themselves.

This was day two.

For the most part, people seemed content to ignore their unease, leave them be and continue about their business.

Hohenheim had done his part to relieve some of the tension Ed had created. Earlier, he had stepped aside with the Hyland husband and wife to explain the previous two weeks as well as the night that had just passed beneath Dr. Wilson's roof. The nightcap that evening had included the bitterly screeched argument that had developed between Ed and Winry at sometime past eleven that night, where Winry refused to take up residence in the guest room unless Ed retired for some sleep as well. After a vicious war of words had exploded between Dr. Wilson and Edward over the noise level, the argument of two stubborn, young adults had ended with Winry glaring at Ed as he attempted to read that day's paper.

Winry'd awoken the next day, curled up in a purple blanket in the rocking chair she'd fallen asleep in. Ed still sat in the same chair, his eyes dissecting the new day's paper. Before giving any indication she'd awoken, memories of the previous night's dinner with the Hyland family quickly came flooding back.

She'd sat at the table, across from Patricia, who had her daughter on one side and husband on the other. Ed had sat across from Thomas, Hohenheim from Margaret, and Dr. Wilson had taken up the head of the table. For the next hour and a half, she'd felt as though she'd been the source of all their discomfort.

She'd sat around the whole night at a loss of words: for the life of herself she could barely manage a four-word sentence. Ed would nudge her once in a while, having caught her staring, quite blatantly, at the woman across from her. She'd try to avoid it by focusing on other things: the location, the food, and the bustle around her. As she'd done so, she'd come to realize how it seemed she was trying to avoid being part of the dinner table.

It was embarrassing, it was rude, and she had not been able to figure out how to avoid it.

Winry had vowed before rising: today, she'd do a better job of being social. Patricia announced she'd cook dinner for everyone and it was the perfect opportunity.

That woman was not Ed's mother.

She should have no reason to stare at her with such fascination, wonder, and curiosity like she was some priceless, newly unearthed, artifact.

Winry quickly realized that she'd failed at her attempt to disregard the woman's presence.

But conversing with a two-year-old girl that gave her fleeting reminders of Al was a far lesser challenge, "Are you going to be a sprinter, Margaret?"

"No," the little girl stuck out her tongue.

Winry puffed out her lower lip, "Why not?"

"Splinters hurt!"

Patricia laughed at her daughter's misunderstanding and stepped away from the side of Dr. Wilson's chair.

Winry grinned and glanced over to her mother. Even with all the problems Winry was having with the situation at hand, Patricia seemed to read people like a book and had quickly grown shy because of it. Winry wished she could give both herself and Ed a kick in the ass for making the woman so reserved around them.

Once gathering herself after the initial encounter, Winry quickly came to realize that it was Ed who made this woman uncomfortable. Where Ed had little to say and Winry struggled to converse, Patricia said scarcely any more in their company. She kept her comments short and direct, walked on the opposite side of her husband, and grew obviously nervous when speaking directly to Ed.

"Patti," wiping his hands in a rag, Thomas finally emerged from the kitchen, "I'm going to have to call the repairman."

"Did you figure out what's wrong with the stove?" she asked as the man came to stand next to his wife.

Shrugging with general frustration, Thomas threw his gaze to the ceiling, "I think I buggered the thing up worse than it was to begin with."

"I'm sorry everyone, I thought we'd fixed this problem weeks ago. I was really hoping to have something ready for tonight," her soft hands smoothed over her skirt before placing a hand against her husband's back.

Unexpectedly, Winry's voice broke in, "Can I look at it?"

"Why yes!" Charles snapped his fingers, capturing the couple's attention before either could respond, "I've heard from our good man Hohenheim that young Miss Rockbell is an aspiring mechanic. Perhaps a feminine touch is needed."

Winry's brow slowly wrinkled at the phrasing and tone of the doctor's comment, it sounded more like an insult than a compliment.

Stepping away from his perch, Thomas motioned towards the kitchen, his wife following in stride, "Alright, if you want to take a shot at it. I won't turn down a free offer like that; I certainly cannot afford another repairman."

Placing little Margaret on her feet, Winry tightened her shoulders and once again reminded herself what she'd vowed that morning. She let her attention slip to Edward's distant figure, silently locked away in the corner of the couch. She wondered if, or even how, she was supposed to say anything to him.


"Okay, this is how we'll do it."

Sitting on the rug in the middle of the Ross family cabin, Brigitte looked to Alphonse as the boy rolled up his sleeves. Atop the rug, Alphonse dropped the load of crayons, markers, pencils and pads of paper he had held in his arms. Coming to his knees, Al slid a steno pad between Brigitte and himself then flipped it open. Taking the fattest black marker, he used three lines for each character he wrote down.

Brigitte curiously tilted her head, sliding over to get a straighter image of what he was doing.

"We'll start with this," pausing, he handed her a red marker, "we'll start at the beginning and go from there."

The perplexed expression upon Brigitte's face grew curious the more he spoke.

"I'm going to read these off and write the spelling underneath. You're going to do that too, okay?"

It was going to have to be okay, until Alphonse was done Brigitte would continue to carry her disconcerted expression.

"This is 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four'…" in block letters, Alphonse wrote down the spelling of the numbers as he called them out, "'eight', 'nine', and 'ten'," he promptly capped his pen and quickly found he'd been cut off by Brigitte, who'd started far ahead of her cue.

"'eins', 'zwei', 'drei'…"

From the kitchen, the prying eyes of the adult audience gave a collective brow rise. Alphonse stole a quick glance back at them, quite delighted with the instant progress he'd begun to make.

With her arm slung over the back of her chair at the kitchen table they sat at, Izumi's fingers strummed on the tabletop, "She's very intuitive."

"Al," Mustang called out as Brigitte announced 'zehn' upon reaching 10, "have her fill out the sheet to thirty-one."

Maria gave a curious eye to her superior, "You're going to have her fill out a calendar?"

"Yes," he slowly nodded, "it would be good to know how far off the child's knowledge of time is."

As he'd done most of the day, Mustang's good eye flickered over Izumi. He'd watched her attention continually shift from the adult group to the two children since they'd awoken. He was certain that her thoughts were tied up in the scenario Brigitte was creating for them and was simply waiting for the most opportune moment to discuss it. Everyone had seen it and everyone had questioned it: the dates on Brigitte's documents and the age of the elder Elric in the photo.

"Done!"

Mustang straightened in his seat. At the wave of his hand, he motioned for the boy to join them with the dual-language sheet of paper in hand. As Al came to the table, Roy took the package he'd created of photographs and trinkets collected from Brigitte's bag and slipped her identification card and a train ticket out from the collage.

"The dates on everything Havoc pulled out of her wallet range from 1908-03-17 to 1921-08-15," Mustang extended his hand and took the pad of paper from Alphonse, "I need you to find out what year she thinks she was born and what year she thinks it is now," with the flick of his wrist, he tore off the top sheet of numbers, "let's copy this, and find out if she understands our calendar structure."

Al gave a slow nod, turning to look back at Brigitte as the girl observed the gathering.

"I'd also like to find out who the people are in her photos, as well as her parents names and siblings if she has any. Use the numbers and get their birth dates, ages, and anything else that's relevant."

Alphonse paused at Mustang's long list of demands; to him, it felt like he was to hold an inquisition. Shooting a glance to Brigitte one last time, a hint of frustration crossed his face, "How does that help her tell us where my brother is?"

It was Izumi's voice that interjected before any other, "We need to create some legs to stand upon before we can take that step forwards."

Deliberately disrupting Mustang's intended focus for the afternoon, Izumi left a question open for Maria, "has Brigitte figured out when you're calling her over to you?"

"I think so," with a few waves of her hand, Maria turned her attention to the girl, "Brigitte, come over here."

Rising to her feet, pen in hand, Brigitte marched made her way over to the table, straightening her dress as she stood amongst a daunting gathering of onlookers.

"Al, before you continue with what Mr. Mustang is asking," Izumi's attention drew to a focus, "I want to know something."

Izumi reached out and delicately took Brigitte by the wrist as she pulled the girl towards her. Putting an arm around the child's waist, Izumi sat Brigitte down upon her left knee and pulled the sheet of German and English numbers away from Mustang.

"May I take this?" Izumi put her fingertips over the end of the marker in Brigitte's hand and slowly removed it from her possession, "thank you."

The puzzled frown never left Brigitte's expression as she watched the woman orchestrate the gathering at the table, somewhat to Mustang's dismay.

Placing the tip of the marker down upon the paper, Izumi circled the number eleven Alphonse had written and wrote 'Alphonse Elric' above the printed digits.

"That is how old Alphonse is," tearing out a clean sheet, Izumi turned the explanation into a formula and wrote it out for Brigitte to read.

'Alphonse Elric 11'

Below that equation, Izumi wrote 'Brigitte ?' and returned the pen to the girl's possession.

"Do you understand what I'm looking for?"

Beyond the word 'understand', which came up in nearly second sentence spoken to her some days, Brigitte was at a loss with the verbal question. However, the visual question equation was far more helpful.

"Dreizehn," and with that, she circled and wrote her name above the number 13 and wrote in the answer to Izumi's formula.

The tension rose from the table at the sudden realization of the clear line of communication. The bodies loosened and leaned forwards as Izumi took the pen once again from Brigitte's hand and wrote one more formula

'Edward Elric ?'

Brigitte's nose wrinkled, "I don't know…"

"She doesn't know," Maria spoke up, "Of all the things she says, I'm pretty sure I've figured out that one."

"That's not it," Mustang stepped into the problem, catching something in Brigitte's tone that cause his refusal for a break in the current communication line, "it's Ed's age she doesn't know, Lieutenant. She understands the question," he redirected his speech to Brigitte and Izumi, "narrow it down for her."

Izumi had already taken that step. With the tip of the pen resting on 15, Izumi looked up into the girl's eyes for a response, "Is Edward fifteen?"

"No."

A grin swept over Al's face, delighted by how she'd responded to the question.

Nodding, Izumi's pen slid up a number, "Is Edward sixteen?"

Brigitte's answer did not change, "No."

"Is Edward seventeen?"

"No."

With the grind of her jaw, Izumi raised her number count while once more moving her pen, "Eighteen?"

"No."

Noting the disconcertion that developed at the table at Brigitte's responses, Riza offered an explanation, "Her age perception is going to be skewed. She is a fair bit younger than him, he might seem older to her by comparison."

Izumi continued to hold Brigitte's attention; her pen danced between two numbers, "Are you certain he's not seventeen? Or eighteen?"

With a suddenly ferocity to her behaviour, Brigitte snatched the pen back from Izumi and leaned over the paper, "No, no, no," she struck thick X's through the numbers 15, 16 and 17, "Mr. Elric is much older than that. He said he came to Germany two years ago and has worked with his father at the university the whole time. You have to be an adult to work at the university, so it's not this either," Brigitte's red pen struck through 18 and 19, "no, no."

Fascinated eyes peered in closer to watch the display of swift pen strokes, "Mrs. Oberth told me when we were shopping that she was 26 and that Mr. Elric was a few years younger than her. So, not this," her marker tip struck through 25 and 24, "no, no!"

Below Izumi's equation, Brigitte rewrote the formula, 'Edward Elric 20? 21? 22? 23?'

Capping the pen and putting it down, Brigitte's hands came to grip the edge of the table as though challenging anyone who'd question her.

Amidst the silence, Mustang's hand took up the train ticket he'd taken from the collection of Brigitte's foreign treasures. Stamped in fading, black ink was the date: 1921-08-15. The present information made little to no sense. Yet, late one night after they'd arrived, he'd let his mind run free, creating the most impossible 'what if' scenarios; scenarios that, until that moment, had no believable base to build upon.

Upon arrival of that August ticket date in four years time, Edward Elric would be 22 years old.

Upon arrival of that same August date, it would be 13 years past the date printed on the identification card in Brigitte's wallet.

The only response given to the unarguable insistence Brigitte gave to Izumi's question came from Mustang's lips as he burned the two equations for Brigitte and Ed's age into his mind.

"Impossible."


There was a grey, cloudy-water existence that sat behind his eyelids before sleep. Today, it was a bit more colourful. There was a thin trail of red smoke drifting around, carrying the powerful aroma of a freshly sliced apple. Dancing around the dispersing thread was the whipping talon of a blue ribbon; with every wave of the tail, the loose fibers at the end broke off and added a hint of blueberry to the apple's domain.

"Edward?"

The gentle tips of thin fingers touched his shoulder and Ed jumped violently.

The hand that had wanted to coax him softly from near sleep quickly recoiled, and Patricia sat back upon her knees at the side of his chair. An insecure arm reached across the white apron covering her stomach, lightly holding her other arm at the elbow as she sat upon the floor. Her voice was held at a whisper, nearly devoid of self-assurance, yet remained delicate with enunciation.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

For the brief moment after his head had risen off the chair's arm in alarm, Ed became the one who should have apologized for the startled, golden gaze that he'd looked back upon her with.

His attention quickly turned away. Without the energy to maneuver very far, Edward's gaze shifted to catch what he could of his surroundings. The chair Winry had sat in and the other Dr. Wilson had lounged upon were vacant. The ashtrays, wine glasses, water glasses, and scattering of children's toys had all been removed. The gathering he'd barely partaken in no longer resided in the room. Filtering into the unexpected silence was the familiar echo of voices from beyond the hall. Floating in the air were the scents from the candle arrangement lit upon the mantle, a colourful assortment including the thick wax columns of ripe apple and succulent blueberry.

There was a time, too long ago, his mother use to fill the mantle like that…

"It's alright Patti," Edward's left hand came up to rub his bloodshot eyes.

Patricia tucked her legs beneath her dress as she knelt upon the rug covered floor panels, her fingertips dug into the white ends of her apron, slowly folding it end over end, "Winry's been very helpful, she and Thomas almost have the stove fixed."

"I'm sure Winry will have it running better than it had been before," Edward tried again to unsuccessfully wipe the exhaustion from his eyes and cheeks.

"I'm glad you brought her with you."

"She was looking forward to it."

There was no willing power left that could coax his head up any longer. The lead weight growing in his head connected his forehead to the chair's armrest. He'd feel better if he could get up and walk it off, but the weight in his arm, chest and leg ballooned; the feeling was nauseating.

The rustle of clothing was clear, and Ed listened as Patricia rose to her feet, only to crouch down again and fold her arms over the part of the chair's arm where Edward's forehead resided.

"Edward…"

The last thing Ed should have done was turn to look at her, but it was the first thing he did. He sat in such dangerous proximity to a pair of eyes with an unmistakable look. The lips moved with an identical sound. It was something he could never forget.

 

"Edward, I know you can do better than that."

 

No two people in any world should ever be allowed to look at him that way.

"Edward, wouldn't it be best if you lay down upstairs?" brushing a shade of hair that was a little too dark over her shoulders, Patti soon let her eyes mingle elsewhere in the room, "dinner still won't be ready for a while, so if you lay down for a bit you might feel better once things are ready. We have a spare bed that would be far more comfortable than this is."

Ed forced himself up with the shake of his head, nearly intoxicated by the exhaustion he'd been unable to ward off, "No, I'm fine."

"Edward, please," rising upon to her feet, the woman's slender, delicate fingers dug into the chair's arm. Her quiet voice a little stronger than it had been before, "you look frightful."

"I don't want to miss your dinner when it comes."

"Edward honestly, my dinner is not that important."

He hated that look. That expression on her face that was never meant to be cruel, yet it ripped into his heart and crushed down with relentless force. Edward told himself, again and again and again, that he could get used to being around her once more, even if it had taken him months to get used to her presence the first time.

"Patti, it-"

The last thing Ed had been expecting was his father's hand to freeze and silence him. Never once had he turned around far enough to see the man standing at the opposite side of the chair.

"Edward."

Normally, that commanding tone used with his name drew a fierce reaction. But Ed remained motionless, caught between a powerful hand and a pleading presence.

"Listen to some advice and go lay down."

The surreal state he sat in between was unfair. This was not his mother and he didn't want the other to be his father.

Both were behaving as though they should be his parents.

Without a response to either of them, Ed slowly took his crutch from the floor. Using what remained of his strength, he pulled himself up and tucked the wooden prop under his arm.

Edward reminded himself that there was the black escape known as sleep to free him from all this. But getting there… staying there was something entirely different. His mind's eye wouldn't let him arrive and his ears refused to join him, constantly alert and booting him back into some other reality.

Ed glanced absently around the room, not to observe anything, just to remind himself of his surroundings. This house had a type of warmth and it existed with just enough of that flavour to leave him with a finger touching the shell of what it was, but different enough that he couldn't loose himself within it.

He hated London.

He'd tried so hard to convince himself of that.


"It's mad at me."

The artificial child's braids fanned out like a dancer's ribbon as she turned around.

Aisa kept her distance, wary of the monster rising above her, "What makes you say that?"

Barely able to hold the crying infant in her arms, the Dante-child returned to looking into the empty void that existed beyond daunting Gate doors that had opened wide.

"I can finally stand uncontested at its doors, and it doesn't let me see a thing," the woman's soul pouted in a child's voice, "I've brought the most powerful force to its knees, and it still denies me."

It was true. The woman who'd refused to submit to mortality had her greatest adversary by the throat and at the touch of her hands, the Gate opened its doors. Cradling a howling baby in her arms, Dante had approached uncontested. With the silent motion of her final forward step, she stood, face to face, with its aura, it's power, it's rage…

And it refused to acknowledge her.

For today, and the weeks before and those that would follow, the Gate's rage remained suppressed and its secrets carefully tucked away behind the black void beyond the doors.

"Stubborn beast," no naturally born juvenile could have forced so much boiling frustration into such a lovely set of blue eyes.

Aisa attempted to reaffirm Dante's beliefs by deflecting the frustration, "Are you certain that Brigitte came from the other side of the Gate?"

With her head tossed high, an inarguable, confidant grin flowed into her expression. Someone had the gall to yet again challenge her wisdom; how profoundly insulting.

"I have witnessed these doors more times than any man could ever wish to see in his life time. Each time she opens her doors, the visions I glimpse at are unimaginable. The knowledge within is unreachable. The wealth of power is unobtainable. Sometimes the Gate allows me to get so close to understanding something that I feel as though I could inhale the swell of knowledge."

The petite body turned and took her decent of the Gate's doorstep with as much grace as childish legs would allow, the radiating yellow aura of the Gate's presence creating buoyancy to her strides.

"I'd thought, at first, that I'd made a mistake with Diana. When I sent Miss. Rockbell to the Gate's doors I never once considered that the auxiliary feedback within the transmutation I'd initiated was a result of something coming through in return, and not an error in the Diana methodology."

Never would Dante mention how frightened she had been at her first attempt at using the infant to tap into the Gate. Nor would she mention the overwhelming power she'd found herself crushed beneath when the flow of the transmutation felt as thought it was ready to rebound upon her at Brigitte's arrival.

Extending Nina's arms, Dante returned the infant to Aisa, and sucked in a deep, exhilarating breath of the warm air, before the Gate vanished.

"It was imperfections within my Diana that created that misunderstanding." her tiny fingers caught the end of a swinging braid. Sliding it into the tips of her fingers, she slowly untied the elastic at the end and began unraveling the perfect folds of hair, "I'd assumed I would get to see beyond the Gate when something came through, and that did not happen. I suppose, in order to see any of it, I'd need an actual infant from the other side, rather than using one of the Gate's children for Diana. She's quite similar to Wrath in that regard."

The tiny fingertips ran through silk-soft, brown hair; smoothing the waves created from the day-long braids she'd worn. Her hair swayed down her back, and Dante entertained herself with the thought of how nice it felt to have such long hair stream over her back and dance around the base of her spine.

Her tiny, polished, black dress shoes echoed off the floor as her arms flew out to her sides; left over right she stepped, turning herself around endlessly in the darkened ballroom. The waves of hair fanned out around her shoulders and the dress flew out around thin, pale thighs. Slowly, the perfectly taken ballet steps slipped into silence. Both the dress and locks of hair came to rest around her body as the cruel delight flowed into her smile once again. She'd had the fortune of being able to disguise that look with youthful innocence, but it danced into her eyes continuously since she'd come to understanding Brigitte and Winry's transmutation.

"Yes Aisa, she came from beyond the Gate. The only two people who would even have the slightest knowledge on how to create the type of auxiliary transmutation the child traveled on would have been Hohenheim and Envy. And Hohenheim is dead in the Gate."

"This would be the first time we've been contacted from beyond the Gate, it is not?" Aisa adjusted Diana in her arms as the child continued to whine, "no one has ever given us a hint at their existence before."

With the potential for another existence, it was a question she'd thought about for more than half her years. Decade after decade, she'd considered the possibilities, but only one answer came out as the most logical.

"They've had no reason to," a touch of bitterness was thrown into her tone of near admiration, "we are nothing that they would even consider worthy of their time. Their knowledge and abilities far exceeds ours."

The three breathing bodies stood in silence upon the polished dance floor of the underground city's ballroom. Except for a scattering of weak candles to light the entrance path, the hall stood in darkness and Dante never touched her hands to illuminate the room. A chill had swept up around everyone at the change in warmth once they'd left the Gate's presence and Diana finally slipped into silence as Dante rolled a shiver off her soft, smooth shoulders.

"There was a time, thousands of years ago, where tales were told about travelers who'd come from another world in search of wisdom. They searched for something called Tartaros and found themselves here during their quest. They were said to have traveled through an unspeakable hell to obtain knowledge and returned to their world with what we offered them." With the sharp flick of her wrist, Dante used Nina's tiny hand to sweep the hair covering her forehead away, "These stories became etched into alchemy folklore and I've slowly removed within the last several hundred years. But in that ancient time, the secrets of our alchemy had been lent out, developed, surpassed, and then kept from us."

The dull echo that the tiny, black shoes created in the hall carried nowhere near the excitement that they'd had within the Gate's presence. Dante marched forward, her silent assistant and infant tool following close behind. With the slight touch of her hands and the quick, dismissing flick of her wrists, the faint candlelight vanished as she stepped out the doors.

"Before this body is ruined, I believe it's time for the other side to return the favour. I have no intention of surrendering to the curse of my soul's age quite yet. Something must exist beyond that Gate which will give me the longevity I'll need to continue on."


Around the time he had seen Dante for the first time in not nearly long enough, Hohenheim had realized that perhaps he was growing senile. He could not recall, for certain, the exact year of his initial birth. There were people, bodies and personas he'd taken on, names upon names that he'd memorized, countless dates of various people's birth dates, death dates, and dates for all sorts of reasons. Over time, the memories of 100 years ago had fallen into the conglomerate of those 150 and 200 years prior.

Throughout that time, he'd noted a trend in mankind. Long before photography and in a time when the only way you'd retain a portrait of your loved one was through the talents of an artist, Hohenheim noted how granddaughters in life's prime looked like their grandmothers of old and how young sons resembled their fathers before life's hardships weighed down upon them. Even in a vast gene pool where such unique shapes, figures, eyes, noses and mouths were passed onto the next generation, within a hundred or even a hundred and fifty years, two people could come together to pass along the right characteristics to create a near visual replica of someone's long deceased ancestor – someone that only Hohenheim remembered.

It startled him every time.

Once or twice, before he'd given himself five hundred years to cope with such a thing, Hohenheim had called out the wrong name, mentioned the wrong acquaintance's spouse, or forgotten that this friend had no children.

But Patricia had been a far harder existence to reconcile in his mind. Where Edward had done his best to avoid her, Hohenheim had moved closer, if only to uncover everything he could to assure himself that this was in no way the woman he loved. She was taller, her hair was a deeper shade, her eyes were a different colour, and her age was not even close.

At the age of 22, Patricia Margaret Spence had first been introduced to Hohenheim.

Three days after Edward's defiance towards this world's lack of alchemy had resurfaced.

Three days after he'd stated that he'd unearth something, anything to get him back home.

Three days after Hohenheim's son had already been introduced to her.

And now, once again, he moved about trying to re-adjust to the situation.

"You won't wake him?" Patti's hands clasped over her skirt, speaking quietly as she watched Hohenheim cradle his son's head with one hand and slip the hair tie away with the other.

"Patti," his hand pulled away and Ed's head came to rest on the pillow once again. Silent, the son's arm lay lifeless on the mattress at the side of his head, the solitary hand rested half curled in the pillow, "he sleeps like a rock when he's out.  Unless I'm trying to catch his attention, he doesn't wake up when I move him."

Rising to his feet, the father's trailing hand swept a few stray strands of hair from Edward's face and stepped towards the door where the young mother stood, "Are you sure this isn't a problem?"

Upon his exit, Patricia pulled the door until only a sliver of space remained, not clicking it shut, "Of course not. I told you, if he was still sleeping when you were ready to leave he could most certainly stay the night," her slippers made a soft pop off the back of her heel with each step she took, "he's been so silent all day long."

Patricia Spence had been raised in a wealthier family with two elder sisters and a younger brother, she'd attended and graduated from all her levels of schooling with strong marks and had undertaken a stint at a local institution where she'd become proficient at stenography and short hand. She'd met her future husband, Thomas, at a presentation given by her father where she'd been employed as the minutes taker. On her more leisurely side, Hohenheim slowly learnt of the woman's love for horseback riding and found out quickly from the girl's parents how 'uncouth' she was for preferring to straddle the horse rather than ride sidesaddle.

For every moment he'd spent with her, Hohenheim would soon uncover just enough to make this woman the eventual Patricia Hyland and not the Trisha Elric he still loved.

And yet, he'd still follow the sound of a lovely voice down the hall, and attempt to deny some part of him that continued to yearn for that sound to be something for him.

The pair stopped for a moment, looking down from the top of the staircase to the solitary figure waiting for them at the bottom.

"Is he still asleep?" Winry tilted her head.

"Yes," Hohenheim waited for Patricia to descend a few steps before following.

A delightful grin crossed Patti's face once more as she cast her smile over Winry, "Thank you again for your help today Winry, the repair man costs so much to bring in. I can't thank you enough."

The tendrils of Winry's hair swayed around her arms as she shook her head, "No that's fine, thank you for dinner, it was delicious."

"I'll save a plate for Edward, for when he wakes up," Patricia slipped the full-length apron she'd worn all evening off of her neck and wrapped it around her arm, "I feel terrible, he wanted dinner and I pushed him to lay down instead."

Hohenheim gave a chuckle at her concern, placing a hand down on her shoulder, "I think we all prefer a well rested Edward over a well fed one."

"After what you told me, I didn't expect him to fall asleep so suddenly once he laid down," Patricia gave a fleeting glance up the stairwell as her fingertips came to her chin, "I was searching for an extra blanket and he was asleep before I ever found one."

Winry's gaze drifted over to her, a smile crawling across her face at the delicate manner in which Patricia composed herself, "Maybe he's a little more comfortable up there than you think."

"I don't believe that's it," Patti gave a laugh at the statement, folding her arms across her stomach with unease once more.

Pausing in thought of the comment, Hohenheim gave a shake of his head, "I'm sorry about him Patricia, I didn't mean to bring him over to make things uneasy for you."

"Oh no," the woman's hands rose in defense, "don't apologize, you were saying over dinner that he's been through some dreadful things recently. Please don't think I'm upset, I'm so glad everyone's here."

Winry found herself needing to shiver to break out of the daze she'd found her way into. She had gotten lost watching, no, staring, at this woman. Her voice sounded of the sweetness of a mother she'd known, her body flowed with a figure she'd recognized, yet her demeanor seemed more timid and submissive than the strong mother she remembered. Winry wondered how many times Ed had been caught 'staring' at her.

It felt as though a ghost drifted about the household.

"Shall we head back into the family room?" Hohenheim offered the suggestion, holding up his arm for Patricia to take.

The woman laughed, taking his arm, grinning enough to wash away the concern, "Sounds splendid, there's still some time left in the evening, isn't there."

"You know what I think would be 'splendid'," Hohenheim stepped forwards along side the mirror image of his wife, "a piano."

"Why on earth would you want a piano at this time of night?"

Hohenheim mused, "When Edward was young, I used to take him and his mother to the hall in our township, it was out near the train station."

Winry's attention suddenly became sucked into Hohenheim's every word.

"There were some nights I'd sit down at the piano and play for her. Those were wonderful evenings."

"Hohenheim," Patricia's steps ground to a halt, "you've never mentioned you played the piano."

A quirky smirk, reminiscent of his son, momentarily showed itself, "I have many years on you Patricia, in there has been plenty of time to learn the piano."

"Then, before you leave England you must play for everyone."

Winry watched the pair move in suspended animation and her feet lost their motion. The woman's arm had been taken by his in a playful, social display through the household. A soothing warmth continued to drift around the house and Winry's fingers came up to rest silently on her bottom lip, watching two figures she had no memory of ever seeing stand side by side.

Her parents used to do that, she recalled: stand side by side or arm in arm. When they were home, they'd head into town and bring her along. She'd play and dance with the other children in the town hall as her parents moved side-by-side, arm in arm, or hand in hand to the elegant sounds of the piano or bouncing tunes of the trumpets. There had been so many memories vanish over time, but she still carried the precious, picture perfect memory of her parents existing in harmony that way. What she didn't have was that sort of clear memory of Edward and Alphonse in that same hall. Their mother never attended the dances. Why Winry could now remember asking her parents why Edward and Alphonse never came was beyond her; but the answer hurt.

Each Saturday night, the two families would leave their neighbouring houses and walk into town. Trisha Elric had always danced and laughed along side her husband. The family always brought their boys along to play with all the other children. However, Trish had no plans to return to the dance hall until her husband returned.

At some point in her young life, Winry must have witnessed this broken Elric family as one; the faint memory of dancing with a round, pudgy-faced Alphonse who bounced around without care for the music's rhythm filtered into her thoughts.

Again Winry caught herself staring and she shook herself from it. Throwing her gaze back to the stairwell, she peered up into the darkened hallway, wondering what Edward's mind's eye recalled each time his unwanted father and incorrect mother stood side by side.


What remained of the day's light gradually became only a sliver of gold outlining the distant horizon. In the country, especially on the darkest of nights, the moon shone down with far more radiance than any porch light could have. The lake's surface continued to reflect the towering presence of nature surrounding it, the white disc in the middle of the lake looked oddly familiar to the one in the sky.

He heard the footsteps approach. There was a way she walked that Alphonse could always recognize. Slowly, the feet scraped to a stop at the tip of the pier the young Elric sat upon. The moon enjoyed pretending it could behave just as its cousin, the sun, did and tossed its soft, night rays off the golden wedding band decorating her hand.

"Did you hear me call you inside?"

"I didn't," Alphonse gave a slow shake of his head, "I'm sorry."

Izumi pulled her feet out of the slippers she wore; setting them behind her, she came to sit upon the final two wooden planks at the end of the pier next to Alphonse. Her bare legs to extend over the water and she skimmed the tips of her toes through the distilled surface, "Did something catch your eye?"

"Not really."

Izumi invited nothing more into the conversation; she'd wait.

The late evening left everything to the imagination. Shapes that had once been so perfectly defined beneath the sunlight melted into a solid mass that swayed within the light breeze drifting in of the water's surface. Izumi looked up to the black, star-speckled expanse above their quiet spot; the decorative ceiling never seemed to look this good in Dublith and Central.

"Brigitte's really smart. We talked a lot today."

"Did you?"

"Well, it was more like a never ending game of charades and pictionary."

Izumi's hands ran over her kneecaps as she slouched forwards, her eyes allowed to relax in the outdoors thanks to the absence of the sun's glare.

Placing his head down upon the wooden deck and clasping his hands across his stomach, Alphonse laid back on the planks. He allowed his mind to be sucked away into the never-ending sky.

"Brigitte has a sister, a mom and a dad. I think she lives in a city that's either called Berlin, München or London. Apparently, she thinks it's September, 1921," Al pulled his feet to the pier's end, hooking his toes onto the wooden edge. Exhaustion was evident in his voice as his syllables slurred out in monotone, bleeding carelessly one into the next, "My brother might be twice my age and the height of the brigadier general. She used a crayon to go on and on about his eyes and how they were yellow. Then she started to talk about his arm and leg. I guess he has AutoMail again."

From the corner of her eye, Izumi caught the muscles in Alphonse's feet tighten as his toes clenched onto the wood.

"When she was trying to tell me about him, she started talking about 'Homunculus'."

Her mind suddenly barricaded the sanctuary of the evening from her mind and Izumi sat without a response, caught off guard buy the statement.

"She even spelt it out."

"… Is that so."

Pulling her gaze over her shoulder, Izumi watched with concern as Alphonse sat up again, stretching out his legs before he extended his feet over the pier's edge again.

"At some point while she was going on about it, she started to laugh," he shook his head, "I don't know why you'd laugh about something like that."

Izumi came to face forward again, folding her arms across her chest, and pulling the toes of her right foot out of the water as she crossed one leg over the other. That was not a word she'd anticipated to hear in conjunction with Brigitte's name, "Did you try to get her to elaborate?"

Al gave a weak shrug of his shoulders and a near roll of his eyes, "I don't think she understood what I was talking about when I tried. It got kind of frustrating."

Izumi's hand swept back over her hair, her index finger hooking around the hair-tie holding her locks back. She couldn't help but ask herself, 'why did both their languages have such a word in common', and 'why did the discrepancy in reaction towards it exist'. Again, the unspoken plea for a significant break in the language barrier came up in not only Izumi's, but Alphonse's mind as well.

"There's a lot we don't know and don't understand about her situation," Izumi gave verbal recognition to the seeds of doubt planted in their dilemma, "we don't know for certain if she even came from the Gate or why her information is caught up in such a huge time discrepancy. Homunculus might mean something else."

"Every time I figure something out, I learn something more confusing," the retort came with bite as the young Elric's fingers twitched into fists, "my brother is in the Gate."

Izumi gave into a lengthy exhale.

"If she's seen him, if she's taken his picture like that, she'd have to have come from the Gate. It makes sense," a faint hint of desperation ran into Alphonse's voice; no one was going to trample upon the swell of hope that his brother may be alive.

Somewhere.

With all the strength and hope he could gather, he wanted to believe that.

"Don't jump to conclusions."

Izumi's responses always seemed to be logical, rational and reasonable. Even if Alphonse did not want to hear this logic, it was there, it existed and he had to acknowledge it. There was very little point in attempting to contest her reasons, engaging in a fight like that with Izumi was like asking to get kicked into the water.

He simply wished she wasn't always right.

"Sensei…"

Alphonse rolled his jaw as he chewed on the inside of his cheek; he'd learnt so much more than he'd wanted to let on.

Conversing with Brigitte was like siphoning in power: the knowledge he gained from her was a power he had, a treasure he'd discovered and a mystery all his own to unravel. The mystery was far more fascinating than any novel he could indulge in, because in some way, all of it related back to him.

"All afternoon, Brigitte drew a bunch of pictures and wrote a lot of things down that I didn't understand," needlessly, Al rubbed his hands over his kneecaps as though he was trying to warm them, "she was drawing pictures for me during super. I'd wanted her to talk more about my brother, so I got her to draw him in the middle and place people around him."

Something in his tone caught Izumi's attention, it carried the undertones of a child's raging excitement; it was that bubbling secret that she realized Alphonse cradled out on the pier.

"She drew two people on one side of my brother and named them 'Tilly Oberth' and 'Hermann Oberth'. On the other side she drew someone and wrote 'Hohenheim' above it."

It felt as though the lake intended to surge up around them and suck them beneath the surface. Izumi looked at the youngest son who'd been handed the name of his father by a near stranger in his life.

"I guess the word 'dad' is something that she was able to recognize."

Izumi had never mentioned to Al the story she's once shared with Ed regarding Dante and Hohenheim's relationship. Nor had the family shared with Alphonse the story of how he'd spent a day last summer with his father for the first time in over ten years. Back then, Al had never shared with anyone what he'd discussed with his father over the course of that night. The memory, what was said, remembered and treasured by the only child Hohenheim had who did not look back upon him with vicious resentment, was lost. The family reached a decision: it was far less damaging to the youngest Elric, who had fresh memories of the death of his mother, the loss of his brother and was fully aware he'd lost the previous five years of his life, to not let him know that he'd lost the only memory of his father as well.

"She identified him as your father?"

Al nodded slowly, "Yeah."

Izumi momentarily wondered why it seemed so hard for her to accept the concept, "Brigitte called him 'Hohenheim'?"

Again, Al nodded, holding back a wistful smile, "She spelt his name right too."

For Brigitte to be able to produce such a name and relate it to Ed was dumbfounding. Even in the height of their fame, the Elric brothers did not acknowledge any relation to their father.

"There's no reason for that man to be involved," Izumi slowly attempted to wrap her mind around the name. For the years she'd spent under Dante's tutelage, the name had been as taboo as human transmutation; she almost wondered if her own teacher's loathing for the name had been passed on to her. All she had to do to reference him with the same bitter tone that Edward spoke with was to look upon the broken Elric family, "And there'd be no way Ed would even-."

"If all these people are in the Gate, I wonder if our mom is there too," his voice sounded lost in a dream, "we didn't realize it back then, but we did try and ask the Gate for her."

Where Edward would outright initiate a change of topic with the drop of a gauntlet, Alphonse had the magic of changing trains of thought with the breeze of a sweeping statement. Mere seconds passed before a strong, left hand came down over Alphonse's slight mess of golden-brown hair.

"Don't you think it's time for you to let the memory of your mother rest in peace?" Izumi realized: this was something that needed to be laid to rest before any mentions of the estranged father could be brought into the light. In the time since she'd laid vicious fists into two boys who'd gone against everything she'd tried to reinforce, it had been something Izumi had firmly believed haunted them, no matter how much they achieved or how far they progressed.

Her hand slid from his hair, coming to rest on the young Elric's shoulder, "Ed couldn't let go of your mother even after everything was said and done, and you would follow in stride."

Not many children are given the opportunity to re-do a part of their life, and because Alphonse had been given that rare opportunity, Izumi wished to ensure something better. The beauty of a child that no longer had the memories of years of hardship fermenting the pain of a lost loved one was enough to tell her that her words were no longer too late in coming.

"I know that you can do better than that."

After all, they were the only two children she could consider 'her own'. With Alphonse, there came times, now and then, when she could treat him as such.

"I'd be too ashamed to see my mom again."

And there came times, now and then, when he would respond.

"I think she's happier when I leave the wildflowers at her grave and I tell her I love her."

In the end, he'd end up reminding her that the second trip down the road paved by an irreparable mistake had started out nothing like the first.


Nothing startled it and nothing interrupted it, the empty existence of sleep simply faded away. There was a nice, warm imprint in the mattress where he lay and a warm bubble within the comforter that he slept beneath, Ed didn't particularly feel the urge to move out from it. He lay, silent and empty headed for nearly 20 minutes before finally the realization hit him that he was in a foreign house. Yes, he wasn't in his own bed. Yes, he wasn't in his German home. Despite realizing these things, he felt somewhat foolish that it had taken him that long to realize he was intruding on someone's space.

Where was he again? How long had he been there? And who put the wool sock on his foot? Where'd the blue sweater he had on come from? …Who's pants did he have on?

Ed quickly found himself sitting up in the bed amidst a slowly growing mountain of questions.

Through the tangled mess of hair falling down his back, Ed gave a lengthy scratch of his neck, all the while squeezing his eyes in hopes of removing the sleep that clouded them over. Fighting through another yawn, Ed gave up on his stay in the odd location and picked up his crutch from the side of the bed.

Oh, this sock was warm, he couldn't feel the chill in the floorboards. For the life of him, once October came along neither he nor his father could manage to keep the floor in their German home warm.

The best Ed could deduce for a time of day was sometime after the sun had risen and sometime before it began setting. Balanced with his crutch, he peered out into the hallway. A strong, white light lit the hall, as well as the room he'd exited; it was natural light from outside, but not quite sunlight.

Ed wrinkled his brow and moved towards the stairwell at the end of the hall.

The house was perfectly quiet, there wasn't a voice to be heard within the walls; Edward was the only interruption of this bright silence as he made his way slowly down the stairs. As delicately as possible, Ed moved from the stairs to the brightened hall at the front of the Hyland home. From where he stood he could peer into the living room, but there was no one to be seen.

With a quirky turn of his confused frown, Ed focused his attention to the lack of footwear on the front entrance mat. His shoe was there, but Winry's and his father's were not. With a wrinkle to his nose, Ed approached the front entrance. The glow from outside coming in through the thin window above the door distracted him from the other thoughts clouding his mind. Curiously raising an eyebrow, Ed paused a moment once realizing that none of the locks on the door had been done.

Ed winced at first as he opened the door, squinting into the bright world that lay dormant beyond the front porch of the home.

The world lay before him, wiped of all its imperfections. The beginnings of a white blanket of freshly fallen snow glowed brighter than the sun, which attempted to light the world from a blue crack in the overcast, snowing sky. The world was smooth, pure, and placed at ease until man returned to scar the perfection.

And the snow continued to fall; plump snowflakes tumbled down from the sky without the curse of wind to distort their decent. The bite of winter's chill lay dormant beneath the growing white bed. For the length of time he stood at the opened door, there had been, and continued to be, no sound.

It was serene. Where was he again?

Ed's attention flickered away as he slipped the socked foot into his shoe. Without disturbing the peace in the world around him, Edward stepped out onto the snow-covered porch and with wide, childish eyes, he took in the surroundings.

He was wrong, because there was noise, faint noise of the world existing; snow slipping from fence posts and tree branches, the birds venturing out into the fresh powder, and the occasional weak gust of wind that altered the course of the falling flakes. Squinting, Ed looked up to the grayish, overcast sky and watched without a word as the heavens buried the world around him.

Do it.

The gentle touch of the chilled snowflake on his cheeks kind of tickled as each melted.

Do it…!

A mused curl came to the corner of his mouth and he stuck out his tongue to see how many…

He quickly stopped when he heard someone giggle from the kitchen window. His attention wasn't quick enough to spy the culprit disappearing behind the curtains, but knew the voice that quickly moved to the open door.

"How many did you catch?"

How embarrassing. Ed's head dropped and he slowly shook it with the hope he wasn't flushed with embarrassment.

"Three? Four?" Patti chewed on her lower lip as she stood in the doorway of her home, "Margaret says that some snowflakes taste like little pieces of ice cream."

"Very funny…" his head continued to shake as he peered over his shoulder, "I wasn't catching snowflakes, I was yawning."

"Oh," the young woman laughed, "okay, if that's what it was."

"It was!"

"I never said I didn't believe you!" her tone deliberately mocked him, they both realized it, and Patti's hand quickly shot out between them to deflect the conversation, "bun?"

Adjusting over his crutch and shaking the snow from his hair, Ed took the dinner bun from her, "Thanks…"

As quickly as he snatched the bun, Edward turned away to stare off into the abyss of white, a far better alternative than looking back and have her continue to giggle at him. The soft, sweet voice insisted on sweeping over him.

"It looks quite pretty this morning, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Ed slowly let his teeth sink into the soft bun, "What time is it?"

"10:30," came the reply of the female voice standing in his shadow.

Ed paused, raising an eyebrow before swallowing his bite, "In the morning?"

"Certainly not at night…"

His face contorted again, realizing how foolish he'd just sounded. Again he stood silent upon the top of the porch step, trying hard to focus on what was glowing before his eyes and not what stood behind him.

Ed wanted to look over his shoulder, the desire made him itch, but the longer he remained silent, the greater the chance that she would go back into the kitchen. Was she going to shut the door? If she shut the door to keep the cold air out then he would know she had gone inside, or did she intend to leave the door open like he had and just walk away?

"Edward I'm going t-"

"Did my dad and Wi-"

The simultaneous statements came to an abrupt halt, both stopping not only their speech but movement as well, waiting for the other to go first.

Ed wanted to sigh in spite of himself. He had tried time and time again to hold a conversation with her but he'd always found himself with a million scripted things to bring up and nothing to actually say. It was rarely a natural conversation.

"Did my dad and Winry stay over last night?"

"Your father left with Charles, but he asked Winry to spend the night…"

Edward's eyes flickered up into the grey and white ceiling that floated down around him. He listened as she shifted against the doorframe.

"She was up fairly early and took Margaret out back to the gazebo about half an hour ago. Did they wake you?"

"No… no," he gave a light shake of his head, "nothing woke me."

The silence crept up between them once more. This time Patricia was unable to hold silent; sliding backwards, closer to the warmth within the house, her fingernails danced over the doorknob of the wide-open entrance.

"Would you like to come back inside?"

Again he shrugged, "I'm alright."

"Do you want me to bring you your scarf?"

She was trying so hard to find some platform for a social conversation with him, and all Edward could read was the undertone of unease in her voice which only made it harder to reply, "It's okay, Patti."

Exhaling quickly, she began chewing on the corner of her lower lip again, "If you don't bundle up, you'll catch pneumonia."

"… it's not cold enough out here to catch pneumonia."

The woman's eyebrow rose, once again Ed gave her reason to pause. This was perplexing; the conversation had developed into the type of conversation she carried on with her daughter day in and day out. Wasn't Edward just a little too old to sound so much like her child?

'If you don't wear your mittens, you'll catch cold.'
'But I don't like my mittens.'

'If you eat any more of that, you'll get sick.'
'But it tastes good.'

'If you sit like that, people will think you have no manners.'
'But it's comfortable.'

So, when mother's wisdom fails, there was the trump card.

"If you don't bundle up, you'll catch pneumonia again and your father will be furious."

"Patti…"

She was taken aback by how quickly Ed turned over his shoulder. His gaze cast downward to the impressions he'd left in the layer of snow on the doorstep. This time, it was only Edward who carried the silence between them, and he finally lifted his eyes. Patricia's shoulders relaxed, reading no aggression in his eyes to the stern warning she'd given. Finally, Edward snorted in jest.

"If that happens, he'd kill me long before the pneumonia would."

The woman's brown eyes flickered skyward for a moment. Patricia allowed herself to become lost in a thought before spinning on her heels and marching back inside, "Then I'll get your jacket too."

"What?" Ed's jaw fell open in confusion. He quickly wrinkled his nose in protest and called back inside, "The scarf will do Patti, I don't need the whole jacket!"

"Alright!" the voice chirped back at him.

Wait a minute, had she just…?

Ed's eyes narrowed as he peered back inside the house, trying to achieve the impossible and peer around the corner Patricia had disappeared behind. Slowly he turned away, moving around to face a world that had its impurities buried beneath a clean slate of snow. This corner of the world would enjoy its moment of tranquility until the first pedestrian, cyclist or vehicle felt brave enough to leave an imprint. Some part of Edward hoped those inevitable events would never come.

The owner of a powerful pair of golden eyes looked up into the sky softly drifting down around him and debated sticking his tongue out once more.

 


To Be Continued...


Notes:

Just a reminder, that time on the AU side of the Gate moves faster than the Amestris side. Brigitte's understanding of the current time of year is skewed - she thinks it's still September when it's now November in Europe, but June in Amestris.

Chapter 22: Upon the Doorstep of Revolution

Summary:

Winry finishes Ed's new leg and starts to find interest in bits of her new life, while Dante tries to worm her way into information.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Some nights, when I sleep, I can hear that sound. That baby.

She screams at me, incoherently, from beyond a white, painful light.

If I think about it, my body burns. It's like déjà vu, only I'm not sure what it is that I'm supposed to be remembering.

Once in a while I can place that feeling somewhere between the church hall and that bedroom.

Some afternoons, when I'm frustrated with the heat and the English language, I think about it too much. About how he told me not to go there, and I went anyways.

Occasionally, after thinking about that, I remember hearing that old man's voice echo in the hall. I know I meant to look at him, but I can't remember if I did or not.

Yet…

I do remember waking up on the floor with some little girl looking over me. For the first few moments she looked at me, I thought she was terrified of me. I think I ended up being terrified of her.

She clapped her hands and things happened; things that I can't explain and have never seen before. It's like that alchemy Mr. Elric spoke about, but alchemy is impossible.

Some times I tell myself that Mom was wrong, the English are nicer than she said they were.

Both Mr. Elric and these people are English.

And these people aren't that bad and I hope they let me go home some day. I can't run away because I don't know where I'd go, so I figure, if I do what they ask, then maybe I'll get home sooner. It's not as though they're hurting me, or abusing me, or mistreating me. I get food, clothing, water, and shelter; lots of it – I should be thankful for that.

Whatever the rest of cruel Europe might has convinced themselves my Germany is, I'll have them know that I'm different than what they think of me.

Some day, maybe that'll do me some good.

 


 

"Edward!" the voice bellowed from another room, "answer the phone."

He poked his head out of Charles Wilson's kitchen. With the morning coffee in hand, narrow, gold slits darted up and down the hall, searching for the direction the sudden incurrence of sound came from, "Why do I have to answer your phone?"

"Because it's ringing!" the doctor's voice hollered once more, "hurry before they hang up."

Stumbling out into the hall, crutch beneath his arm, Ed stomped his way towards the never-ending telephone bell, "This isn't my house, what the hell am I supposed to say?"

"I'm quite sure 'Hello' would be sufficient."

Ed stopped in his tracks, suddenly tempted to let the phone ring until it died.

From his study at the top of the stairwell, Dr. Wilson once again tossed his head out the door, "EDWARD."

"HOLY SHIT, I'LL GET IT!"

Standing within Dr. Wilson's main study as he bellowed the commands, Winry's expression fell, watching uneasily as the doctor turned back into the room and approached her. Winry'd concluded long ago that this man and Edward couldn't exist twenty minutes in the other's vicinity without some sort of clash - be it a glance, a quip, a shot; only the doctor didn't outwardly react as explosively as Ed did.

But the yelling was neither here nor there, and Winry hooked the tip of her screwdriver in place. With the firm jerk of her wrist, she put the final twist in the ankle of the prosthetic leg she'd battled with for weeks.

She'd found it hard not to refer to any prosthesis as AutoMail since she'd arrived in the English speaking environment. She was lucky in Germany; no one knew what she was talking about when she'd naturally refer to artificial limbs as 'AutoMail', and in the case of Ed's leg, 'temporary devices' or 'AutoMail substitutes'. Though she'd initially been focused on creating a more durable arm for him, as events unfolded she'd changed the course of her constructive urges and opted to create a high-end 'temp-leg', rather than paying an outrageous amount for a domestic prosthesis. She was convinced that she could create something more durable at a far lesser cost.

In the recent days she'd begun to harbor a sinful little secret; she had not expected it and couldn't help but enjoy it, but the attention she'd begun to receive for her archaic device tickled her pink. She'd shown it to the Hylands, but it was Dr. Wilson who was up in arms over the leg. The man had even gone so far as to call several of his colleagues over to examine her work, something Winry was more than willing to discuss with anyone who'd listen.

'Just you wait until you see Ed's AutoMail arm when I'm done with it,' she thought, feverishly struggling against divulging what was to come.

She was somewhat disappointed that Ed said he was fine with her not creating a truly AutoMail leg for him. There had never been any question that he'd wanted the functional arm for his upper body, but she'd hoped to challenge the leg as well. If that was not to be the case, she'd present him with the next best thing a seventeen-year-old mechanic had to offer with only substandard parts available.

Taking the leg by the ankle, Winry smirked and picked it up off the mat on the floor. Her hair fell over the old, dusty blue dress shirt Hohenheim had picked from a thrift store for her to work in. Swinging her ponytail over her shoulder, Winry straightened her back and held it out proudly before the doctor of the house, "It'll be better than anything he's had since he started staying with his dad."

"Good lord child," Dr. Wilson chomped down on his pipe stem, "let me see that."

"He's going to be so much more comfortable with this," Winry kept a protective grip on the prosthetic, allowing the doctor to play with the ankle, "with this he's going to have much better movement from the moment he steps down until he pushes off again. The way I've wound the ankle… there and there… will let him have a bit smoother roll-over to mid-stance plus it'll give a bit of cushioning to the foot and be more comfortable. The coils there help levy control between roll-over to forefoot; I was able to wind the coils tight enough that I really didn't have to do much to the spring's stiffness to facilitate it."

Without realizing it, Winry had left the doctor in her dust.

But she just couldn't help herself and the beaming grin slapped onto her face, "It's great that it works like this, I can't believe I got it to turn out so well." It was hard to be modest when she'd not only surprised herself, but had far exceeded the level of expectation among 'the professionals'.

"That, Miss. Rockbell…" the doctor let the young woman have her creation back, "is a work of art. I am astonished to say the least. I have seen some fine work done for transfemoral amputees, but watching you fly through the construction with such ease has me in awe. I have contemporaries who've been working their whole lives for a success like this."

"Are you kidding me? This was so much harder than it looked," the girl squeaked, "you can't call this 'easy' and it's defiantly not as good as it could be. It'll at least do the trick; I can't wait for him to try it on!"

"Who's trying what on?" Ed's voice pushed into the room from the top of the stairs.

Winry's eyes flew wide, beaming as he approached, "You are! I finished it!"

"Great," Edward gave his head a shake, pulling his crutch-aided self into the room.

The doctor slid the pipe from his lips, tapping the ashes into a tray at the corner of his desk, "Did you get the telephone like I asked you to?"

Plunking himself down on a wooden stool in the room, Ed rolled his eyes; his voice dripping with distain, "Yes sir, I did."

"Did you say 'hello' like I asked you to?"

"Yup," Ed lifted his head high, the trail ends of a sneer catching in his lips, "I said 'Hallo! Vielen Dank für Ihren Anruf!' and they hung up."

Winry wasn't sure if she was supposed to laugh or smack Edward on the back of the head with his new leg. More concerning than making that choice was the sudden aura of annoyance that emanated from Doctor Wilson. She watched in relative silence, leg cradled in her arms, as the doctor slid his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other and walked out of the room without a word to either of them.

Watching the doctor vanish down the tight flight of stairs, Edward snorted and stretched out his tired right leg.

"Ed," Winry slipped a hand to her hip as she handed the leg over to him, "you didn't honestly…"

"Huh?" he cocked an eyebrow, looking up at her with a surprisingly blank expression.

"I-", her voice caught; the hand on her hip went up to her chest and Winry folded her arms with an exaggerated sigh, "never mind."

A curl found its way into the corner of the Ed's mouth, deliberately allowing her comment to blow right by him. Reaching out, Edward hooked his index and middle fingers around the handle bar of his crutch and pulled it around, "Please tell me I came up here to hear you say I can toss this away?"

"How about just put it in the closet?" Winry shook the previous conversation away and sat down on her knees in front of him.

Letting the crutch fall from his fingertips with a clatter, Ed's left hand took hold of the wooden calf of the artificial limb. Reaching out, Winry gripped the cuff of the prosthetic and held it steady as he examined the knee joint, "It moves really well, no wonder Charles was all over it this morning."

"You're going to have to manually lock the joint yourself if you're ever driving or standing for long periods, you don't want it to collapse on you suddenly. I wanted to see if a slight hyperextension of the knee would lock the joint but then I realized that it was too easy to hyperextend, especially if you're walking fast… you'd end up falling over," shuffling on her knees to his side, she put her finger over a deliberate imperfection in the back of the leg, "you can feel the notch just above the back of the knee, there's a pin you put in it. The knee joint itself only has a 90-degree flexation angle. I really wanted at least 100 but that wasn't happening. And there was no way I was getting in any shock absorption so there's extra padding in the cuff, hopefully it'll help."

"That's fine, it can't be any worse than the last one," Ed scratched his cheek, recalling how his left leg stump swelled up after extended and continuous walking.

"I improvised all over the place," Winry was tempted to throw her arms up into the air, entangled in her element, "Ed, AutoMail technology is so much simpler, I had to completely re-think how I was going to approach this. In AutoMail, the mechanics and wiring pick up on the signals and you don't have to fight so hard aligning the pressure, tension, weight disbursement, strength and everything else. There's no user or muscle control in a prosthetic leg and I haven't made one in years, not to mention I couldn't even find half the right parts to begin with. I can't remember struggling so much with the tension in a single-axis rotary like that in all my years as an AutoMail mechanic!"

"Winry…" Ed paused as he caught her attention, somewhat hesitant, "it's better than the crutch."

The response was satisfactory and Winry rose to her feet with a huff directed not at him, but to the scope of the daunting situation she had every intention of tackling next: his arm, "You know, I brought up stuff like  'myoelectric signal' when the doctor and his friends were around, and no one knew what it was. This poor society."

"Its an electric signal that controls muscle movement in the nervous system."

"Thank you!" Winry raised her hands for Hohenheim, who was suddenly standing in the doorway of the office study, a grin on his face as he threw a chuckle at the heir to the Rockbell family business.

Ed's eyes narrowed curiously, eyeing his father in the doorway; he watched as the old man's interest shifted from Winry to him.

"Edward…"

His head tilted.

The old man's left eyebrow rose, "Do you know the reason behind Charles telling me that I'm supposed to lecture you about 'telephone manners'?"

Resting the leg in his lap, Ed wrinkled his brow and took a quick, annoyed glance around the room, "What kind of shit is he telling you this time?"

Straightening the collar of his dress shirt, Hohenheim leaned his shoulder into the doorframe, "Well, just after I finished with the phone call downstairs he came into the room and told me to 'deal with your telephone etiquette' because he'd had it up to 'here' with you this week."

Edward's expression remained stone cold and unimpressed, catching the sudden quirk of his father's eyebrow and recognizing the aura slowly flaring up around Winry at his side, "You know what dad, he's your friend. Considering you were the one who answered the phone, maybe you should ask him what he's going on about."

Having not honestly expected any answer other than the one he received, Hohenheim shrugged, reluctantly satisfied with the response. What he wasn't so reluctant to accept was the grossly unimpressed look that had fallen over Winry. His face twisted curiously as the girl stiffly exhaled and rolled her eyes with the shake of her head.

Still not noticing any hint of reaction towards her behaviour on Edward's part, Hohenheim allowed his reaction to soften, cautiously speaking, "… Did I miss something?"

The question was all Winry needed to throw her two cents onto the floor, "Your son is going to be held responsible when the roof comes crashing down around us!"

Ed finally reacted, "I'm what?"

Winry sent his eyes flying wide with her finger suddenly pointing in his face, "Put your leg on and go for a long, long walk outside before you drive everyone insane!"

"Well you need to get out of the room," Ed's arm swung towards the door, "I have to take my pants off to put this on, and that's not going to happen with an audience!"

She hadn't needed his prompting to make her exit. A curl found its way onto Edward's cheek by the time Winry had made it to the door; his father was already well down the hall, a hand to his slowly shaking head.


The aging creak of the cupboard door, the hungry sound of a mug touching the counter, and the lazy sweep of footsteps across the hardwood floor raged with volume at quarter past five in the morning. No amount of care could change that within a silent night. A cup of coffee had been the goal upon entering the kitchen, but a cold mug of water had been the option Mustang abdicated for. As it was, the water was far less intrusive than the noise and effort required for the first pot of morning coffee; he didn't want to disturb her.

Mustang never made it out of the kitchen; he stopped in the red mist brought on by the first rays of sunlight sneaking over the horizon. Izumi still sat at the wooden table, her head propped up in her left hand. Scattered across the table was a mess of paperwork. Pencil strokes depicted formulas, clearly alchemical, and rested upon the table as the base for three photographs that sat atop the pile. In the previous day's discussions, those three images had become momentarily inconsequential.

Curiously, he stepped up to the table's edge and with the smooth sweep of his hand, pulled one of many hastily scratched formula sheets towards himself. Even with his years of expertise in the alchemy field, Izumi's work was something to behold. Placing the cup down with barely a sound, his hands held tight to the table's edge as he tried to follow his way around the mismanaged formula.

The officer's lips slowly parted, "What on…"

"It's incomplete."

Mustang raised his eye towards the origins of a groggy voice.

Izumi let the hand that had held her up drop to the tabletop with a dull thud; with an emphatic yawn she slid another sheet towards the Brigadier General, "This has a sounder theorem on it."

Taking the new sheet of paper, Mustang eye narrowed at a piece far more convoluted than the last, "What were you doing?"

"Those three photographs your Lieutenant Havoc had developed from Brigitte's camera," another yawn momentarily interrupted Izumi, stretching her arms out across the table as she did so, "I can't figure out what that circle was meant to accomplish."

Mustang gave a shake of his head, snatching up a photograph lying atop the pile, "It wouldn't accomplish anything. It doesn't even warrant the right to be called a transmutation circle as far as I'm concerned," the photograph swept down to the tabletop from Roy's fingers, "this is why amateurs get hurt when they play with complex alchemy, that 'floor etching' would rebound on any alchemist long before it would come close to doing any good."

Pushing up from her seat, Izumi gripped the table as she stretched out her back; sore from being hunched over and half asleep for the last few hours, "It could tear someone apart."

"That would be an understatement," slipping his fingers into the water mug's rings, Mustang reconsidered the option of a morning coffee.

"What I'd like to know is…" Izumi's arms slowly folded across her chest as the man slowly made his way back to the kitchen sink, "from looking at that 'floor etching', what do you suppose was that circle's original purpose?"

With the flick of his right wrist, the water faucet was on. Without missing a step, Mustang snatched a pot from one of the cupboards and slipped it under the running water, "I have no idea what something like that was meant to have been used for."

From the menagerie on the table, Izumi's thin index finger slipped out the pen she'd molded to her hand for the greater part of the previous evening. Lightly, she tapped the fine end against the table top, "What if it wasn't supposed to be used for anything?"

The faucet squeaked as Roy stopped the water flow, "It's a decoration, as I said."

Slipping the photograph between her index and middle fingers, Izumi held it up for Mustang to see, the luminosity of the early morning hour barely strong enough for the officer to make the image out, "What if this isn't meant to aid the transmutation of anything. What if it's deliberately constructed to degrade into a rebound?"

The pot of water landed with a much greater clatter on the stove element than Mustang had intended, "I assume you realize how dangerous that is? No person in his or her right mind would construct something that would perform that way and then etch it into the floor. The entire floor."

"Yet, that's what this circle does."

The thought made Izumi uneasy, though not as outwardly uncomfortable as with Mustang. Any attempt at an alchemical reaction in the vicinity would trigger it, any unfortunate soul that didn't realize what it was would fall victim to it; however, not any artist could have possibly manufactured it. Sometime between dusk and the first peak of dawn, Izumi deduced the circle's balance was not simply a miscalculation; it was a sequence of miscalculations. Each disruption had a corresponding event that seemingly created another disruption or redistribution within the circle, deliberately offsetting the delicate balance required to complete any given transmutation and causing the cascading transmutation breakdown.

Mustang's fingers hung onto the curved, black handle of the pot of water upon the stove, looking back into a set of eyes that had beaten sleep into submission and gazed upon him with inarguable ferocity.

"Are you certain?"

"You're right, it doesn't deserve the right to be called a 'transmutation circle', but it's masquerading as a glorified one. Even the most basic hexagram is balanced, but the more lines you add for complexity the greater assurances you need that all of the elements in your equation are balanced," Izumi flicked the photograph back to the tabletop, turning away from Mustang as she cast a harsh gaze of the material she'd dissected until the wee hours of the morning, "Anyone with half decent training would look at this and shiver. The power flow starts and never finishes because of power divergence; it was built to rebound. It looks disorganized, but once I took it apart, it was anything but that."

Giving a flick of the switch to the stovetop element, Mustang walked back to Izumi. His forearms came to rest of the high back of a wooden chair and the officer leaned into the table, "Can you hazard a guess as to why?"

Izumi released a hefty sigh, "I have no idea. There are easier ways to kill yourself."

"Indeed," Mustang nodded and slid his way back to the pot on the wood burning stove element.

Izumi watched from the corner of her eye as the officer walked off. Her hand came up and swept over her face, a thumb and finger pushing into her eyes to massage the soreness brought on by an evening of confusion and frustration. She had expected, but never heard, the sound of cloth-covered fingers igniting the element. Blinded by her own hand, Izumi's ears instead picked up the sound of heavy feet thundering along the wooden floor towards her. Her hand fell away from her face with enough time to catch the aggressive look flooding into Mustang's eyes as he dropped his cup down on the table.

"Is our theory that Brigitte is from 'beyond the Gate' correct?"

Izumi gave the officer a slow nod.

"If something like that is so asinine on this 'side' of the Gate, why would someone construct it on the other? Wouldn't it be as foolish?"

Sitting back in the chair, Izumi's exhaustion burdened concentration latched onto the intensity growing within Mustang.

"And what in the world is a child doing taking a picture of it?" from within the pile of paperwork, Roy withdrew the other two photographs that had kept Izumi up for so much of the night, "in a room like that and with a camera of that type she'd need a manual flash; potassium chloride and magnesium powder would be the easiest. The circle causes enough problems on its own, but if you throw in an uncalculated element like magnesium and who knows what might happen. Why wouldn't anyone have stopped her from taking photographs? Wouldn't it be too dangerous?"

What would…?
How could…?
Shouldn't this…?
Why is it…?

Izumi wished for a fresh mind to understand why so much nonsense surrounded the situation. It wasn't as though the alchemy made no sense; the alchemy, although egregiously bastardized, ultimately made mathematical sense, it was the common sense that refused to surface at any point. The 'whys' and the 'hows' were questions that demanded logical answers, not open ended speculation into an unknown person or society's mindset. The 'maybe' clause seemed to attach to every possible answer, as well as an answer as nonsensical as any she'd asked herself thus far.

"Maybe no one perceives it as a danger?"

Mustang hesitated before answering, "That's absurd."

"No," Izumi corrected him, snapping up one of the photographs, "this is absurd."

Reaching out, Mustang took the image from Izumi's hand, gingerly holding a picture that had captured another time. Without a word, Izumi stood up from her seat and gave a withering exhale; her hands swept over her hair and she slowly pulled herself away from the table. In her place, Roy sat down; his arm slung over the back of the chair and the image falling from his fingertips into the paperwork before him. The craving for an early morning coffee had soon been lost as he tried to wrap his mind around the boggling notions that sent the alchemy teacher down the hall to her bed.


It was a two way rush. As Edward pushed open the door he could feel the heat escaping and blowing past his body. In turn, the warmth beyond the door was accosted by the outdoor chill. Not wanting to disturb the balance any longer, Ed quickly slipped inside, setting off the perky jingle of door chimes that danced near the ceiling. He looked up almost sheepishly at the noise; the unnoticed entrance he planned on making had been thwarted.

"Good evening, Sir."

The Elric's golden eyes drifted over to the heavily set man, grinning at him heartily through his beard, "The same to you."

"Is there something I can help you with before I close up shop?"

Ed opened his mouth to speak but found himself cut off by the first cuckoo clock to announce that five o'clock had arrived. The walls on each side of him rose above him, decorated by some of Europe's finest time telling instruments. The bird's music-box song, the high bell chime, and the deep gong of each handcrafted clock, grandfather and miniature, joined the 5PM choir in gleeful disarray. Unable to intrude into the mismanaged sound, Edward strode across the muddied floor, soiled by the boots of every winter-ravaged soul that had walked through the shop.

His head held up a little higher than normal as the clatter faded, he had not been able to walk so comfortably, so fluidly, and so powerfully since his last lifetime.

"Is Benjamin here?"

The final reminder of time slipped away; the tiny doors of the chirping clocks snapped shut as each crafted bird vanished for another half hour.

"Oh goodness," the man's thick lips fell downwards, his voice reclaiming the space where the declaration of time had momentarily occupied, "Ben hasn't worked here in ages."

Ed's hand slipped into his jacket pocket, brow knitting into a tight frown, "Dammit. Do you know if he's at another shop in the city?"

The puffy white beard swayed as the man shook his head, "Benjamin took his family out of town for some reason or t'other. I can't say that I recall what for. He left me to look after his shop and I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since."

"Shit," Ed's nose wrinkled as he momentarily grit his teeth.

Slowly folding a thick pair of arms across his wide chest, the shopkeeper couldn't help his curiosity and pried a little further, "Were you looking for Benjamin himself, or his craftsmanship skills?"

It was all the prompting Ed needed to elaborate, "My father commissioned Ben to craft a watch for him about four years ago," his hand moved swiftly; dipping his hand into the jacket's pocket, Ed's thumb slipped into the loop at the end of a silver chain and produced a watch that carried a nostalgic burden, "It's been loosing time for the last few months and I haven't been able to use it. I just wanted to have it adjusted so I didn't have to reset it every second day."

The man's hearty laugh bubbled up and the keeper's stance relaxed as the Elric placed the bottom edge of his silver watch down upon the counter top, "I'm certain I can look after Benjamin's handy work for you, I've done it for many before." The old man waited until the young man allowed the forged keepsake to slip from his gloved fingertips.

Ed watched as the man treated the silver shell of the watch to a visual inspection and listened as he quickly gave an impressive whistle, "This is some fine silver and engraving young man. Definitely one of Ben's better works."

With a casual shrug of his shoulders, Ed glanced back towards the door, "My father said he was the best in town, that's why it was done through him."

The vibrant golden eyes snapped back to the counter once hearing the watch lid flip open. He'd made the sharp reaction on instinct but stopped himself before speaking. Watching without a word, Ed relaxed his shoulders as the man continued the inspection, knowing he would not be asked any question about the date on the lid… since he hadn't etched one into it.

"Yes, in his day, Benjamin was one of the best this side of the city had to offer," reaching beneath his counter, the caretaker of the watch and clock shop produced a receipt booklet and a sheet of carbon paper then dropped it onto his countertop, "If I can get your name, I'll leave you with a ticket."

"Edward Elric," he shifted once more glance back towards the door.

"Alright Mr. Elric, you can probably pick it up later in the afternoon tomorrow," emphatically stabbing the paper at his final pen stroke, the burly man handed the blonde a white receipt, "I have a few more knickknacks that need tinkering with beforehand but it should be finished by the end of the day."

Ed smiled and once again shrugged his shoulders, "That's fine, take your time," he gave a firm yank of his jacket collar and with his copy of the receipt in hand, he turned towards the door, "if I'm not by tomorrow I'll definitely be by the following morning."

This time, no five o'clock chorus would serenade his path to and from the door. Once more, Edward took his strides towards the door; it was a short walk that took forever.

He wanted to run out the door.

Dig his toes in and run.

No particular reason for it, he simply wanted to do it.

It had been years since he'd been able to run without falling apart in some manner. His leg stump would blister or a rash would fester, joints would come loose or couldn't take the pounding, hell once when he'd been scrambling the bloody thing popped right off and he'd found himself face first on the cement walkway. And all this came from a State Alchemist who used to wander around Amestris by train and foot, his new constraints frustrated him endlessly.

Though, if he damaged Winry's leg in any way, she'd kill him.

If he couldn't bring himself to run, then he could stride. There was an unnatural compensation he used to have to make for his body with other devices; he'd once found himself walking with a slight limp, hip-hike, although mostly it was merely cautious care and it slowed him down.

Winry's leg was imperfect, that was for certain, but even if he couldn't feel the power in the tips of artificial toes, he certainly knew he moved forward with it. It was a type of artificial, natural motion he never believed he would find beyond the Gate.

Evidently, it had found him.

Instead of running out the door, he stopped; his golden eyes catching the outline of a figure only seconds before it burst through the door with the loud scream of entrance bells to interrogate him.

"What are you doing in here?" bundled tightly in all the winter accessories she'd been able to find, Winry held the door open wide as the breeze blew shavings of snow off her shoulders, "You're supposed to be picking up spices."

Ed slipped the receipt into his pocket and swept his hand to the left-side wall as he once again approached her, "What? You don't want a cuckoo clock?"

It was probably the most emphatic 'no' he'd heard from her in weeks. Pushing past her with the shake of his head, Ed stepped out into the streets behind her and popped his knit hat out from his pocket.

"Well that's good, because neither do I," he pulled the hat down, half crooked over his head before he continued to walk along the snow covered side walk, away from the expression that questioned his sanity, "last thing I need is some noisy bird-in-a-box waking me up at three in the morning."


The soft, smooth flesh of Nina's chin rested in the bed her arms created on the dark, oak desk. Her socked feet were hidden away, tucked beneath her on the velvet covered, four-legged chair while her wide, blue eyes watched the phone came to rest with a clatter upon its cradle. She shifted her childish eyes, glancing between the two men within her 'adopted' father's office. Earlier, the concern in their voices echoed off the walls in this vast, uncluttered space of the prime minister's office.

"It's been three days since I first tried reaching their number. I can't tell you how many days it might have gone unanswered before that," the prime minister swept his hands over his chin.

His companion, General Hakuro, sighed, his arms folding across his firmly pressed uniform, "I can investigate if you want. I don't know enough about the paperwork involved with Mrs. Hughes and Alphonse to tell you if she had authority to go out of town with him or not."

Mitchell shook his head, "I can't imagine she'd be able to do that for more than a 24-hour period without having to inform someone."

Nina's eyes flickered up to Hakuro as the man gave a slow nod in agreement, "I'll check with the department as well as with Lt. Colonel Armstrong, I remember something about one of the secretaries under him having ties to the Hughes family, she may know if they've had to head out of town on short notice."

"Armstrong…" tapping his pencil against the polished desk surface, Mitchell's gaze trailed towards the drape-sealed window that looked out upon the southern half of the government complex, "I think he was around for Brigitte's reunion with her mother. Wasn't that man part of the State Alchemist regime?"

"He was," catching Nina's gaze from the corner of his eye, Hakuro flashed a thin smile for the child as she sunk back into her folded arms.

The end of Mitchell's pen continued to fly off the desk, "As was Brigadier General Mustang."

Hakuro's brow rose curiously, "Yes, Sir."

Leaning back in his chair, Mitchell sighed, looking to dispel some stress bearing down on his shoulders, "Speaking of that office, have you dealt with that officer mismanaging the organization in Mustang's division?"

"Ah," Hakuro rolled his shoulders, stiffening his posture, "after I'd consulted with Lt. Colonel Armstrong about the issue I decided to give Lt. Havoc a grace period to clean up his management of the section. Armstrong was quite adamant that the workload may have been too much for the Lieutenant while Major Hawkeye and the Brigadier General were on leave."

"Is Brigadier General Mustang a friend of Elysia's?" Nina perked up; gazing into her 'fathers' eyes, she pulled her face up from her arms.

After the seconds of uncertain delay on Mitchell's part, it was Hakuro who answered the child's question, "Brigadier General Mustang was a close colleague of Elysia's father."

"Oh…" Nina nodded, her eyes looking to the chandelier dangling above the center of the office, "cause I think Elysia or her mom mentioned him before. Maybe when me and Aisa bumped into them that day Brigitte had to leave… or… oh no, that's not it…"

Mitchell's brow tightened as the child slowly spoke as she carefully placed a scene together for her listeners.

"I met him when Brigitte got all upset when we were walking in the military building a while back. Al and Brigitte went away with him somewhere and we went downstairs to wait. Elysia's mom said it was alright to let him look after them for a little bit because he was a friend of hers."

The pencil the prime minister had tapped so vigorously on his desk found its way into the menagerie of pens in the top drawer of his desk, "Hakuro, a while back I was perused by Mustang's office for full control of the market incident where Alphonse and his companion were found. I had to tell his office numerous times that the children were not an issue within their jurisdiction. If he has relationships with the Hughes family and is that concerned with the child's welfare, he may have some insight into their where abouts."

"Mustang's on leave at the moment," Hakuro's words stalled for a brief, hesitant moment as he caught an unsettling glance from his prime minister, "but I can recall him if you wish."

"Do that," Mitchell pushed up from his leather chair, straightening his vest as he moved to Nina. Smiling down at the girl, he gently placed a kiss on her forehead as he slid his arms around her waist and removed her from the chair she'd claimed.

"I'm sorry I can't tell you today where Elysia and Alphonse are, but we'll find out soon enough, then everyone can have lunch together again, alright?" the man's hands swept around, pulling the child's pigtails over her shoulders.

Nina giggled once again, a hand cupping her mouth to muffle the sound as Mitchell took her by the other and led her to the general, "But for now, I'm sure General Hakuro's family is looking forward to having us over for dinner again."

The impish fingers changed possession as Hakuro gently took the hand his compatriot offered him, "My wife is making roast beef for everyone tonight."

"That sounds good," Nina grinned up at him.

Hakuro could only smile as he turned with her towards the door, "My wife and I will take Nina out to our place for the evening. You'll be joining us around six?"

"Between five and six, no later," the prime minister moved back to his desk.

"Papa?"

The child's voice froze the man; it was not the delicate sound that immobilized him, but the word itself. His heart ground to a halt for eternal seconds until the drumming between his ears boiled up; his heartbeat racing faster than the two syllables had been spoken. He had never asked for the child to refer to him with such a beautiful courtesy.

"Hm?" he would say nothing about the title bestowed upon him, unwilling to discourage the sentiment or tamper with the sweeping rush of utter glee it left him with.

"When you find out where Mrs. Hughes and Elysia and Alphonse are, can you tell me too?" the child looked over her shoulder at him, the braid on her left shoulder slipped off as she tilted her head, "I haven't seen them in a while and I want to play with Alphonse again, it's more fun when he's around."

A quirky curl found its way into the corner of the prime minister's lips, "Of course, Nina."

Dante smiled wide for the man, tying an extravagant bow at the end of each marionette string she dangled from the government ceiling; all the while, her rotting soul cursed in frustration that she was scarcely able to do much more.

Patience would have to be the only virtue allowed to mingle with the curator of seven sins.


"Do you think you'd be interested in attending?"

Giving a blank look at Thomas standing in the doorway, Winry found that his invitation left her with somewhat of an uneasy feeling in her stomach. She slipped her hair over her shoulders as he shut the front door of the Wilson home.

"I don't think I have anything nice enough to wear to someone's birthday party, especially something that sounds so extravagant."

"That's fine," Thomas grinned, tapping the toe of his shoe on the mat, "I'm sure we can find something for you, one of Patti's sisters is around your size, I can ask if she has something."

She couldn't prevent the light sigh that slipped out, and soon folded her arms across her chest. It was rude to refuse the invite, but…

"Thank you for the invite, I'll run it by Ed and his dad and see what they have planned, I'm not sure what they're both up to this week. I don't want to say yes for them and then find out there are complications."

Thomas's grin grew, smirking as though he were wiser than Winry had considered him to be, "Well I'm quite certain Hohenheim knows its coming up, Edward may not have been apprised though. But, he's been to my grandfather-in-law's birthday before."

Winry's tilted her head with amusement, "Ed went to these kinds of parties with you?"

Thomas chuckled at her sudden interest, "Yes, he has. He was a little skeptical, but Patricia's grandfather is quite the character in his old age, he's been having masquerade parties since his seventieth birthday; he says it makes him feel young. A few years back, several of us rented out a hall and hosted it with a royal theme; Edward ventured out that night with the title of 'King Edward the Eighth'. He uh…" the man tapped his chin in thought, a nervous laugh entering his voice, "well, I think we were more amused with the escapade than he was, but in the end it's a fond memory. Edward returned home as the 'Pauper King', though he wasn't too pleased with that."

"The 'what' King?" Winry couldn't help the foolish grin on her face, leaning against the corner of the wall as she allowed Thomas to continue.

"King Edward the Eighth, the Pauper King. Charles said that 'ill-tempered monarchs did not deserve to be called 'King' and told Edward it would have been more becoming if he'd gone as a pauper. Julie pronounced him 'Pauper King' sometime that night. It was all in jest, mind you, but Charles doesn't always leave Edward in a very whimsical mood, he can be very cynical when he wants to be."

"I've noticed…"

"I know Charles means well," Thomas gave a shrug of his shoulders, "but he can't shake the notion that Edward lacks respect. He's stormed out of rooms wanting to paddle Edward for something or other and has flown off the handle with Hohenheim more than once. As far as Charles is concerned, Hohenheim does nothing to discipline his son."

This was bizarre, Winry thought. For the time she'd existed in Germany, she'd barely conversed with anyone. She had wandered around as though she were some scared, fascinated child, and had spent the entire time trying to evaluate the Edward Elric she'd known against the man she was now faced with.

It was stranger yet to hear Thomas speak of Ed, because it was like learning about someone new. There was no one to tell her any stories in Germany, no one to remind her that by his perception, five years had passed since he'd left. Edward wasn't forthcoming with information, neither was Hohenheim, and since neither party brought up the past, she felt as though it was too intrusive to ask. It had become a non-issue for her and she'd easily forgotten that his perception of the passage of time was not the same as hers.

So, there actually was a story, something she had been too busy feeling disoriented to even consider. A fascinating story of a place she didn't understand, a time she knew nothing about, and a friend unwillingly living a life within it. Again, the world beyond the Gate felt unreal, like a miserable book someone had written and she was skimming through the pages at top speed. It was an existence nothing like the one that shaped her and with everything she'd learned, there were times when she had to remind herself, 'yes, this fictitious life is real'.

Her mind's eye took a fleeting glance towards the looking glass.

"I've always found Edward to be more or less amicable though," Thomas slid the fur hat off his head, feeling the warmth from the house heat up beneath his winter attire, "he was kind towards Julie, and I have no idea how I would have passed my first year in sciences without him."

"Was Julie a friend of yours?" Winry took a glance up the stairwell, hearing the sound of movement from above.

Thomas shook his head, "Julie was my little sister."

"Oh, I haven't met the rest of your family," her expression grew sheepish, "sorry, I didn't realize you had a sister."

Once again laughed and adjusted the collar of his coat, "No, no, don't worry, I haven't mentioned her, I wouldn't expect you to know."

Winry slapped her hands together, searching for anything to continue their conversation further. The curious twinge behind her poignant blue eyes wisely withheld a barrage of 'so what else is there about this life of Hohenheim's and Edward's that I know nothing about?' The last thing she wanted was to pry and come off as a snoop, but the questions suddenly itched.

"Did you want to come in for a bit? I'm sure Dr. Wilson wouldn't mind me inviting you in."

The invitation was the notice for Thomas that he'd lingered within the warmth of the house for too long and the young man reversed and pulled his hat back on, "No, that's quite alright. I have errands I need to finish before the sun sets and if I spent too much more time here I may never leave." Once again, the man gave a laugh, something Winry and begun to realize was highly contagious when around him, "Give my regards to everyone, and pass on the invitation when you can."

"No problem," Winry's half crooked, awkward grin reemerged as he pulled the door open, "stay warm, alright?"

With a thank you and the nod of his head, Thomas ducked out of the house. Winter's bite crashed against the door the moment it cracked open and Winry quickly pushed it shut in the man's wake, slipping the chain-lock in place with the whip of her wrist.

She took a slow step backwards from the door, a hand coming to her chin as she considered the missed opportunity that had just walked out into the elements. Suddenly, spending time with the Hyland family seemed a little more intriguing than it had minute ago.

"Winry?"

The sound of heavy feet echoed from the stairwell. Sliding in her stockings along the hardwood floor, Winry gazed up into the curious expression Hohenheim wore with his beard.

"Was someone at the door?"

"Yeah," she gave a nod, slipping her hair behind her shoulders once again, "Thomas just left. He should still be outside, did you want me to grab him?"

Continuing his decent, Hohenheim gave a shake of his head and slipped past the girl en route to the tea pot he hoped was still warm in the kitchen, "Did he need anything?"

"Not really," she followed Ed's father into the kitchen, not bothering to pick up her feet as she moved; her mood felt more jovial than anything and she found it oddly amusing how nicely her stockings slid over the floor as she shuffled along, "but he wanted to know if we wanted to go to Patricia's grandfather's birthday party over the weekend."

Hohenheim wrapped his hand in a dishtowel as he reached for the potentially hot handle of the metal pot, "This weekend you say?" he took a quick, curious glance over his shoulder.

"Yes."

A suddenly perplexed expression flew over the old man, "Already? Where did the time go? Of course it's this weekend, I should have known better…" faint strands of white steam lifted from the elder father's cup as he slowly refilled his mug, "Did you tell him we'd love to go?"

Winry answered with a nonchalant shrug, "I told him I'd check with you and Ed first, but yeah I said it would be alright."

With his tea in hand, Hohenheim headed back towards Winry with a grin, "I think it'll be good to go out and have a fun evening like that," his strong hand landed atop Winry's head of hair to give it a playful scratch.

She laughed at the gesture and slowly trailed behind him as the man returned to the stairwell.

"Um…"

Stopping on the carpet covered stairs, Hohenheim looked back to a blonde whip of hair accompanying childish, blue eye gazing up at him from below, the uncertainty in her voice catching his attention.

"If you have time this week," Winry's hands gripped the knob at the end of the stairwell banister, "would you be able to show me the neighbourhood that you and Ed lived in while you were here?"

Of all the things he'd considered she might say, that had not been one of them. Hohenheim's brow rose, intrigued by the request, "I don't see why not."

Yet again she was childish in her response, giving a jovial grin to the answer and giggled her 'thank you' before vanishing back into the lower floor of Charles Wilson's home.

Hohenheim remained on the third stair from ground level, pushing the last few moments through his mind again. Finally, the warm rim of his steaming cup came to his lips and Hohenheim stole a sip of the British world's tea before ascending the staircase once more.


Al stood in the doorway for only a few seconds; a tall glass gripped tightly in his right hand, filled half with water, half with ice. The delay was long enough to cause him to twitch and roll his shoulders as a trail of sweat slid slowly, unobstructed down the back of his neck. He intruded into the room once again.

The curtain drawn bedroom in the Ross cabin was a nice recluse from the relentless summer heat, for him anyways.

Brigitte, however, could not find enough relief in the cooler ends of the home. Her body continually catered to the endless pools of salty sweat that insisted on dampening her skin, soaking the roots of her hair, and discolouring the back of her dress. Rarely did the German girl emerge for much action before the sun dipped low enough behind the trees to provide a welcomed sanctuary. By that time, only a scarce beam of gold could find its way through the trees, and that was all she wanted to see of the inferno in the sky.

Nestled away in the corner of the room, sitting in the most un-lady-like position, Brigitte's tired blue eyes looked up to the young Elric as he knelt down in front of her. The glass of water Alphonse held out had grown a layer of as much cold sweat as its recipient had.

"Water?"

Carefully taking the slippery flask from its bearer, Brigitte wiped the moisture off on the end of her dress and gently set the precious, chilly column against her cheek, "Danke…"

Slipping down from his knees, Al pressed his back against the wall and his arms wrapped around to cradle his legs as he drew them to his chest.

"Are you feeling better?" his chin came down into the crevice of his knee caps.

The chilly glass at her lips, crystal blue eyes looked back at him at a loss. Tilting her head back, she let the bitterly cold liquid flow into her body without offering a response. The burn for air grew worse than the need to sully the effects of the intolerable day, and Brigitte's head snapped forwards as she took one last swallow and quickly gasped for breath. Her forehead once again pressed against the cool surface of a near-empty column of ice water.

Al's free hand came up and swept through his hair and he soon pushed to his feet. His interests took him towards the bed, which had become covered in the childish materials the two of them had used for some of the most astounding revelations. Alphabet, numbers, calendars, points of reference and a disastrous assortment of translation sheets were thrown everywhere. 'Yes,' 'No,' 'Hello', 'Good bye', 'wall', 'window', 'bed', 'sand', 'lake'… or at least, he hoped it was 'lake'. It might have been 'water'. He'd ask if it was 'water', but if he pointed to the glass she might think that the word was 'glass' or 'cup'. If he put his finger in the water she might think he meant 'cold'. Both the lake and the water were cold…

Alphonse's eyes crossed as one train of though tripped over the other. The potential frustration was eased by the sound of slow movement filtering from the corner. He glanced back to the wayward girl, a relaxing sense of relief sweeping over him as he watched Brigitte come to her feet.

His eyes traipsed back to the bed; sliding up on top of the sheets covering the creaking, oversized mattress, Alphonse slipped out one of the more vibrant pages within the pile. Pushing the remaining mess of near incoherent ramblings to the pillows, he left a clean sheet of paper to accompany the decorated one he'd kept and placed both of them in plain sight. He flopped on his stomach and the aching sound of rusted springs accompanied him.

Placing her hands against the soft sheets, Brigitte dropped to her knees at the side of the bed, folding her arms across the bedside and tucking her chin into the soft surface.

A pop echoed off the wooden walls when Alphonse pulled the cap from one of their many pens. His strokes were nearly silent as he sketched an accompanying piece to the colour-filled diagram the German child had provided.

"So this…" Alphonse stopped mid-task, opting for the more curious artwork at his side, "this is a map, right?"

Brigitte pulled her arms away from the growing heat of the bed, wiping her forehead on the thick comforter as she repositioned herself on her knees, "Mmm… Map?" she repeated, unknowingly.

With the dull end of the pen, Alphonse tapped the corners of her sheet, "This cross with N, S, E and W is for north, south, east and west, right? These are countries, these are cities and these are oceans," Al gave a slow nod as he reconciled the image in his mind, "the place with the star could be the capital city, but how do you say that again? Deuch…tsche…"

"Deutschland," the girl's hand swept back into her hair, giving a feverish scratch to a pesky itch. The palms of her hands came around; pushing harshly into the caves of her eyes she tried to rub away the exhaustion the heat bore down on her with.

"Well… I know the 'land' part," switching the positions of Brigitte's scribbled image and the sketch he'd begun, Al placed his outline of Amestris in front of them, "this is map is where we are now."

Brigitte's attention refocused on his image, again coming to the edge of the bed to see what was on display. She watched curiously as Alphonse marked his map similar to what she had done; writing the name of the country, "Amestris", through the center of the image. With the swift strokes of black ink, Alphonse left a star at the center of the sheet and marked "Central City" above it.

Questioningly, Brigitte's focus changed from the intolerable atmosphere to Alphonse's actions, "Are you copying how I did my map? I took geography in school, there's no place called Amestris in Europe. That's not right."

Brigitte's voice was merely background noise as Alphonse continued to sketch in the world surrounding Amestris. Readjusting the pen in his hand, he decided to give his world some meaning and added dots of life to the country: East City, Lior, Ishibal, Xenotime, Dublith, and lastly, Resembool. With a quirky turn of his smile, Alphonse gave the cities a few inhabitants. Next to a box with a sharp, triangular lid drawn by Central City, 'Maria', 'Riza', 'Roy', 'Nina' and 'Brigitte' were written in with blue pen. For the box at Dublith, 'Izumi' was the resident. And in the last pointy box next to the Resembool township, 'Ed' and 'Al' were written.

The blue pen was turned over to Brigitte, who took her visual cue and marked her own two house-boxes next two the only two cities she'd labeled. The first city that had its mark was 'Berlin'. Alphonse nearly found himself giggling as the German child wrote her name at that house and trailed a dotted line down to 'München', whistling as she did so. The house in München was nearly as crowded as the one in Central with 'Brigitte', 'Edward Elric', 'Hohenheim', and 'Oberth'.

For a moment, Brigitte considered adding the names of classmates, friends, and others, but didn't have the energy to go through having to explain them. These people were already names known to the people around her.

"So…"

The pale, blonde German child fixated her attention upon the steadfast Elric look; a suddenly powerful, aggressive and determined desire manipulated the fire that fueled the young man's determination. An almost smug, yet proud grin hit the boy's face for a moment, and the endless hours of curious work allowed the sense of accomplishment to flow with the blood in his veins.

"My brother's in a place called München? Hmm…" pushing up from his stomach, the crumbling springs of the mattress withheld their cries as Alphonse came to sit cross-legged above their support. Silver eyes, shining with a moist, glossy coat, continued to absorb the heaps of information his displaced companion continued to present him with. The last Elric reached out for the German map and circled the city that would become his goal.

"That's the place I need to find."

 


To Be Continued...


Notes:

Something I wanted to note about Winry and Brigitte. I remember someone mentioning once that it seemed like the worst winter ever was going on in London. Though maybe unseasonal, it's actually not that bad. The temperature and weather complaining comes from Winry's perspective, because she's perceiving it colder than it actually is (it's also dank and Winry's been landlocked her whole life). Ed use to feel it as she does now, but he's generally acclimatized. Amestris is naturally warmer, so in reverse, Brigitte is struggling with the heat, because she's used to the chill of her side of the gate.

Chapter 23: Puppetmaster

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text


 

With a jovial snap of his right arm, Thomas whipped a colourful hat back at a grumbling young man, "Edward Elric you are nothing but a spoilsport."

It was true, he was not a fun sport! After being after duped by his father and Winry, who'd taken off into London and left him at the Hyland house, he wished to be nothing more than a spoilsport.

In the span of two hours that afternoon, he had been taken captive by this family, locked away in the master bedroom, forced to strip, then re-dress at their beck and call at least four times. He was their little marionette and the strings danced about with every "Please Edward" and "Oh come on" that came from their mouths.

"I think this one works the best, actually," Thomas tilted his head, "I mean, just the way the drape on the side hangs, it doesn't look awkward at all without your arm."

"Oh lovely," the words slid from the corner of Edward's mouth, "I look like some seventeenth century courtyard child in bloomers and white tights… but it's okay because it hides the fact I'm less one arm. That's so reassuring, thank you Thomas. I really appreciate the jes-"

The elder of the two couldn't help but laugh, "That's not what I meant by it, don't twist my words. Everyone attending is going to look foolish. Have you seen what I'm wearing? Have you seen what your father chose? Just bite your bitter tongue for a change and play along like a good chap," he couldn't help but broaden his grin at the sneer Ed sent his way, "It's for an old man's birthday for goodness sake, it's not like you will be on stage performing."

Edward looked back at his own reflection in the full-length mirror. The simple shoes were the only thing truly comfortable; the white tights itched, the pantaloons over his hips and thighs looked ridiculous, and the vest would have been tolerable if not for the frilly, button-up collar. Thomas received silent acknowledgement that the drapery over his right shoulder did take away most of the awkward look that the other outfits had. The hat was just preposterous; a black, turned-up brim with a deflated fabric balloon flopping limp to whichever side Ed chose.

"Well, did you like any of the other outfits? I think this was the last one Patti brought in for you," Thomas gave a light sigh, dropping his arms over his knees as he sat down, "she worked really hard picking out outfits you might like from her sister's theatre closets," he watched as Ed's shoulders sank, "the party's tomorrow night, I don't want to have to tell her that you're being a piss-poor sport about the whole thing."

Oh no, Edward didn't want to be part of that conversation what so ever. From the time he'd met her, until the time he'd vanished to Germany, being in the same room with her had felt uneasy enough. They would carry on the most disjointed conversations. Someone would speak and Patricia would look away, her voice was nervous while his faltered, and somewhere in the back of Ed's mind was the uneasy understanding that, more so than not, she felt either intimidated by his presence or was simply afraid of him.

For Ed's part, he wanted to have nothing to do with her; he wanted to look, appear, and be disinterested in her. Most of all, Ed wanted to dislike her – she behaved nothing like his mother, so couldn't this ghostly image simply leave him alone? Yet, Ed found himself wanting to indulge in the guilty pleasure of knowing everything about her.

There were occasions when the insecurities of each other's presence would lapse; though, more so on this return trip than had ever been established before. Yet, Edward carried the fear that for just a moment he would find himself curiously watching her, without conscious thought for his actions, she would notice and that look of unease would return to her eyes before she'd quickly look away.

The look in her eyes before she'd turn away hurt more than any words his mother had ever spoken.

Once, there had been a time where a great, disastrous and unspoken misunderstanding between Edward Elric and the future Patricia Hyland had manifested itself. It had never been verbally discussed nor acknowledged, so each was left to guess what the other was thinking, or at least, trying to think. Ed's generally anti-social disposition at the time did nothing but hinder progress. The young Elric could only surmise what a young woman in Patricia's position would think; to have the friend of your future husband act out of sorts around you, have him struggle in conversation with you, then to catch his eyes wandering over you…

"This'll do," he surrendered.

"Are you sure?"

Ed turned to face Thomas, rolling his eyes, "You whine that I won't choose something, then you question me when I say I'll wear this?"

"Alright," the man raised his hands in defense, "then it's decided. Patti took your clothes into the other room, hurry up and change before lightning strikes me down or you see fit to change your mind."

Snorting, Ed tossed the hat into a vacant chair, "Don't patronize me Thomas."

"You woke up on the wrong side of the bed today didn't you?" came the unfazed response, "I can see why your family dumped you off in my care and didn't stay around. They'd probably grown weary having to listen to you all morning."

"Winry's already chosen her outfit, so she didn't need to be here," Ed scratched over the back of his head as he pulled himself out of the room, "plus she had some errands or something to run, my dad just volunteered out of the blue to drive her. Usually he makes me escort her around, so it can be his turn to stop the car every 5 or 10 minutes when she wants to get out and have a look around."

Ed found himself shaking his head while lifting his gaze into the opposite room. Uninterested in responding to the man who teased him, Edward's eyes carried curiously around the walls of a much more silent space. The room wasn't quite as he'd remembered it being a half hour ago, obviously it had been tidied from the stacks of clothing that had gathered throughout the afternoon. Slowly his expression slipped as it began to fill with signs of confusion – indeed, all the clothes had been tidied and cleared out, including his.

"Pat-"

Edward never had a chance to finish her name, and Patti's reaction was far more stifled than his. Her hand had come up to cover her mouth while Ed had given a startled gasp at the woman who'd appeared out of thin air.

"Sorry."

"Don't be," she moved fast to clear the moment, breaking contact and ushering herself into the room swiftly, "I came in unannounced, my apologies."

"No, it's alright."

The conversation ended there with a sudden derailment, and Edward found himself giving the woman a curious eye, wondering what brought the sudden delightful glow to her face…

… Wait.

"You approve?" Ed glanced down at his outfit.

"Do you approve?" came the response.

"I guess," he gave a shrug of his shoulders. Yes, this would have to do, even if the thought of humouring the masses for an evening made him wish he'd never gotten out of bed that morning, "but I'd think I should change out of it for now, I just can't find…"

At the trailing of his voice, Patti's flew in, "Oh, that's right, I moved it all to straighten my linens. Give me one moment Edward, I'll be right back with them."

The woman was swift in her movements, leaving Ed silent in her wake as she vanished from the room. He stood without a word, without movement for far too long, allowing no excuse for his silence, before finally he slid his feet farther into a study room that appeared as though no fingerprints had ever tarnished the pure, unadulterated surfaces. His eyes drifted around the room. It always bothered Edward when he'd realize that he was looking for pieces of a life he'd set ablaze within the Hyland home. There was always something intangible that existed within this family's walls that caused him to do that. He never knew what he was looking for, and never seemed to find it either. Today, his eyes floated up to what looked almost like a mural: the London bridge. A night scene painted out with heavy brush strokes, and the bridge lights nothing but thick, white dabs of oil paint. The world was sealed within an extraordinarily detailed gold coloured frame and Edward looked while it swallowed the entire wall.

"Sorry Edward!"

The woman moved into the room again as he turned back to see her. Within her arms, she adjusted the perfectly folded garments Edward had walked through their door wearing.

"I had put them under one of the costumes you'd had on- oh?"

Edward froze, watching as the woman's hand reached to grab what had slipped out of his bundled clothing. With a slight ting, the pocket watch he'd retrieved from the clock shop earlier that day bounced off the carpeting.

For the thousandth time that day, Patricia apologized. Edward wondered if the words were programmed into her by society. He watched her thin hands take hold of the foolish bookmark in his life, the glaze on her red fingernails caught the light's reflection much the same way that the silver on his watch did. Her voice came and Edward found himself giving no acknowledgement to it, his mind focused on the soft, right hand cradling the replicated symbol of how he'd managed to so badly lose his way.

"You know Edward,"

The words came out like opening lines to a letter. His mind came to attention as the watch was placed carefully in his left hand. The silver chain slowly wound down into his palm, wrapping circles around the watch's edge.

"Thomas told me once that you carried this as a reminder of some things you'd lost track of in your life, but you still didn't want to forget about them. I think your father told him that, but please don't get upset with him, he never elaborated to what that was."

With the slight twitch of his thumb, the polished cover of the watch flipped open. His reflection flickered not only in the glass face, but in the smooth, unadultered inside-surface of the silver lid as well. Funny, he thought, how he could see things in that concave surface that he'd kept so close to his person before.

"It's a very elaborate watch, did you lose a lot of things in its time?"  The quiet, familiar voice drifted with the most astounding calm and innocence.

Edward snapped the lid of the silver pocket watch shut. His tone quickly changed; the mediocre, frank tone that Edward used carelessly swung about, and Patti found herself having to accept that he had, almost instantly, ran off and hid behind it.

"Thanks for grabbing my clothes, Patti, I'll be back down in a minute, alright? Tell Thomas to dress up in whatever he's wearing tomorrow night, I need to see what I'm up against."

She only nodded as he took the clothes from her arms, cautious hands folding up into her chest as the burdened man walked out of the room. 


"Hello again, my dear!"

Nina's grin flashed wide, her hands tightly gripping the edge of the white desk as she shifted her weight from side to side, "You're always so busy with papers, Miss Dy, do they ever give you a break?"

The modest young woman laughed, tapping a finger atop one of many piles of paper that had grown like weeds over not only her desk, but of the empty associate desks around her, "Nina, I'm the lowest one on this office totem pole, I get to take care of everything everyone else doesn't want to deal with."

Wrinkling her nose, the child rocked on the balls of her feet, the white lace ends of her baby blue dress danced around her, "That's not nice of them, they should buy you lunch for all the things you do."

"You're so sweet, Honey," the secretary's chin-length, brown hair bounced around her face as she moved from the desk, lightly rubbing the tips of her fingers in Nina's hair, "but if they treated me to lunch, I wouldn't be able to get all these files sorted for tomorrow."

"Is it interesting at all?" the shorter of two brunettes tossed her woven hair over her shoulders.

It had been just the two of them for the last ten minutes or so. Not long before that she had spent her time entertaining three office women. The other two had both been mothers, where as the 'office maid' didn't consider herself old enough to start a family. Nina loved how the two mothers fawned over her. She loved the attention. She loved how they re-tied the two bows in her hair, how they praised her for keeping her white gloves, shoes and shoulder purse so clean, and how they did nothing but shower her in praise. 'Nina' loved how she could wrap them up so easily with her smile, and then decorate their behaviour with a bow much larger than the ones at the ends of her hair. They nearly cheered with delight, because with each passing day they would fall in love a little bit more with this little girl as she became more social, more interested, and drift away from the cold, anti-social child she'd started out as. Her laugh made them giddy. Her smile got her everything she asked for. And if she was lucky, her 'innocent' childish inquiries got her information.

The wicked little mage loved her precious magical spell, and she'd cast it over everyone.

Raising her nose in the air in jest, Miss. Dy shook her head, "Your dad's job is interesting, but it's nothing you'd like at all. It's all government things. Personnel reports, cross border relations, negotiation reports, conflict and conflict resolution papers, military authorization paperwork and one or two inquisitions in progress; all sorts of crazy, uninteresting things for your dad and his peers to look at."

"His job is really that boring?"

"Not really," dropping a stack of empty files on an adjacent desk of secretarial and operational mish-mash, the elder of the two little women gave a shrug, "he gets to meet all sorts of neat people, he gets the chance to go to interesting places, he gets lots of neat things and lots of people look up to him to boot. Even if the muscles in his arms aren't that strong, he's still a powerful man!"

Nina laughed, "I like that. That's nice he lets you help so much."

"Well," sliding back into her desk, Miss Dy grinned sheepishly, "I don't help him directly, but I help the people who help him directly. Make sense?"

A slow nod came about in response and the child transitioned her thoughts, "Maybe today he needs more help, he's taking a really long time."

The young secretary tapped her pen against the desk, "Yeah he is, hopefully he doesn't take too much longer." The woman's thoughts drifted away from her work as she smiled back at Nina, her pen finding a resting place in the crease of folded paperwork, "It's nice he takes time out of his day to spend time with you. My dad never invited me out for lunch at work when I was little."

Nina glanced away with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, "He's sleepy all the time after work. Sometimes we read stories but not always."

Lacing her fingers, a mused grin grew into Miss Dy's expression, "And you two have 'tea', that's just really cute."

With an exceedingly affirmative nod, Nina folded her arms across her chest, "Tea and cookies."

The secretary gave a laugh, finding the whole story simply darling, "And you like tea, Nina?"

Slowly her head tilted, opening her lips to spill some perceived honesty, "No, but we add honey and it tastes lots better."

The woman couldn't hold her giggles at the comment, amused by the family setting she painted in her mind.

Childishly, the girl's face contorted again, "And I'm thirsty just waiting today. Tea's usually almost finished by now."

"I know," standing up again, Miss Dy, stepped away from the confines of her desk, "I need to fill my coffee cup, so why don't I snag you a glass of water while I'm at it?"

"Really!" her eyes widened with delight, a favourite tactic that worked so well.

The woman's hand landed over the doorknob, pushing it open as she looked back over her shoulder with the wink of her right eye, "Of course, I'll be right back, okay? And if your dad comes by, all the better."

"Thanks Miss Dy!"

"Hang tight."

The thin covering of bangs across her forehead shivered as a light breeze blew through the room upon the closing of the door. What an interesting situation Dante's maleficent soul had conjured up. With the grace of an orchestra conductor, the glove-covered, impish hands landed carefully upon one of many curious piles of paper that had befallen the desk of Miss Dy. It wasn't the first time she'd poked her nose into the files of this room, and as she was now, tangible treasure was not something she could dig up as easily as it had been when she stood hip-to-hip with the most powerful man in the parliament. Word of mouth and convenient eavesdropping were effective, but hard evidence was much more reliable. Miss Dy rarely had treasure to begin with, it was the other women she loved courting, but whispers in the wind had yet to deliver information regarding the office's 'one or two inquisitions'.

How curious.

The cotton-covered stubs of fingers slowly flicked through sheets, inwardly cursing at the lack of thin, mauve fingernails that used to flip paper so easily.

"Hello," Dante sweetly greeted the linked chains of tractor fed typewriter paper and swept them out of the pile like a magician. Pinched between her thumb and fingers, childish eyes scanned the numbers, phone numbers, trace-routes, times, dates and codes upon the sheets, "I don't think I'll be needing honey in my tea today."

The three pages were folded four times, and tucked into the zipper'd purse pocket that bounced on her immature hip, beneath a flower petal handkerchief one of the office women had given her. She couldn't have cared less what that woman's name had been.


The mystery was lost.

So many of life's mysteries go by the wayside as you grow older, but this one had been a fancy Winry hadn't acknowledged since she'd been a little girl sitting in her mother's lap, combing through their catalogues.

So this was how wedding dresses and fancy gowns held their volume.

 

The hoop skirt and petticoat had to have been the third most horribly contrived thing that she'd ever put on since coming across the Gate, coming in behind garters and stockings. However, the first was now undoubtedly, unconditionally, absolutely the nearly unbearable 'traditional corset' Patti had laced her into.

"Well," Patricia tapped a finger to her cheek, admiring the finished products standing before her, "I think you two look darling."

"Your grandfather is insane, Patti," Edward replied flatly, exchanging a glance with Winry as the two stood at the middle of the room.

"Edward Elric, be nice," the mother's moderately stern words drew a childish, sulking expression to his face and left Winry with the giggles. Gathering up the loose ends of her costume experiments, Patricia bundled the belongings in her arm and turned to the next room, "my grandfather is a very vibrant and colourful man; he's a lot of fun to be around."

"Uncle Edderd!"

The name never ceased to make Winry giggle or Ed shake his head.

The child tugged on his cape until he handed out the undivided attention she desired. Crouching down to an easier level for the girl, Ed pulled on a grin for the little girl while the mother quietly slipped herself out of the room.

"Do you have a toot?"

The question sunk Edward, "A what?" he quickly glanced up to Winry who could only give a wide eyed shrug at the question.

"What's a 'toot'?" he couldn't help but surrender to the absurd question, momentarily wishing the girl's mother would return to play translator.

The child's face wrinkled horribly, "Like in my book. Mummy reads the book!"

Ed's facial expressions were just as liquid as Margaret's and again he contorted with the confusing question.

Bound too tightly to come down to either of their levels, Winry joined in the conversation from above, "Which book does Mommy read to you?"

"Piper book!" the little girl chirped.

"… Piper book…?" Winry's gaze cast to the ceiling in thought.

"Pied Piper?" Ed cocked an eyebrow.

"Yes!" if the girls head had not been so tightly affixed to her body, she would have tossed it across the room from her nod, "I liked Pie Piper!"

Winry couldn't allow such a foreign conversation right beneath her nose to go unquestioned, "What's a Pie Piper?"

Ed gave a laugh, rising to his feet once again, "Pied Piper. It's a children's story book."

"What's it about?" even if it was a children's story, it wasn't a story that was part of Winry's childhood and she was captivated by the mystery children's tale.

"I tell!" the little girl bounced, her tiny hands grabbing onto the front of Winry's dress as the two people towering over her looked on, "there are bad mice in all sorts of places that don't go away. The Pie Piper comes and dances and toots and the mice go far away. That's Pie Piper."

"Yeah, it goes something like that I guess," Ed's brow quickly rose at the bare-bones summary of information, "Margaret, did you want to know if I had a 'flute'?"

Like there had never been any doubt, Margaret nodded, "Uh huh, I said that. Froot."

After a moment of consideration and a glance to Winry for some insight, Edward's face slowly blanked, "Why would I have a flute?"

"Because!" once again, Margaret bounced with untamed exuberance, "Uncle Charles says you're Pie Piper!"

For all that Winry didn't know and didn't understand about a piper who scared away mice with pies and flutes, she understood enough to recognize when the ceiling of patience and tolerance that teetered delicately above Edward's head had come crashing down around them.

"He said what?"

Winry glanced between her suddenly boiling companion and the completely unaware child, who was astoundingly oblivious and unfazed by Ed's sudden flare of discontent.

"He says if I ask you can play froot and dance like Pie Piper!" a delightfully hopeful voice squeaked.

A recently filed fingernail, once chipped and torn from hours of woodwork and construction, scratched lightly at Winry's temple. Strangely enough, her blissful ignorance of the story helped her tune out the unease caused by the boiling kettle of annoyance standing next to her. Winry's fingernail continued to scratch at her temple, wishing that Dr. Wilson's teasing didn't have the power to turn Ed into a walking time bomb, but thankful Ed's manners behaved well enough to remain somewhat composed in front of a toddler.

"… He said I'd do what?" the restraint holding Ed together sent a quiver through his voice.

Clearing her throat, Winry stepped into the conversation, hoping she could keep Ed from bearing fangs in front of the poor child, "Margaret, your Uncle Edward doesn't have a flute, so he's not this piper's pie. Would you go tell your uncle that?"

For Margaret, it was as though she'd been told she couldn't cuddle the neighbourhood stray, and with hints of whining protest, the child's lower lip grew a little larger, "But Uncle Edderd looks like Pie Piper."

When it came right down to it, all Winry really wanted to do was laugh at the absurd sounding situation. Ed was acting no more mature than his pint-sized admirer and, besides that, what did mice and pie have to do with it anyways?

"I am not dressed as the Pied Piper, Margaret," Ed snorted, holding his disdain at the back of his throat.

Winry wondered if Edward even realized how futile an argument with a two-year-old was.

"But Uncle Charles told people you're Pie Piper!"

With his right eye twitching, Ed's voice rose where his rage could not, "You know, if I had a flute, I know who's ass I'd sho—"

"ED!" Winry's hand slapped over his mouth before he could go any farther, quickly ending Edward's side of the debate, "now listen Margaret, Uncle Charles is a very funny man who likes to tell funny stories that aren't always true. So, listen to Aunty Winry when she says that you should go tell Uncle Charles that both Uncle Edward and Aunty Winry don't think calling Uncle Edward names is very nice, okay? And if he has a problem with that, tell him to come talk to Aunty Winry and I'll set him straight, okay?"

"Okay I go talk to Uncle Charles about Uncle Edderd, Aunty Winny, and Pied Piper now okay?" the child had nearly vanished before her last words had reached anyone's ears.

Winry's hand slipped graciously off Edward's face, realizing the lid was teetering on his mental teapot, "Okay..."

"And we came to England WHY?" the disgruntled voice blurted out with a hefty sigh.

"Ed," Winry's tone dropped flat, matching his simmering temper with a mildly annoyed gaze, "as I see it, being called names by a child can't be that bad."

The snap of his hair couldn't keep up with the sudden shake of the head Edward gave, "That's not the point, Winry."

"No Ed, I got the point, I just don't see how it could possibly be that bad. While some child is running around calling you some pie and flute peddler, I'm stuck in this dress, bound so tight that I can barely breathe. My everything is going to hurt tomorrow. You got off easy. So, unless you want to trade outfits and wear the corset…?"

With the snap of her tongue, the angry mechanic had diffused the teapot, "That's alright, I'll pass."

Taking up two huge handfuls of fabric in each hand, Winry hiked her dress up off the floor, turned on her heels and marched out of the room, "Don't you dare bitch around me tonight. Smile, be nice, and pat the little girl on the head once in a while."


Even by three in the afternoon, the sun still hovered boisterously above the landscape. Accosted by the radiant yellow ball above the earth, a forgotten inlet in a subsidiary road laid lifeless; nothing but cooked dust, littered with crumbling, wooden buildings. Before a long forgotten and obviously neglected gasoline stop, two dressed-down figures loitered around a precariously perched, but quite functional, telephone stand.

The suns rays were quite entertained by the two figures doting on the dust covered communication box. An hour earlier, the yellow annoyance in the sky had tumbled down from above and strangled the radiator of the car the two figures had occupied. And now, after an hour's walk, and almost another hour of pacing in the sand, this poor metal box had became the recipient of a vicious, vulgar tongue.

By the afternoon, the sun had done a marvelous job of boiling Mustang's frustration. The radiator had lit the aura engulfing him, the long walk heated the pot, and it had been the forty-five minutes he'd spent with his forehead resting against the filthy, metallic phone box attempting to get through to Central that boiled things over.

"This is fucking ridiculous…" Mustang's finger twitched.

He hadn't heard a human's voice since he'd originally dialed in.

"I have extra change if you need to plug the phone again…"

Riza sat at the side of the crumbling, asphalt road, any signs of tire tracks, horse hooves, carriage wheels or life had been buried beneath the dust that covered the path.

"Why do we play funeral music for the hold music?"

"Is it our own funeral?" it took the palms of both Riza's hands to wipe the perspiration from her face, "Sorry Sir, I don't have that kind of change."

Mustang's eyebrow twitched like his fingers did, "It'll be Havoc's funeral if he keeps running up the telephone bill."

Riza frowned, her arms draped over her drawn up knees, "I would still like to know why our last telephone conversation went the way it did. Lieutenant Havoc locked himself up in code, I'm impressed we were even able to find our way out here. It's not like him to convolute things so much."

"Major," Mustang's brow lowered in thought, "you were the one who supported the use of various degrees of telephone code during missions."

She nodded, not disagreeing with her superior officer, "I know I did, but I did not expect to translate a conversation with Lieutenant Havoc."

"Taking into account who Brigitte is and the things she had in her possession, and then the show Lieutenant Ross put on for the procedure, I have no doubt he was moving cautiously."

Riza's head shook lightly while her fingers moved over her brow, sliding stray, blonde hairs aside. Her thoughts were at an impass, stuck on an unexplainable situation, "Have we ever found out how this child ended up in the care of the most highest ranking official, or why he gave her up without a legal battle?"

One of many frustrated sighs escaped in Mustang's breath, somewhat frustrated by that, and many other questions that he could only theorize and hypothesize answers for, "I doubt he realized her impact. The child is product of a level of alchemy I'm not even comfortable with, let alone familiar with. The Prime Minister is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a master of alchemy."

Defying the sun, that had brought her to the roadside to begin with, Riza rose to her feet, dusting off the jeans that had been rolled up to her knees, "But if we decide that the girl crossing this 'Gate' is no longer theory, but fact, how did she wind up there? Someone must have known and someone should be held accountable," turning with her thoughts, the Major's strides took her out towards the dry, open fields, "I can't believe she could have appeared out of thin air and had no one notice – especially if the first certain location of this girl's existence is the Prime Minister's residence."

Mustang shifted his weight from left foot to right, running his free hand through sweat-dampened hair, "Alphonse has no idea how she got here, the first time he saw her was in the family courtyard."

"What about the possibility that she is simply a homeless child?"

"We don't forget it, but the type of information we've stacked up against the option has me-"

Mustang stopped mid sentence, his shoulder's relaxing in relief of the welcomed sound of a ring tone, "Finally…"

It was eerie, Riza suddenly realized, how nothing more came from her superiors lips. Her heat stricken gaze peeked over her shoulder to the disturbing, slit-eyed look Mustang wore, his lips cracked open in confusion, his gaze locked in the corner of his sockets as he attempted to see the receiver pressed against his ear.

She didn't speak, Mustang's left hand rose for her silence as he attempted to steady the situation, debating if a sound would eventually emanate from his lips. Echoing faintly from the receiver at his ear, 'hello' came across not once, but twice, before the brigadier general ended the conversation with the slow and methodical replacement of the earpiece on its cradle.

The beads of sweat running free over her forehead took a new course as her blonde brow tightened, "… Sir?"

"Major, what might be the reason Hakuro is seated at my desk?"

"Pardon?" blue eyes widened without concern for the flood of daylight around her.

"Sitting at my desk, answering as though it were his department?"

Hawkeye straightened her posture, holding dialogue within her superior's gaze as the dual sets of eyes rushed to dissect what little information had suddenly arose.

Mustang was the first to bristle, throwing his gaze down the road they'd walked along over an hour ago, "It's simply quicker to walk than to wait for the radiator to cool at dusk. It would take too much time to find a well in what's left of this town."

"Do we head back to Central tomorrow, Sir?" Riza rolled away the stiffness in her legs and arms from the hour of lethargical lingering.

Taking his first, frustrated strides back towards a lake house, buried behind the sanctuary of wilderness greenery, Mustang did not respond to the question.


Left foot over right foot, stutter step, slide – at least no one could see her feet if she missed a step on the dance floor; this floor-length, flowing gown with it's sparkling headdress and tightly bound torso was more like a device than an article of clothing. Corset, stockings, wires, sleeves, layers combined with balance and coordination were going to put her in the hospital by the end of the night, she was certain of it.

The party was nice, the atmosphere was pleasant, the people were courteous, and for some reason everyone touched her hair and commented on her eyes. Winry'd found that had happened in Germany too, but could never understand why. However, she enjoyed the atmosphere in London, it was nothing like she'd experienced in Germany – that place had her frightened, though she found herself at a loss when it came time to convey that. For the time being, she was determined to enjoy London to the best of her ability; though, her enjoyment suffered a blip whenever Patricia pulled the strings on her costume to keep it from sliding too far down.

Catching someone's cry of Edward's name, Winry tried to look past her current dance partner's shoulder, attempting to catch a glimpse of what gave her non-participatory escort cause to roll his eyes.

"Edward Elric?"

"Oh, hey…"

The woman, bundled in one of the more elaborate dresses of the evening, swept her way over to him. The reaction on Edward's face would remain static while inwardly he cringed: this was the sixth person tonight that he could remember the face of, but not their name or where he should have known them from. From his chair at one of the many round, white cloth covered tables spread out around the hall, Ed turned to face the approaching sound.

"Oh my goodness," the older woman, her moderately aged face wrinkled wherever her smile created a crease, greeted him with a delight that he could only sheepishly reciprocate. He'd never bothered to become acquainted with many of the people his father socialized with, or his neighbours, or many of the Hyland family's extending family and friends. Back then he hadn't been interested, he had not been ready or able to accept the world he'd been unceremoniously deposited in.

"It's so good to see you again, you know, I think I may have heard rumblings that your family was in town but I don't think I gave the stories much merit. My goodness, what a striking costume you've come in! I'm not sure if it's your age or the costume that has you looking so much older," the woman took his hand as Edward rose to his feet. He was absolutely certain it was not the costume giving her that impression; he felt like a circus clown.

"Well," he skittered around the greetings all together, "my father and I dropped in somewhat unannounced."

"Is your father attending the party?" the woman shone with delight that dug out an uneasy laugh from Edward, "I haven't seen him since the minister's luncheon years ago."

Scratching his cheek, Ed took a glance out onto the dance floor, "Yeah, he's out dancing with someone last time I checked… but I don't see him."

"What a lovely thought. I'm going to take a gander out on the floor. Would you tell your father I say hello if we don't cross paths tonight?"

"Definitely," it was a foolish, obligatory grin he extended to her as she swept away.

Without a chance to position himself back in the seat he'd happily occupied, a hand gripped around his upper arm.

"I think I've danced with everyone but you," Winry quipped.

"I don't dance."

"Including your father!"

Regardless of the interference, Ed sat down, "You're not going to win. I'm not dancing."

"Come on Ed, humour me," Winry's arms flopped around childishly in protest.

His eyes suddenly narrowed, "How much have you had to drink?"

"I have no idea," her hands landed on her hips in whimsical defense, "nearly all the nice gentlemen I've danced with have bought me something. No one seems to care that I'm not old enough for most of it."

Ed snorted, giving a his head a shake, "That's because they all have their eyes on the girl with the long blonde hair and crystal eyes."

"My eyes. Are. Blue," with her gaze tossed to the ceiling, Winry spoke as though she'd just announced that not only were her eyes blue, but the sky was as well.

A moment of silence between the two inflated like a balloon, and finally Winry glanced back down. Her head tilted like a curious child, perplexed as to why Edward's face was buried in his hand.

"Ed?"

"Go outside!" he laughed, lifting his head and catching Winry entirely off guard, "go outside, get some air, clear your head and then come back."

Wrinkling her nose, Winry's exaggerated movements zoned in on the giggling companion, "Why should I do that and will you dance with me after I come back?"

"Because it'll do you some good to get fresh air and no I won't."

"Thomas is right," she blurted out, spinning on her heels, "you are a spoil sport. I hope that chair is the most uncomfortable chair in the whole building."

"Take deep breaths."

"Whatever!"

"You know…"

The third voice into their conversation made Ed jump, and his attention shot up to Patricia, who took her own startled step backwards at the sharp reaction her voice had caused.

"Sorry…"

"Stop that," Edward dropped the words before he'd thought far enough ahead to stop himself.

"… Stop what?" the woman drew a concerned look into her expression.

It was too late now, and Ed chose one of the many things he wished she would cease doing, "Stop saying you're sorry for everything. You don't need to apologize to me for anything."

The response was far more uplifting than he could have hoped and the concern he'd had about making that request from her fell off his shoulders as she laughed.

"Very well then, Mr. Elric," her voice always seemed free of burden when she laughed, "I want to thank you very much for the birthday wishes and nice gift the three of you came with for my Grandfather. He was so delighted with seeing you and your father again, as I'm sure he mentioned to you," she again found her words caught up in controlled giggles while watching Edward shake his head and look away. In the middle of the few moments of conversation he'd held with the jovial, old man, Margaret had jumped in to make sure her great grandfather knew that Edward was dressed as the Pied Piper. All privy to the conversation laughed with approval, and he could have strangled something.

"It was very thoughtful indeed, but I do think you should dance with someone on the floor before the night is through."

"And I'm thinking otherwise," Ed's gaze quickly found its way to a window, not wanting to get locked into any sort of agreement brought on by any woman's pleading gaze.

But the giggles never seemed to dull, which tickled Edward's ear more than anything. From the corner of his eye he glanced back to the giggling voice, unable to resist the sound.

"You know what I've always wondered about you Edward, where you picked up that strange accent you speak with."

Edward's expression blanked, "My what?"

"You don't really speak with an English accent, it's not a Scottish or Irish one, nor is it an American one. It's almost sounds like you've learnt the language second hand, and you speak with the accents of your mother tongue, but I know English is your first language. I've just always found that fascinating about your mannerism and the way you speak."

Finding himself unable to conjure up a response to the comment, Ed simply straightened around in his chair.

"Your father speaks with such a nice, refined English, but you've always been so strange. And then you introduced Winry, and I was astounded – there was yet another person who spoke Edward English! Everyone's enjoyed listening to her tonight, I'm glad you brought her to visit."

The sheepish grin found its way back into Edward's face, but it was far less contrived than the one he'd had throughout the night, "I'm glad everyone's enjoying having her around, I didn't realize we spoke that differently from everyone."

Patricia had mastered the art of crouching in the bundled dress she adorned, and sunk down below eye level with the seated man. Her delighted expression never faded, "Do all your friends from your youth talk like you two do?"

It was so rare for Patti to allow him to look into her expression without the flickers of the woman's unease that he used to see in her years ago, and that made it all the more impossible to deny her: 'they probably do.'

No, it simply made it easy.

And that was all her inquiring mind wanted to know from the man who didn't feel like mingling with the rest of the party during the dancing hours.

Still giggling, Patti rose to her feet and stepped away to make her exit from the conversation, "It was just something that's always struck me. And just to state the point again, when Miss Rockbell comes back, you should take her up on the dance floor! She thinks you're sulking."

Like a riled kitten, Ed frazzled, "Patti, I really don't-!"

"I'm not sorry I brought it up!"

The woman's interjection came as she turned away from the conversation entirely, and Edward remained sitting alone at the chair next to one of the many round tables in the rented out hall. For no reason he could explain, he found himself laughing again.


Izumi had known, full well, how long Mustang had been behind her on the top stair of the backyard porch. She could almost count it down to the second. Bathed in a twilight of powerful pinks and royal purples, the teacher would not invite the man behind her to engage in conversation. For the most part, she didn't care for his presence to begin with. She begrudgingly accepted his presence as a person Alphonse trusted, and little more.

He had been, after all, a State Alchemist; regardless if the alchemist title was listed in the military ranks or not. A Dog of the Military.

Mustang was as much a stubborn mule as she was - it was a great impasse in their 'business-only' relationship. He continued to stand behind her, aware that his presence was known, but fully expecting the woman to eventually turn around and address him. She must know by now that he was standing out there for a reason, and this woman loved to question his reason.

Izumi said 'right', Mustang wanted 'left'.
Mustang said 'go', Izumi announced 'no'.
One said 'do this', the other said 'do that'.

It was an infuriating and endless contradiction of events, despite the moments when the alchemists within them could draw common ground for conversation; their applications of principles and ideas took divergent paths.

The treatment of Brigitte was the most controversial. Mustang wanted the mystery of the child's world solved before the mystery of Edward, and Izumi was far more interested in the stories the child had to tell, and the links she made to Edward, than the world beyond the Gate from where she feared the child came.

And then Izumi's bitterness towards the military set in, and Mustang established the line where he was right and she was wrong – a line Izumi disagreed with. Of all their little battles, this one was the most silent. And to spite their childish battle, the clouds in the sky grew bored, the sun gave up and the world laid to rest, disinterested in the petty strife between two adults.

In the end, it was Mustang who gave the woman this evening's victory, employing a military tactic in which the concession of little strifes could eventually lead to a greater success. He had too much on his mind to fight such a petty war of wits any longer.

"I don't care for whatever secret you're trying to protect. I have no interest in knowing what the Gate is, or how it impacts me, because until I spoke to that young Elric weeks ago I hadn't known it existed. If by this time in my life I haven't learnt about it, then it's not useful to me," the words came out with command, the cross look in his eyes conveyed through the tone of his marching voice, "But you are telling me that it is an omnipresent player in this game we're involved in. I need to know how you know so much about what this Gate is that Alphonse is looking for and that Brigitte may have something to do with."

"You're looking to justify its existence by having me confirm it for you?" the answer Izumi gave came much quicker than Mustang had expected, and the sudden sound of her voice nearly caught him off guard, "To be honest, I know very little about the Gate. I had someone remind me of that recently. And any worth while information I have is second or third hand knowledge."

"Are you pursuing it for first hand knowledge?"

Izumi scoffed, nearly finding herself laughing at the suggestion, "I can't imagine what the cost of first hand 'knowledge' would be. I don't even know if it's first hand knowledge we need or if we can proceed without it."

Mustang's hands came to his forehead. Rubbing his thumbs into his temples, he slowly exhaled the frustration growing in his chest, "I do not understand how you've come to accept that there is an entire world within this Gate where people can exist. Where is the proof of this Gate?"

Her hands gripped the dried, wooden stair as Izumi pushed to her feet. Smoothing the length of her dusted, white jacket, she turned to look up at the officer, her hands falling low on her hips as her mind attempted to reconcile information.

"One," a hand slowly lifted from her hip, "I have seen it. Two, Ed has seen it."

It was not the answer Mustang had anticipated, nor one he had been prepared to receive. There was visual confirmation of this entity's existence? The officer's arms came up slowly, folding across his chest as he listened with the widest ears he'd ever granted his combatant.

"At least three other people have seen it, and one of them was an alchemy specialist I'd known and respected years ago. I didn't realize the enormity of her knowledge until after I'd lost contact with her," her hand lowered to her hip again, Izumi's figure slowly darkened into a silhouette against the shimmering moonlight reflection that bounced off the lake top, "Brigitte's first known location was within the property walls of the Prime Minister's residence. The last known location of this woman I'd once respected was in the Central Market as it exploded."

"Excuse me?" Mustang stepped forward, his arms falling to his sides as he moved.

Izumi's hands rose, stopping the officer where he stood. She was, by no means, finished, "The person I'd spoken within that market had the knowledge and words of this woman I'd once been associated with, a woman who knew far too much about the Gate Al is looking for, but her face had changed. That day, she had face of your Prime Minister's ailing wife."

"Preposterous. She'd changed faces! That's absurd," Mustang was stopping this astoundingly ridiculous story; it had a hole he could drive a truck through. He'd known that woman, if only by association, "No, the woman married to Sebastian Mitchell was the fledgling alchemist assigned to Lieutenant Yoki in Youswell years ago. She is not even old enough to be your peer let alone an alchemy specialist."

It rattled Mustang's cage how Izumi's voice laughed back at him, but it did not mock him. He couldn't pinpoint just what part of her bitter tone seemed to pity him instead. The puppet master's strings wound through a mountain of societal ignorance.

"That's the mistake, Mr. Mustang. My mentor is over four hundred years old."

It would be one of the few moments in history when a marionette would be cut from its strings. This story would keep Mustang's attention wrapped around Izumi's every word. His body was locked in still frame but his mind's eye ran free, fascinated with this new, darkened side of the world suddenly at his disposal beneath the starlit sky.

"Until Lior, she had what were the only shards of Philosopher's Stone left in existence from a horrible moment in time. The Stone allowed her to, among countless other things, transfer her soul from a dying, withering body to another. The alchemy behind it, I'll never know. The methodology behind it, I'll never understand. The inhumanity behind it, I'll never comprehend. But the woman I spoke to in that market was my old mentor, wearing a new guise. I can only imagine why she let me confirm that for my own eyes."

The light from behind one of the curtain-closed windows fell dark, shading out what pale parts of the back porch had once been lit. The wind laid to rest at Izumi's feet, listening with ears wide open, silencing the rustling leaves of the trees that engulfed the lake.

"And she told me that, 'yes', we are indeed mistaken. We don't want anything 'from' the Gate, we want something 'from the other side'. Couldn't Edward Elric be on the 'other side' of the Gate? It bothered me while she spoke, and it was not just her words that did that. She had me thinking back to a poor, young woman from Lior who was the last person to see Ed alive. I thought of the description she'd given me of this unexplainable woman she'd known named Lyra – a woman Ed had known as well. A woman who was there when Ed had died."

There was that part of the story again. A staggering question mark that no one had an answer for, but everyone had to accept as fact: that at one point, Edward Elric had, in fact, died.

"In the end, this faux wife left me to chase some ancient riddle out to Ishibal. I…" Izumi's brow tightened, allowing her voice to vanish. Her mind raced, stumbling through a spider's web of strings woven by a master craftsman, "I have no idea what I found. But, what I found when I came back here was a mystery girl named 'Brigitte', who'd come out from under the same roof where the puppeteer of this deplorable 'Gate' riddle lived."

"Lyra was the name of the woman who'd married the Prime Minister," Mustang's voice carried low, without intrusion, but delivery of fact in the dark of night, "and she passed away before Brigitte arrived."

Izumi's head shook, her teeth running over her bottom lip. Moving forwards, her sandy, bare feet crunched against the wooden stair-planks. Narrowing her eyes to adjust to the pale house light that soon fell over her face, Izumi's gaze drifted back to the officer. She watched him for a moment, the officer's concerns had been ensnared and tossed to sea by the breeze left in her wake.

"Why would a woman hell bent on staying alive for so long allow herself to pass away? And then, days later, a child with information from this storied life beyond the Gate appears in the house she haunted. Dante is free somewhere in that house."

Mustang's thoughts lay atop the lake like a fresh shipwreck, resting dead in the calm after an unforeseen storm. The male voice finally stepped in, the depth of his concern seeping back into corners he'd been in earlier that day, "She's a puppeteer, you say?"

"A master."

"She's running her strings through my office," with a pattern he could not control and a performance he could not direct.

Izumi's hair bounced over the back of her neck as she turned back into the house. The screen door scratched along it's runners as she opened it, dislodged to a point where it was too much struggle to properly set it on its tracks.

For each string cut, ten more were woven. And all Izumi had to do was look over at Brigitte, sprawled out on the living room floor in her night shirt and shorts to realize she still had no answers to any of the 'whys'.


"And he was very nice to me when we were dancing, because my feet didn't always know which way to go, and he said that was okay."

A sloppy trudging of feet clattered along the road as Winry's sentences ran on one into another. Though, Edward found his path to be slightly more in line with the direction they'd been heading. He made his way along behind her, his hand buried deep within his jacket pocket and shoulders drawn up to keep the lobes of his ears warm with the collar of his jacket.

"And after the song finished, he told me my dancing was good even though that was the biggest lie anyone had told me all night. Then we went over and he asked me what I might like to drink, I told him he could choose for me because how would I know what these people drink here. He had that nicely dressed bartender pour me this drink of something and said it had Vodka in it. Ed, please tell me what Vodka is because more than one person drank it I think."

Along an untouched street, two sets of footprints left a path in a thin bed of lightly fallen snow. The powder continued to drift carelessly down around the two pedestrians walking without care for common street sense. The flakes played beneath the lamplight that lined the sides of the road, uninterrupted by most life that should have been sound asleep at this 2AM hour.

Without wind, and without the nasty, bitter bite of cold that had come and gone since they had arrived, Ed and Winry chose to take the 40 minute walk to Dr. Wilson's flat, as opposed to imposing on any of the overly-intoxicated lingering partygoers. It had taken a bit of time to sort through the disaster of garments that had accidentally exploded from the constant coming and goings of attendants, but they had found their own clothing and were finally able to free themselves from all the constraints they'd put up with for the evening. Bundled in their coats and decorated in borrowed mitts and hats, they had made their way through a slumbering city.

Though, it was not exactly a quiet stroll.

"It's a Russian alcohol. Did you like it?"

"No, it was disgusting," Winry tossed her loose hair over her shoulders as she swung her body about in rejection of the drink, "but everyone else seemed to and I drank it anyways to be polite. You know it started to taste better after I'd had it a few times; either that or I got used to how bad it tastes. I can't imagine why everyone willingly orders something so nauseating, I don't understand it at all."

Again Ed bobbed his head, "It's an acquired taste."

"Nearly all of the drinks people gave me had some additive that tasted bad. They seem to have a lot of these 'acquired tastes'," Winry's sentences ran on in single breaths, "like their taste in clothing. I cannot figure out how all those women WILLINGLY wore those dresses. I was horrified when I found out that it was actually fashion."

"You sure didn't like that dress…"

"I'd never been so happy to be naked in all my life."

Ed's hand escaped his pocket slapped over his face.

"You know what else I noticed Ed," he figured it was Winry's hundredth analysis of the night, the vast majority coming to light in the last 20 minutes, "I am the only person who calls you 'Ed', everyone says 'Edward'. There has not been a single person in London and I don't think too many in Germany who called you 'Ed'. Why does everyone call you 'Edward'?"

Giving a slow exhale into the sub zero air, Ed watched as his white breath slowly dispersed, "I have no idea."

The two walked at a pace that, despite their uneven styles, moved in time with the other. While Winry pranced herself around in disorderly strides, Ed constantly remained a stride or two behind, finding that his constant pace somehow never fell behind or overtook Winry's path.

"Ah!"

The exaggerated finger point of the intoxicated flatmate caught Ed's attention.

"At the end of the block, that's Mr. Wilson's, isn't it?"

Indeed, beyond this crossroad of North to South and East to West was the house; unlit in the silent night, lightly dusted in this powder white like all its neighbours. Tight family dwellings lined the path to it, and the path from it. The left side of the street seemed to mirror the right and the place at the end of the street had nothing to distinguish itself from the rest in that block.

"Yeah."

Crushing the fine dusting of snow beneath her feet, Winry spun on her toes to face the straggler, "Before we go home Mr. Elric, I want to make sure you know that I am disappointed you didn't dance with me, or anyone else for that matter."

"I don't dance, Winry," he said with the shake of his head.

"I'm also disappointed that you haven't said more than four words to me since we left. You say 'yeah' or 'that's nice Winry' or give some generic response to my question. I'm trying to hold a conversation with you and you are almost as unwilling as you were to dance. Are you mad at me? Did something set off the great alchemist Edward Elric?"

"I'm listening."

The response was frank and given not as a response to the question, but as a statement of fact.

"What was the last thing I said?" came the challenge beneath the nearly weightless whiteness floating down around them.

"That I'm ignoring you."

"Before that."

"That everyone calls me Edward."

"… Before that!"

Ed sighed, "You asked about Vodka."

"Why are you listening?" Winry tossed the question into the air, suddenly more confused over why he was listening than not ignoring her.

The longer Ed took to respond, the longer his gaze was lost in the street, examining the darkened windows beyond which people slept, the more Winry realized why it took him so long to respond.

Ed glanced over his shoulder, examining the haphazard path they'd woven to end up at such a crossroad, "You know, Al and I used to walk for hours. Sometimes it felt like days. Al talked constantly, he loved to hear the sound of his own voice – he said it made him feel real. Oddly enough, this side of the Gate is so much louder than ours, but no one says anything I really want to hear, can relate to, or even care about, so I just ignore it.  The conversations that go on between points A and B are usually a waste of my time - full of nothing but noise that I normally don't want to listen to."

Winry's hands, tucked away in the blue and white knit mittens she had borrowed, held onto the jacket buttons high at her chest, her arms folded in front of her body for warmth. Silent, beneath the sky floating freely around her and surrounded by the flickering streetlights, Winry had been granted a position in life that Alphonse and Edward had always been worried about letting her have. She looked back at the man who spoke in the most backwards way, and despite an endless night of alcohol, she slowly translated a profound compliment.

"Didn't you want to go on a walk?"

"I did?" She blinked at Ed's sudden statement.

He nodded, "Back in Germany. You said you wanted to go for a walk somewhere and find something different."

Winry's brow rose as Ed's hand lifted and chose a street path that was neither the way they came nor the way they should have headed.

"We can walk that way for a while if you like."

"Alright."

What Winry could not get out of the conversation, and what the bubbling intoxication prevented her from getting near, was how that walk had gone from A to B with Edward's ear locked into the conversation at hand and not trapped in his own thoughts, feverishly thrashing about in the dead of night, searching for, but terrified to find something - anything. He'd been balancing so dangerously on edge, and he knew it had shown up in his temperament, and it had nearly drowned him in exhaustion not long ago. He either slept endlessly, or not at all; his minds eye was cruel to him.  His imagination was worse, because it had fuel from atrocities he'd seen and experienced first hand.  Then, there were all of the 'what if's.

But, this.

This had been the most enjoyable conversation he hadn't taken part in. Time in his life not wasted, but taken away by a voice that was almost as familiar as his own, going on and on about nothing at all. Without reason, in a place he didn't like, but didn't fear either, Winry's voice had lifted away the worries he'd carried on his back.

As far as Edward was concerned they could walk around the block until the sun came up.


To Be Continued...


Notes:

A whole year passed between the previous chapter and this. I, uh, moved to Japan and now I'm back ^^;;

If I do any temperature referencing, I'm doing so in Celsius.

Legal drinking age in England was 14 until 1923. Nobody tell Winry she's not getting away with anything haha.

Chapter 24: Nobody's Heroine

Summary:

Mustang gets frustrated with how far in the dark he's being kept, while Winry sets off on a mistaken adventure.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

With a dull thump, the bundle of dirty clothes landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairwell. Taking clumps of fabric into each hand, Winry hiked up her dress as she stomped down the stairs. Having gone searching through the suitcases for a pair of missing socks, she had unearthed the weekend attire that had been ignored on Sunday by everyone but her. That Sunday morning after the party she had been the first one to take a shower, the first one to dress, the first one to wash her clothes and the first one to kick the rest of the house into existence. She felt fine, so why were they ignoring life?

Hohenheim had given a hearty laugh when Ed balked at Winry's cheerful 'hung-over' demeanour.

On Monday morning, Winry'd come to the sad realization that no man in this house had done any laundry. Why did she get the feeling she was going to be the one to take care of this? Like hell she was going to do their laundry. They were all over twenty, two of them were old enough to be her father, and they could do it themselves.

But, she'd give them a subtle reminder to behave like mature adults by leaving it in the middle of the floor.

As for this particular day, she was a little bit annoyed with Ed's morning behaviour. He'd gone out and told her to stay behind. She sincerely hated how it felt like she was being treated like a child not old enough to cross the street. He was just going to the district market, for goodness sake. It was a short drive from the Wilson house, and she could walk there in under half an hour – heck it might not even take 20 minutes.

Maybe he just wanted some time to himself. That's understandable, but maybe it was the tone of voice was using. He'd been doing it far too often lately, and even though she understood what brought it out, she wished he wouldn't use his commanding tone on her. The world was not as scary as he wanted her to think!

Winry scowled at the pile of laundry in the middle of the floor.

Don't you dare touch that, Winry Rockbell; you are not a maid or a house wife.

There wasn't enough time for her to conjure up something else to focus on before an external force answered her plea for a change of activity. Grinning, she narrowed an eye at the ringing telephone at the end of the hallway.

Reaching a fine hand down to grab the receiver, Winry suddenly stopped.

Wait, what do I say? 'Thank you for calling Dr. Charles Wilson's, Winry speaking.'? That sounds secretarial and contrived.

Winry glanced around quickly as the phone continued to ring.

If I just say 'hello' they might hang up, because no one knows who I am. Phone calls can't be cheap, whoever is calling won't want to talk to someone they don't know for too long if they think it's a wrong number.

Twice more, the ringing bell of the rotary telephone sounded and Winry stared down at the noisy black device trying to get her undivided attention. She reached out her hand to grab it…

Her head suddenly dropped, as did her hand, when she realized that she'd let the phone ring until it had gone silent.

"Dammit!"

She spun on her heels, an eye viciously narrowed at the pile of clothes in the middle of the floor. She would kick it across the room if it would make her feel better. With blazing annoyance at herself and the dirty, stinking laundry, she thundered back towards the mess, only to find herself scrambling back to the telephone as it began ringing once again.

Winry fumbled the handset in her fingers as she snatched it up, finally slapping it to her ear, "Um… Charles Wilson's home, Winry speaking!"

Well, it was going to sound strange no matter how she answered the phone.

"Hello?"

Winry's reaction softened as she glanced at the phone piece in her hand, unprepared to hear a little boy's voice coming through the other end.

"Excuse me?"

"Hi, this is Winry," she adjusted the tone of voice to something much more fitting for a child's world than an adult's.

"Hello this is Harold, I'm with the General Post Office. I would like to know if there is an Edward Elric at the address for this phone number."

Pausing, Winry tried to associate an age to the voice. The boy couldn't have been more than ten years old. What was he doing working at a post office?

"Yes there is, but he's not home right now, can I take a message?"

Wait a minute. Why is there a package for Ed?

"Yes please, Ma'am."

She shuddered, something about the way the boy said 'Ma'am' made her feel like the child's grandmother. Other people called her Ma'am, but it felt more stylish like 'Madame'. This little boy's words were just painful.

"Can you tell him that there is a package for him at the district post office? We will hold it for two weeks before discarding it."

Lost in confusion, Winry gave an affirmative response to the child, dearly hoping that Ed knew where that was and how to get there. Yet the more she thought about it, the more questions she had for this poor child.

"Is it normal for visitors to receive phone calls telling them they've gotten packages?"

"No, Ma'am, but my supervisor asked me to call. The gentleman who dropped it off made the request that it be picked up rather than delivered and printed the phone number on the package."

That was odd. Then again, this could be perfectly normal for this world. She had no idea either way, but pushed a little more, "Who's the package from?"

"I apologize Ma'am, but I didn't see the person who left it at our outlet. Perhaps it's fragile. I apologize if it's a great inconvenience. It can be delivered if you request."

"Well, it's not an inconvenience, I don't think," Winry scratched her head, mulling over the conversation, "but if we have two weeks, knowing Ed we'll be in there today if not tomorrow. Can you tell me who the sender is?"

A pause came, and she could hear the boy fumble with something; assumingly it was the package, "There isn't one, Ma'am."

The answer caught Winry off guard and again she left the young man dangling in her silence. A mystery package? With no sender? For Ed?

"Okay, thanks for the call. We'll be by to pick it up."

"Have a good afternoon!"

The call ended at that, and Winry found herself standing in the hall, staring at the silent, black handset that had given her today's great mystery. This was far more interesting than waiting around to bark at Ed to clean his clothes.

Dropping the handset down into its cradle, Winry darted back through the house, ascending the staircase in record time. She may not know where the post office was, but she knew Ed was in the market, and if she knew Ed, he'd want that package from a mystery sender before everything closed at four. It was only half past one that afternoon, and there was still plenty of time.


In a hall, flooded in coarse black, beneath the burning spotlight crushing down from above, the exact location of individuals and where their voices came from was uncertain. Each distinct voice hid within the vast echo, but their power, their ferocity, and their prowess was unmistakable.

It was true; actors besieged by spotlights could not see their audience.

Stern, broad shoulders held the weight of the mammoth light at bay, as Lieutenant Havoc found his hand twitching, unable to fondle his favourite cigarette between his lips, let alone his fingers.

By now it must have been the fourth hour he'd sat there, upon a sorry excuse for a wooden stool. He'd never caught much scuttlebutt about internal military interrogations, but he was on his way to being the focal point of the one developing around him. Certainly, there were lies that he had to hold in trust, fabricated for the safety of many people that he held in far greater regard than anyone in this room; however, it was the insults upon his life, his person, and his family that caused his jaw to grind. The constant assault set up to trip his tongue had slowly worn at his patience.

The missing Market Place reports, Klose and her father's missing statements, the unknown location of Brigadier General Mustang and Major Hawkeye, and the bizarre paperwork that lead to Broche's transfer came up endlessly. The private investigation into Izumi and the disclosure of Winry had become a hot topic early, and did nothing but hinder his credibility and inflame the words thrown at him. It was annoying, if not infuriating, how his interrogators seemed to think he was the best suspect for explaining away Winry. He had, of course, offered the girl a ride to Central Headquarters from the library a fair time before she'd vanished, and that became fuel to create suspicion that he somehow had knowledge of her whereabouts.

Once in a while, a door could be heard as men came and went. Though it was the moments after one particular door closed and silence embedded into the living darkness once again that caught the Lieutenant by surprise.

"Four years, seven months ago, Lieutenant, you led an intimate relationship with the lead switchboard operator on the first floor, Melinda Dy, is that correct?"

"Yes," the response was forthright, still having no idea where the conversation was headed.

The same voice stepped in again, "Your separation was of mutual, reasonable, rational consent, correct?"

"Yes, Sir." Why?

"Did you keep in contact with her after your separation?"

Havoc's eyes narrowed further beneath the light, "I would see her in passing each week. We exchange courtesies. She did run the switchboard, it's not like I could avoi-"

"When was the last time you spoke with her?"

The words in this charade echoed in the dark abyss, "A couple of weeks ago?"

This time, it was a new voice taking up a chord in the chorus of black noise, cutting Havoc's statement short, "And since she stepped away from that position, have you been made aware of her current assignment?"

The entire line of questioning was ridiculous as far as Havoc was concerned. Could they not get to the point? "During decommissioning over the winter, she was removed from the military roster and transferred upon request into Federal Government Services. I'm not aware of her exact position, we've never discussed it," rolling his eyes, his tone filled with exasperation, "she said something about getting more pay."

"Lieutenant, I would request that you provide us with a means of confirming the validity of your telephone records so we may verify your most recent contacts."

It had been the first time in hours where the officer's jaw was loosened by the influx of confusion, "Central Headquarters keeps record of the lines and numbers for incoming and outgoing calls, my telephone records aren't something that my office produces but Communications or the switchboard will be able to provide those."

What an absurd question, why was he being asked to provide phone records? They should have those already. Especially if they suspected that he was not an honours student in the class of honesty. If they were suspicious, they would have expected him to have tampered with them in some way – which was not entirely wrong, but certainly not a part of the bigger issue. Was this some sort of ploy? If so, what could the reason behind it possibly be? The incursion of shifting sheets of paper caught his ear without warning.

Again, the paper shuffle emerged again, and the dark silence had a very ominous sign of life, "Officer, your phone records were recently seized from Communications and placed in the parliamentary division of the highest ranking government officials awaiting review. They were left in trust upon the desk of Assistant Secretary to the Prime Minister, Melinda Dy. Upon request of these documents, Miss Dy could no longer produce your telephone records. Can you explain?"

Had there been a cigarette between his dried lips, it would have tumbled to the cold, cement floor.

They couldn't possibly think… were they making this up? He had nothing to do with this woman, and she owed him nothing. What were they trying to catch him on? Truth or fabrication, the statement was damming. He had no information on this card they played – if it was a bluff how was he supposed to play it? What would it catch him on? But, if this was true, who dipped their hands into the affair? What were they trying to do, incriminate him further?

"Officer, would you care to explain why a woman in association with you would be suddenly unable to produce the necessary documentation?"

If documents that stood for his credibility were missing, Havoc could only assume they were missing to make him a liability within the armed forces. The pieces of a puzzle slowly took the form of a scapegoat.

This time it was Havoc, burning silently beneath the white light, that initiated the sickening silence.

"Lieutenant?"

"I-" harshly, the officer cleared his throat, "I have no idea why Miss. Dy could not produce the telephone documentation you requested. You would have to ask her."

The affirmative response was preempted by silence, a dead tone in the black vortex sucking the air from Havoc's lungs. He might not see daylight again for a long time.


This was stupid.

Completely, utterly, stupid.

Winry could find no other words to describe it all. Sure, a wider search of the vocabulary spectrum might help make the description more colourful, but she was content to curse stupidity.

Her own stupidity.

Frozen, mitt-covered hands patted her ears, hidden by the fur-lined hat that shielded them from the brisk evening breeze. The sun had vanished hours ago. Many hours before that, she should have been home.

She had no idea where she'd gone wrong. The certainty had always been there, with every stride she'd taken – she'd known how to get to the market and how to get back. There was no one around who could explain to her how she'd ended up here, wherever 'here' was.

It was supposed to have been a twenty-minute walk to the market. There was no need for her entire menagerie to accompany her on a simple retrieval mission, mittens and toque were all she needed – she'd left her purse behind. If, for whatever reason, there had been something she needed, Ed would have covered for her. He was really assertive with that, so there was no need.

But, she was supposed to have found him.

Winry dragged her feet along the sidewalk, as she'd done all afternoon and through the evening, looking for some sign of where she could go. What she wanted more than anything was the blinking yellow sign to appear pointing her in the right direction, so she wouldn't have to ask how to find the residence of 'Doctor Charles Wilson' at address unknown.

The crowd had changed gradually, what had once been crowds of business men rushing to make it home to their wives was now a slightly less dense, but more vibrant flock of individuals: friends, couples and colleagues visiting the taverns and evening establishments. She wished nothing more than to have them ignore her, as the business crowd did.

The dense, cold air had sucked the power from her voice while she dangled from wit's end. Maybe it was a blessing that her feet had become so cold in the boots that she barely felt anything below her knees. Hours had passed where every step in these horrible feet-things called 'women's boots' had torn at her feet and ankles. If only she could go barefoot in the snow.

Once again, Winry stood beneath a sign she'd seen in her journey previously: Police. She hadn't stopped in at another station she'd seen – she did not have the courage to admit she'd screwed things up so badly. But, things were different in the late evening, fear won her over and she pushed her way in.

"Good evening," came a male voice.

The nonchalant tone calmed Winry to an extent. Her eyes gazed around the dull facility, probably the most mundane location in the entire sector. Certainly, it didn't look like much of a police location, perhaps it was an outlet or community watch center. The room was unexciting; nothing beyond a trash can by the door, a cluster of chairs at the left wall near a telephone, bulletin boards and notices cluttering the right wall, and the desk plus office space ahead of her.

"Can I help you with something?"

"Um," Winry shuffled herself forwards to the man appearing down the room clad in official attire. The warm, indoor air stung her ears and the tingle made her shiver, "… I think I'm lost."

"A young lady as fair as you can't be too terribly lost around here," the voice finally came to life as Winry reached a busy wooden stand that was more counter than desk, "what's the name of the business you're looking for, Miss?"

"I'm not looking for any business around here. I'm trying to get home."

The initially playful tone of the man old enough to be her father changed to something more parental as he brushed his fingers over a thick, brown mustache, "Were the friends you went out with a little too much for you tonight? You should have looked into arranging transportation home if you were venturing out. Your parents have a telephone, correct? Do you want to call your family?"

"I—" the phone number was in the purse she didn't bring. Winry'd realized that hours ago and chosen to simply disregard the existence of the telephone so she could focus on options available rather than lamenting over ones that were not. "I don't have that with me. I'm staying with a family friend, I'm not from around here…" she couldn't pale, the warm air of the room had been surging into her face, maintaining the thick, heavy pink in her complexion.

"That would explain your peculiar accent," the officer cleared his throat, "who are you staying with?"

"Charles Wilson," she replied

The man laughed, though it was neither soothing, nor comforting; it merely filled the building space where she stood, "You say that as though I should know your companion."

With all her heart, she wished he did.

"London is a bit vaster than the credit you're giving it."

Entirely true, this city was a monster. Winry's feet would have her believe it went on forever.

"What's you're name, dear?"

"Winry Rockbell."

"Wendy Rockbell?"

"Winry, Sir," she shrank into her coat a little, wishing only to curl up and close her eyes in hopes that when she re-opened them, the nightmare would be over. She hurt.

"That is quite possibly the most unique name I've heard for a young lady in ages. Where are you visiting from?"

Winry closed her eyes and provided no answer.

"Miss?"

"… Sweden, maybe."

This story was not rehearsed. There was no 'home town' for her here. She could be explained away in Germany so easily since no one cared where in the English-speaking world she came from. But in the English-speaking world, she was most certainly not from Germany. The opportunity never presented itself for her to concoct a life history – at the time of travel, there were far more important things to worry about with Ed. Those issues aside, the need was not there. She was Edward Elric's companion, a friend of Hohenheim's son - an explanation that satisfied everyone she'd encountered so far.

And the night watchman laughed again. A painful sound that thundered around this hollow space of organization and legality like a pot tossed down a metallic staircase. This wasn't funny at all and there were no truths that could be given to clear the answers she could not give. With every question given came lies or dodges that devastated her credibility. There was no answer for these questions. Where were her parents? What city was she born in? When was her birthday? She had forgotten the year they were using. She was supposed to say she was 17 but she'd answered 16. Her year of birth made her 22.

It would be so easy to simply cry. Make the onslaught stop. She fought with herself to resist this pitiful urge: take the poor-girl's pathetic route and use tears to garner sympathy from a man who would not give it to her. She had done nothing to earn his pity.

"My feet hurt, may I sit down?"

In the middle of the interrogation, the request sputtered from her lips out without a prompt, much like how the feeling below her knees had exploded without warning.

"Take a seat."

Her knees ached as she worked de-thawing joints towards a lowly set of two wooden chairs against the white wall. Winry lowered herself into the seat and pulled her fingers free of the frozen, useless mittens. The soft tips of each digit had already begun to tingle from the warm air within the structure, and she fumbled a bit with the laced binding of her right boot.

She pulled the knee-high stocking off her right leg, exposing the wounded, flushed skin to the fresh air. It felt as though a layer of flesh had been peeled away, and she dropped the stocking to the ground with disgust. Winry cradled the battered and bruised foot upon her other knee, eyeing the damages done by blisters and cold elements. These boots were not industrial, nor were they comfortable or well fitted. Most certainly, the stiff, fabric casing her feet had been locked in were not meant for lengthy use, let alone hours upon hours of walking.

Though the chilled pink colour of her hands and feet were the same shade, her hands couldn't grip the foot to warm it. The chill stung the nerves in her hands and hurt her fingertips far more than the pain she could feel in her feet.

Winry's swept a run-away tear into to the mess growing around her.

Placing the foot back to the floor and moving for her other boot, Winry startled as the officer minding the outlet reminded her of his presence. It was not what she'd expected after the vicious sarcasm he'd thrown around about her minutes earlier. A hand towel landed across an arm and her knee – before it could tumble into the dirty puddle at her feet, Winry caught it. Wayward blue eyes gazed through the bars of fallen hair in her face.

"Wrap your foot and keep it warm. I'll take a peek through our back room for a basin; some warm water would work better than cloths. Take off your coat; we'll hang it for a bit – it'll do you no good to sit around wrapped in something keeping the chill in. I'm certain there's a woolen blanket tucked away somewhere for you. How long did you say you'd been wandering around?"

Winry didn't know if she was supposed to reply and could only manage to fumble uneasily with the cloth handed to her.

"At least answer me that, child," the officer reached for the towel he'd tossed, but recoiled once Winry reacted, "how long have you been outside?"

"It was sometime after noon."

"It might have been wiser of you to have mentioned something about this when you first walked through the door," the officer's sigh reminded Winry of a sound Hohenheim had given Ed more times than she could count, "first, we'll take care of you. I can't have you expiring before I find out why on God's green Earth you're so full of nonsense. Is that agreeable?"

She nodded, uncertain if she could coherently voice gratitude at this point. Standing for a moment, she shed the iced winter coat and turned it over to the authority figure, quickly returning to the damp seat she had occupied.

Despite all of her ill-fated and poorly conceived attempts at foolish deception, the solitary individual in charge of this little space in the world left a warm handprint on her shoulder as he passed her and vanished into the hall beyond. Winry wrapped her arms around her stomach as she sat in silence. Her ears listened for anything – a clock, people outside, the officer in the back – but heard nothing beyond what clatter she caused herself.

Curling forwards, Winry placed her forehead upon her knees and waited for the companion to return.


"The sooner we head back to Central, the better," Riza quickly turned her glance over to her superior, certain of the affirmative response. Her statement was firm and blunt, a stark contrast to the atmosphere within the walls.

Lazily dumped in the wooden chair, attempting to disguise his confusions and frustrations with a careless expression, Roy gave the expected nod, "I'll sleep easier when I find out what is going on behind my back."

Maria had finally rejoined the military duo at the table, lying her arms against the wooden edge, "We could leave Brigitte with Izumi. I don't know just how long my records for the last few weeks will remain secure if Hakuro is looking through things."

Tossing his gaze into the empty room where two children had once loitered, Mustang's thoughts again crossed with the wayward child, "She'll remain with you, Lieutenant, indefinitely. I don't want her accidentally ending up somewhere where she can be recognized. The girl's departure occurred after we had left Central, so it distances you from the situation. The fact that we never had any intention to be in this location in the first place bodes well for your situation as opposed to ours," Roy's head nodded slowly with his train of thought as it blistered down the tracks, "as you mentioned shortly after we returned, there is no paper trail leading to this location, since the deed to this cabin isn't legally in your family's possession. Once we've returned, if it needs to be done, I'll take care of your record myself."

From beyond the sealed screen door to the porch, Izumi grunted out a sigh – a deliberate attempt to make sure she would catch their attention, "So, now that you have everyone's lives and fates mapped out in your imagination, I can't wait to hear the plans for myself and Alphonse? What will you do?"

Mustang's dark eye turned over to the intrusive voice, watching Izumi's figure turn and re-enter the building. She had been an oversized fly on the wall for hours. Until that moment, she had not intruded, but she had made her presence clear: ensuring her silhouette remained visible beyond the waving curtain, minding her own business in the kitchen preparing nothing more than odds and ends, flipping lazily through the odd book she'd produced and entertained herself with in a chair at the corner of the room. She had deliberately kept herself within earshot.

"There's no choice in the matter, he has to return with us," Riza answered before Roy could, delaying the objection that was charging within the room like a raging mammoth, "Gracia Hughes is his assigned guardian until you return to Central and explain your actions. That said, Alphonse's over due to return home as it is."

"You certainly have no idea, but I'd bet your last coin that Al is not a concern for that family at the moment," strolling through the room and up to the table in the kitchen were everyone gathered, Izumi ran her finger around the rim of the coffee cup she had abandoned more than an hour ago, before latching her finger onto the ring and snatching it off the table. The cold cup came to her lips, taking a slow step away from the table, "Unfortunately, Alphonse will not be making a return trip to Central with you. I'm certain you're resourceful enough to deal with that."

Mustang's voice struck with the thunderous impact Izumi had been expecting, "Unfortunately, there are too many problems for too many parties if Alphonse is to be left in your care. The majority of the problems stem from your disappearance in the first place and it is something you are going to have to resolve on a formal stage."

Heads slowly rose and eyes came into focus upon the woman standing in nothing but black leggings and shirt.

"Izumi, you understand, don't you, that we can't go back to Central without Alphonse," Maria said, turning around as best she could in her chair to look at the woman straight on, "the longer he's away, the more problems the Hughes family is going to have. We don't want to leave them with that. We can't leave them like that, everything will get blown out."

As though it had been deliberate, Izumi's initial response to Maria's plea was nothing more than an entertaining slurp from her coffee mug. The table of three was left sitting beneath the brewing clouds.

"The fact that I can't make a public appearance in Central is beside the point, because I know no one at your table is ignorant enough not to understand what I mentioned to Mr. Mustang the other night," Izumi's eyes cast over the crowd, inspecting their reactions. So he had discussed Dante with them before she'd begun monitoring the conversation after all.

"Then find a way cope with your actions a little longer," there would be no way Mustang would allow this woman to so badly screw up what was going on in Central, even if it was starting to unravel. The last thing he wanted to do was set the Hughes family in a position like this, and with what little blind faith he possessed, he'd placed it in Gracia's care to take mind the disguise of Alphonse's whereabouts.

Slipping out behind the fluttering curtains, Izumi placed her coffee cup down on the wooden porch railing. She could feel it, the eyes of everyone in that room still watching her from beyond the sheer, white drapery. Grappling with a side of the story that was a privilege all her own, Izumi took a moment to debate if there was no way to put off dropping a bomb any longer.

"Regardless if you return to Central with or without Alphonse, I doubt you'll receive a warm welcome."

"Why?"

Izumi shook her head, looking out to the rising sun's reflection off the lake top, "If a few things went right, Gracia Hughes and her daughter aren't in Central anymore, and they haven't been for a while."

"WHAT?"

There was that monstrous sound again, more earth shattering than before. All Izumi could do was shake her head, "So there hasn't been anyone to cover for you. If anything, they're trying to figure out where she's gone. And when two officers return with Alphonse, it's going to look a little out of place; I'm sure there'll be questions," she could hear it; those pounding feet were moving for her. Izumi slid herself out of the way of the door in preparation for an explosion, "That is, if they don't think you have something to do with it already."

The frame of the screen door nearly shattered in the window tracks as Mustang threw it open, "What the hell do you think you're doing? How do you know the family isn't in Central?"

"When I spoke with Al and realized others had become involved I removed them from harm's way, especially considering who they were," her words were nothing but a backhanded lash across his face, "obviously you had no idea who and what you were dealing with."

"With out consulting anyone? Without bothering to inform me? Confer with me?" the brigadier general's voice stampeded forwards, "did you bother to even consider the consequences for anyone?"

In dull contrast to Mustang's rampage, Izumi's tone was flat and unwavering; doing nothing but agitating the man whom she refused entertain with her own screams, "the consequences were the only thing that mattered at that point, that's why they were removed. And like I said, you had no ide-"

"ENOUGH OF THAT!" Mustang bellowed, "if I am missing something then why the hell aren't you TELLING me?"

Mustang's reaction stopped Izumi. She had debated for some time just how much information he was entitled to, how much he could understand, and how much she was willing to part with. Knowledge was powerful, if not dangerous. The lack of respect she derived solely from the officers' line of work had kept her distant and skeptical. Strangely enough, it was how Mustang's explosion came across that had her attention, an informal request for knowledge was laced into the words.

The flame, situated just beneath a boiling pot, lowered a bit.

"If there's more I need to know, why aren't you offering it?" Mustang lashed out, "You seem to think that the fact I've escorted Alphonse through the countryside, at his request, in order to help solve the mystery he's chasing makes our presence here irrelevant. Myself and my colleagues have stakes in this matter, be it directly or indirectly whether you choose to accept it or not," his eye slit, and jaw held tight for the thunderous sound of his voice. Izumi listened as Mustang made sure everyone was fully aware that the situation was something he was done playing around with, "I may already have my hands full with several people working behind my back, so I obviously did not come out here so that you could treat me as your little puppet and orchestrate my world to your convenience as well. By this point, I don't need to guess that 'Dante' is something formidable enough that you can't afford to, regardless of your well stated dislike of our occupations."

Mustang held his outburst for a moment, watching the woman look back at him without any type of visible reaction. His head was hot, and expression tight, allowing a moment for the dust to settle in his sandstorm.

"I came out here because there is a young man I have known for a long time who's asked for my assistance to find information on his brother. There is another person beyond Dante connecting all of this," a level of calmness resurfaced in Mustang's voice, "Regardless if you are willing to accept that Dante may require more than a solitary effort on your part or not, can you at least accept that Alphonse's request to investigate Edward Elric is the reason we are here in this room with a common issue at hand?"

It was not the tirade she had expected. Her skills were never put into question, or her ability to handle the situation alone, both issues she thought he would raise. Though loud, it had been entirely diplomatic. The ball lay motionless in Izumi's court, waiting for her to pick up the points she'd dropped.

Much to her chagrin, Ed had gotten lost in all this nonsense, and he had been the catalyst for the adventure. Perhaps it was time to re-focus the scenario a little.

"I asked the Tringham boys to look after the Hughes'. I didn't give specifics for where they should go, that judgment is theirs to make. I simply told them that Resembool and Xenotime are not options," Izumi's cup returned to her lips.

"And?"

There had to be more. Much more. Novels more. Mustang was certain of it. He was involved with the entire situation whether anyone, including himself, wanted him to be involved or not. He had dragged himself in inadvertently, and was subsequently hauled deeper inside; she must be able to see that by this point they could not go their separate ways.

"Isn't it said that everyone involved with the Philosopher's Stone will perish? Something along those lines?" stepping past Mustang, Izumi swept the curtains aside with the wave of her hand and returned inside, "That's only true because Dante ensures that the philosophy remains true. So, we'll leave tomorrow like you suggested, before the military trolls hunting you down find us here. During the course of our stroll tomorrow, you can let me know if you still think traipsing into Central like officers is still a good idea."

Mustang raised an eyebrow at the phrasing of the response.


It had been over a month, but it already felt like she'd lived through a lifetime. This world moved a mile a minute. Today was November 9th, 1921 – that's what she'd seen on the cover of the newspaper she'd read to keep her mind occupied. She could understand the day well enough, it felt like winter; however, it was the year that always caught her off guard. Until she'd picked up that paper, Winry'd never had a reason to pay attention to the calendar, what week it would become or what days were ahead. The only date that she marked off in her mental calendar was September 18th, because that was the date on this side of the Gate when she'd crossed over.

Nearly two months. Almost eight weeks. Fifty-two days.

Winry hadn't kept track until then. That morning, when the officer handed her a newspaper, she'd made the mistake of acknowledging the date printed on it. With her mind falling out of control, she really wished she hadn't.

It was almost 10am now, and she didn't really know how much longer she could loiter around this place, considering the previous night's watchman had gone off shift, and had been replaced by someone slightly less compassionate.

"Young lady, you're slower than molasses in January. Quit your dallying and be on your way!"

"I'm sorry, Sir," she threw in as much sarcasm as she could muster, "my feet seem to have swollen from these boots so it's a little hard to get them back on. I would greatly appreciate your patience."

He snorted, "You've worn my patience thin as it is."

"My apologies," she mumbled before reaffirming in her mind that she'd much preferred the man from the night before.

They spent an hour or so tending to her cold self, which she was entirely grateful for. Her feet were now littered with spot-bandages, they'd put alcohol on the hand she'd scratched up during the day when she'd fallen to the cement, and eventually the water she'd dipped her feet into had revived them. Shortly there after, she'd ended up tipped over on the chair next to her, and came back to life when the door chimes sounded at 7:30 in the morning, or so. Her jacket, stockings, boots, mittens and hat hung in the corner, drained of the chill that had once manifested itself. They were warm by now.

The man who'd helped her thus far, someone she felt disappointed she'd never caught the name of, had brought her the bun and orange juice she'd taken in. He was kind enough to reorganize his approach to their discussions. Only minutes before he was relieved of his position, he was able to find a phone number for Winry – the phone number to the hospital Charles Wilson was at. She'd known where he worked, at least. The officer called on her behalf, and the receptionist had put him through to Wilson's division, and it was then Winry received some vindication. The woman recognized her name, but could not provide the doctor himself – he was not in this morning.

It wasn't until then that Winry remembered the party for Patricia's grandfather – and the endless social invites. Both Hohenheim and the doctor had accepted invites out of town for a few days during the week to catch up with old acquaintances; she hadn't cared enough to inquire too heavily into the details. Guilt sat heavy in her stomach, wondering if she'd screwed up their plans, and they'd stayed home to look for her.

The receptionist was not forthcoming with the doctor's home address, which made sense; Winry would probably have to walk in there herself to ask for it. But what she was able to obtain far exceeded what she'd had previously: both the location of the hospital and phone number for Wilson's house.

A black stain on her excitement came when no one answered the phone at the house, it rang endlessly or until the operator would step in and tell her that she could not connect. Each disconnection nearly made her sick, but she refused to let that stall things. What it must mean was that everyone was out looking for her. Yes, that must be it.

In the meantime, Winry's information was left with the receptionist, along with a request for the receptionist to call the doctor, and let him know about the situation.

Within ten minutes of the final phone call, Winry felt like she'd been kicked out of the building. The officer who'd helped her was off shift, late at that, and had left for home. The one who took his place, an older, balding, heftier man, took a look at Winry, got as little personal information out of her as she'd disclosed previously, and decided that she no longer needed to loiter in this building – it was not a hospice after all.

"Do you have the address and phone number on you?"

Darting her eyes back over to the man tossed lazily in his chair behind the counter, Winry gave a nod, "It's in my pocket."

"Don't be letting that fall out for any reason. You may end up in far greater hot water than you find yourself in already."

Though sleeping poorly and feeling sore from head to toe, the sleep had obviously repaired some of her demeanour. However, everything about this man's speech pattern made her want to gnaw holes in the collar of her jacket, "Your concern is appreciated, thank you. And if it makes you feel better, I did take the information down twice."

An eye lifting from the newspaper he'd confiscated from her, the man inquired further, "Did you put it under your hat?"

Sliding her wool-knit mittens over her fingers, Winry's hands came down on her chest, "I put it down my shirt where it will stay safe and warm. Good day, Sir!"

Rolling her eyes and flicking a few fingers in careless farewell, Winry marched herself out the door.

Society gave her a grace today: the weather was far more pleasant and warm than the day before and the sky was crystal clear to boot.

Her eyebrows snuck out from beneath the fur-trimmed lining of her toque, pushing together in a determined frown. She would not think of her situation, she simply had to look ahead. And she knew that the destination for the hospital was west. Concentrate on that, on only that, and don't worry about what might or might not happen. Don't worry about what everyone is thinking, doing, or not doing right now.

Could she walk to this place in a day? 'Most certainly' was the answer, in a few hours time if she walked swiftly.

And she marched off into the city yet again, with a refocused head on her shoulders, but taking the longest way possible to get home.


"Wha—" Alphonse never finished as a hand clamped shut over his mouth. Laying flat on his back, dressed only in the shorts he slept in, the young Elric stared into the dead of night. He had been so immersed in sleep that the sudden wake up sent his heart racing and senses on alert. Slowly, his eyes dropped to his side, eyeing the girl dressed in a baby-doll night top and shorts crouched on his mattress like a cat ready to pounce – though one paw already silenced him.

Alphonse waited for her to look at him, but her eyes were trained across the room. She was listening, he could tell. Finally, Brigitte's hand released, and from Alphonse's mouth to her lips, a single finger rose requesting silence. She slid herself off the bed to the floorboards beneath them. Sliding himself from the bed sheets with as much grace he could give, Al joined her, both lowering their heads to remain hidden beneath the top edge of the mattress.

Al looked to her finally, eyes demanding an explanation, if any could be given. A finger landed on his nose, and the young man could only respond with a lost gaze back to her. Wiggling her nose, Brigitte encouraged him to give a sniff of the air around them. She continued the motion, as Alphonse attempted to identify whatever Brigitte was encouraging him to recognize.

There was something in the air.

Without a word, Brigitte grabbed his arm and as low as the pair could go on two feet, they hustled to the bedroom door.

Al's eyes widened in alarm and his fists tightened. He recognized the faint odour – it was gasoline.

Her free hand on the door handle, Brigitte slowly pulled it open. Both stepped out of the way of the ill moonlight filtering in from a hall.

Alphonse's thoughts drifted to the other rooms, Ms. Ross must be awake since both she and Brigitte had laid claim to the main room, but what about his teacher, Ms. Hawkeye, and Mr. Mustang? Whatever the reason was that the house carried a thin odour of gasoline and Brigitte was on her toes, the others had to be awake. But, if the hall was clear, why wasn't Brigitte stepping out?

Al's next gesture was to exit the room, but Brigitte vigorously shook her head. Responding with a sour stare, his female companion flustered and let her arms dance around her sides without giving a clear response.

Finally, Brigitte simply took him by the hand once more, and skittered out into the hall. Bare feet left the tiniest of sounds as the two slowed their pace and peered out into the darkened main room of the cabin. Looking back down the hall, Alphonse eyed the closed doors where others slept. He stepped back, moving towards the room where Izumi slept.

Brigitte turned when Al's fingers slipped out of her grasp, and she swung an arm back in attempt to grab him. He'd moved too far.

Their thoughts were broken by the sound of six bullets thumping out through the dull beat of a silencing device. Neither child screamed.

Both dropped to the floor, scrambling upon hands and knees to get away from the sound locked behind one of the doors. Pushed into the wall at the end of the hall Alphonse came to rest, having nowhere further to go. Brigitte fumbled her way into the main room the hall opened up into – a wide, open space with no solid object to duck behind. The kitchen could shield her presence, but provide no escape if someone moved in – at least there was the patio window to run through.

"Woah." The universal sound for 'stop' rose up, drawn out casually, without concern.

A door on each side of the four-room hall opened, releasing two figures.

"Look at what was flushed out."

Each child sat frozen, unmoving: Brigitte with her back to the situation and Alphonse sitting, looking up at the intruders, his back pressed against the wall.

The moment the taller of the two, with his partially buttoned shirt, jeans tattered above the ankles, and revolver holster attached to his belt, turned to look him straight in the eye, Alphonse realized, without a doubt, he knew them.

"Do you recall a little girl being a part of the picture?" asked the accomplice, not turning back to see the object in his partner's line of sight.

"Can't say as I do."

Alphonse's breath caught, hearing the sound of a cocked gun turn unto Brigitte, "Wait!"

"Shut it," the towering man addressing him turned his own piece to the Elric.

"Stop!"

Shielded by the dead of night, all parties moved at the third voice. Finally, each child screamed and curled up where they lay.  Four shots rang out.

Curled up, her knees beneath her chest, and hands clasped over the back of her head, the silence was almost as lethal as a gunshot. Brigitte could hear no voices, no moving bodies, and no further trigger ready movements from within the room. Seconds passed like minutes, and when her imagination created a scenario of the madmen in the room training a pistol down upon her for execution, she peeked an eye into the room to stop her self-created nightmare. What she saw allowed her to loosen her hands and breathe once again.

Mustang stood, in nightshirt and pants, somewhat disheveled in appearance; obviously he'd been startled from bed. The officer had stepped out into the open, from behind the wall shielding the kitchen space from the remainder of the cabin. His firearm was raised and ready, trained on the larger of two threatening Alphonse, though the weapons of both men met with Mustang.

Brigitte's gaze looked from Mustang the remaining figure tucked behind the wall.

"The boy is more valuable to her than the girl?"

"No," Mustang responded to the callous question, "he is my responsibility."

"Then, have your Major step out," came the order.

Mustang did not respond, his gaze merely looked back at the man, drenched in fierce distain.

"Explain what the girl on the floor is looking at," was the redirect.

Narrowing his eyes, Mustang's position was unwavering until he finally spoke, "Step out."

Her own weapon raised, the final figure remaining in the building stepped into the open. Her shoulders stiff and weapon clearly fixated on the remaining assailant, her feet slid her locked body into the room. She moved carefully, attempting to see how far she could get in positioning herself between the men and Brigitte at the middle of the floor. As Mustang's eye was locked on the situation, her blue eyes were as well, generating a clear vision within the night beyond the ends of brown hair fallen in her eyes.

Alphonse sat silent, his breath held. The woman who'd stepped out next to him was not Riza Hawkeye… but Maria Ross.

"Major, Brigadier General, it appears whomever fires first will win."

Mustang paused upon hearing their response, taking a moment to ascertain the alternate direction the standoff had taken, "I guarantee someone in this room will remain."

The man Mustang had engaged retorted with a filthy, frightening sneer, "That guarantee means the Flame Alchemist knows better than to use his trademark tonight? No one in this room will satisfy your condition if you do."

"You're taking too much pleasure in the fact that I'm prepared to operate under your conditions," was Mustang's snide remark.

The intruders were right, there was no denying that. Though the level of fumes in the air would do nothing in a gun fight at this point, Mustang knew the moment he attempted to light a blaze the entire plot of land the group stood upon was at risk of exploding.

Again silence befell the room, no face clearly visible within the cabin, only the whites of eyes gazing between one and other carried the glow of moonlight partially covered by a mildly overcast night.

"Sir."

Alphonse's voice caught the attention of all, not expecting him to have spoken up. He had risen to his feet, though his back remained pressed to the wall. Bowing his head slightly, like a bull ready to charge, Al's hardened gaze carried out from beneath his brow.

"Both these men, I saw them in the Central Market before it exploded."

The shorter of two men, obviously second to the broad shouldered beast engaged with Mustang, turned his firearm from his female targets to focus on Mustang, leaving himself open to the officer whose gun remained locked on him.

"They're also the men involved with the escapade at Shou Tucker's research facility," Mustang gave his response, "I do believe they've been assigned to us, in one way or another."

"The research facility was simply a matter of convenience," the senior of the two men turned his nose up at the statements, "but so we have everything clear, we are part of an eight-man team and everyone else works from the outskirts. That said, you have no way out. The rogue alchemist in your party that we attempted to apprehend in Ishibal was secured before we entered this building. The parameter is secured. The backup you're thinking is available is unavailable. On my mark, this building will go up in flames. Something I'm certain you'd approve of."

All figures stood, unmoving and unfazed as the man directly engaged with Mustang changed targets. Lifting his weapon from the officer, the cold, dead sneer fell over Alphonse as the boy found himself unshielded, with nowhere to run.

"Look at your feet Alphonse, and close your eyes."

As the two men in the room laughed, bellowing at the cowardly request. Alphonse looked to Maria, her position locked between the second assailant and Brigitte, but the curl of confidence in her lips allowed the young man to abide by the request.

The sounds suddenly filling his ears painted a bloodstained picture in Al's mind's eye. Shattered glass, a single bullet fired by Mustang, and the raging scream of a man as more than one body hit the floor. Maria had asked him not to watch the bloodshed, he most certainly did not want to backtrack now. 

In the end, it would Mustang's hand that took Al away from it all.

The overnight ambush occurred before anyone realized they should have been prepared for one. Alphonse was missing part of the story: the part where Izumi had opted not to fight back with her captors after having stepped out for air during a sleepless night. She judged the situation quickly and knew it was far more dangerous if she fought back. Her inaction would be the warning she gave to the occupants inside until an alternate course of action was available. Both Lt. Ross and Brigitte had slept in the main room that night, though the Lieutenant had not laid to rest yet. She had heard, and seen, Izumi leave, but unable to drift off, she finally rose from her book in the corner chair and realized that the teacher had not returned. That in itself was curious enough, but when Ross could not see her on the porch or at any point between the house and lake, her first reaction was to wake Hawkeye and Mustang. Hawkeye was the one who woke Brigitte, and with a finger to her lips requesting silence, she brought her along to Alphonse's room. By the time Ross had said enough to Mustang to draw him out of bed, Hawkeye had abruptly left the premises and Brigitte had vanished into Alphonse's room. Before Alphonse was awake and the remaining occupants of the house could be completely prepared, the cabin had already gathered two intruders.

Working in their favour: Lt. Ross could not be traced to the cabin, allowing one additional mobile body. Mustang left his trust with Hawkeye to handle the situation outside. There would be no way she could confirm for him the status of what lay beyond the walls, so he dragged the indoor proceedings out to give as much time as he could for her; a horrific task given that two children were present. Before Mustang and Ross had stepped out to confront the intruders, Mustang had relayed instructions for Alphonse to her. The moment it was clear that things could not be drawn out any longer, she would ask Al to close his eyes. If she were listening, Hawkeye would recognize the odd prompt as her cue to fire. If no shot rang out on their behalf from beyond the building, Ross was under orders to fire instead.

In the end, both Hawkeye's and Mustang's shots rang out in tandem, one shattering the glass window from beyond the house and blowing out the knee of the man Ross faced with, and the second from Mustang, putting a terminal end to the immediate threat over Alphonse without hesitation. Silence once again eclipsed the room. Mustang would not do this dead body any justice, and simply left it where it lay. Pulling Alphonse away from where he stood, still hidden behind the shield of his eyelids, the officer brought him beyond the mess and ushered him out of the room. Both children were handed over to Ross as Hawkeye threw open the screen door and re-entered the room.

"There were six?" Mustang asked. His weapon still trained upon the smaller of two figures, withering around on the floor, clutching the knee oozing blood from between his fingers.

"Yes. Though Mrs. Curtis can be thanked for a few of them," she answered, pulling out the long ends of her hair from the back of her shirt where she'd tucked it away, "she's keeping watch outside currently."

Addressing their second victim upon the floor, Mustang's arms crossed over his chest, "Allow me to introduce my major, Riza Hawkeye. Strangely, she's the reason you aren't dead."

"I have nothing to say to you."

"Forgive me if I'm neither surprised nor angered by that. From what you've said since stepping inside, it's obvious your superior doesn't outsource a great deal of information to her dispensable pawns," Mustang's weapon never left the wounded target upon the floor. The faint illumination inside shed a vicious shadow across the complexions of the two officers looking down upon this chess piece, sacrificed by Dante, "but, you don't have to tell me anything, your presence here is an answer on its own."

"They must have been watching Havoc for longer than we realized," Riza put in, "we're obviously enough of a threat to somebody that they needed us out of the way promptly."

Nodding, Mustang could not disagree with that, "Hakuro's presence in Havoc's place created our suspicion, and their presence confirms it. Everyone here is a perceived threat by her, so much so that she assigned shadows to our vicinity."

The figure upon the floor gave a laugh, shaking his head where he lay. He shifted a bit, pushing his forehead against the floorboards as he continually clutched his knee, "You have no idea what you're dealing with."

"That is the third time I've been told that recently and I'm damn sick of hearing it. However, I have no problem conceding at this point that, no, I don't have any idea," Mustang lowered his weapon, removing his hand from the trigger as he let the device hang at his side, "and all things considered, I don't believe your upper management has a full understanding either. The fact I'm walking away from here tonight is proof of that; therefore the advantage is mine. Major, we're leaving."

"You're not going to shoot me?" the voice was taunting.

The question did not trip up Mustang in his exiting stride, "I have never considered myself a proponent of that style of execution; I am not interested in shooting wounded men in the backs of their heads."

With that, Mustang dangled his right index finger in the air as he exited the cabin and reached into his pocket for a white glove.

 


To Be Continued...


Notes:

This is the second version of this chapter - for Ed's side of things, anyways. The original verses had the story told entirely from Ed's point of view. I changed my mind and decided to give the poor guy a story break and focus on Winry's 'adventure'. Though, can you imagine the absolute panic Ed's going through at the moment?

Chapter 25: In Lieu of Armistice

Summary:

Izumi begins to fill in the gaps regarding Dante and the Gate, while Winry's tiresome adventure winds down.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Don't start. Don't even think of starting, Winry Rockbell. You start and it'll never stop, then where will you be?

Sitting on in the middle of a cement staircase she'd found herself at, Winry's face was in her hands, trying to realign her dismantled train of thought. Yet again, she had walked for hours, upon hours, asking where to find this address in her hand. She was pointed in this direction and that direction, back 'that way' and 'somewhere over there'. Hours and painful hours later she found the place where Doctor Wilson worked; an institutionalized-looking, redbrick building. She'd recognized it in an instant and nearly cheered. Even the sun was still up to dance with her.

And that would be her only dance partner.

'I'm looking for the office of Doctor Charles Wilson?'

'He's off for the week.'

'I know, I'm staying with him, but I'm a little lost. I need the address back to the house.'

'I'm sorry, but the doctor's address is privileged information.'

Winry was fine with the fact that she'd been denied the information – obviously you don't give someone's address out to a stranger. But, apparently, it was also a crime to contact one of his associates who could validate her story. There could have been up to fifteen people in the building who might have remembered her with all the ruckus that Ed's wooden leg had caused, but she wasn't even allowed to speak to one.

They argued, and argued, and argued some more until both women were nearly blue in the face. One would think that prerequisites for working in a hospital would be decent manners, so if this nurse didn't stop wagging her finger in Winry's face, she'd bite it off.

Winry gave up, throwing her nose to the air and deciding to find another place in the building where she might get some decent service. But, the crazy nurse must have seen the intention in Winry's eyes and contacted co-workers across the building.

'Now young lady, I believe you were told before that we can't help you with that.' That reply, or some version of it, was everywhere she went.

You bitch.

By five that evening Winry was flaming mad. She felt like she was being treated like a street urchin. Eventually, someone was kind enough to tell her that the people she'd needed had left at 4:30 – in the middle of her escapade. Barely able to hold her cool together, Winry again demanded to speak to a supervisor, a manager, a director – someone who'd give her some assistance.

The 'assistance' finally came in the form of a security officer who escorted out of the building and asked her to 'kindly be on her way'.

So, Winry sat herself down in the middle of a staircase she'd found and tried to calm down. In her never-ending mental chaos, the default point for all of her thoughts was a sign she'd seen while trudging along. A block or so away she'd seen that quaint little police sign again – only this one appeared far more official than the last hole in the wall. Her mind was so swollen with her own thoughts that nothing was coherent, but Winry finally managed to gather together enough sense to march her way over to the station. She planned to ask, in her sweetest voice, if she could use the telephone.

Some time ago, the first police spot she'd encountered was a meager little outlet, but this one was far more intimidating. Stepping inside, Winry found it was active and lively, cluttered and decorated, and it had more than one person kicking around. Maybe they were used to seeing people who were out of sorts wander in, because no one batted an eye at her.

Winry patted her hair down anyways, and tried to rub away the circles under her eyes before clearing her throat, "Excuse me?"

"What can I do for you this evening, young lady?" came the reply of a younger man behind the counter.

Winry figured he must have been the lowest person on the totem pole in that day. He was the least decorated of all the officers there and the only person who seemed to greet anyone. Though, she had stopped wondering why people were always so polite when addressing her, "I don't have any change on me, is there any chance you'd let me use the telephone for one call?"

"Only one call?" his voice prodded, almost playfully.

Even if she'd wanted to entertain this officer and his sweet grin, Winry's head was pounding too hard to play along, "Yes, please, just one."

"Help yourself at the end of the counter," the officer waved her along with an empty smile and then called out, "Gloria, would you pass the receiver to our patron and dial out for her."

Winry blinked at it all and shuffled away. She'd been passed along just like that, no questions asked. She glanced over to 'Gloria', the frumpy, middle aged woman seated at a switchboard, tucked away at the left side of the facility. Reaching out in a robotic daze, Winry took the receiver from her.

"Please keep your call prompt, Miss. What's the number?" Gloria asked.

Winry passed the woman her piece of paper. As the number to the Wilson house was dialed, Winry's attention uncontrollably drifted. The station was bubbling. Her ears heard parts of conversations: a pickpocket snagged something from a woman in a fluffy dress, a hunched over old man was prattling along about filling out some sort of form, the person who'd entered after she had was paying his fine…

"Miss, is the line ringing?" the receptionists voice came back into the picture.

"Huh?" snapping back to it, Winry suddenly realized that the phone was ringing in her ear.

And ringing. And ringing…

After what felt like forever, Winry finally took the phone away from her ear and placed the handset down. Her elbows, hands and forehead soon slid down until they came to rest on the counter as well. Why was nobody home to answer this phone? Was it even the right number? Maybe they'd gotten this number from that cranky nurse this morning and it was deliberately wrong…

"No one answered?" there was that all-too-pleasant low-ranking officer's voice again.

"No," Winry muttered into the countertop.

"I might be mistaken, but judging by that reaction to a dead line, you're a woman with a problem."

Winry nearly laughed, it sounded like a crude pick up line? Couldn't he try a little harder?

"Is it something that you need some assistance with, or more personal in nature?" he inquired further, with that playful tone again.

Picking her heavy head up, Winry eyed the verbal doormat he'd presented.

"I'm lost. Really lost. I was supposed to stay with a family friend and couldn't find my way back. I knew he worked down the street, so I went in there to see if someone could help me find the way home. They refused to help me because they didn't recognize me," her cheeks burned, and Winry struggled to hold a stiff upper lip, "Why would he have introduce a houseguest to the lowly receptionist anyways? Stupid cow. And I've tried calling home a few times, but no one answers. No one ever picks up. I want the reason to be because they're out looking for me… but I wish they weren't! I wish someone was home."

The officer's hand came up into his hair, his brow furrowed in thought. Winry's rant was obviously not what he had expected and the entertaining tone was replaced with something far more business, "How long have you been out and about?"

"Since yesterday," she took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, "Stupid me, I didn't take anything with me, just my coat and mitts. The only thing I've had to eat since breakfast yesterday was a bun. My feet are killing me, I'm cold again, and the only people who can help me left that horrible building over an hour ago…"

Winry threw herself back from the desk. She needed to take a deep breath, her voice was shaking and she did not want to loose her composure on him. The situation was embarrassing enough. With a heavy exhale, she finished with the shake of her head, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Don't cry.

"Franklin," the young officer who'd lent Winry his ear looked away, calling for one of his co-workers, "hey Franklin, can you bring over those wires?"

"Does it matter which ones?" without leaving what he was doing, the disinterested Franklin clipped together a thin pile of sheets when the answer was 'no', placed a small paperweight upon it and sent the collection scooting across the counter.

Stopping the impromptu bundle, and dumping the weight from the sheets, the young officer did a quick skim of the sheets before pulling one out, "Is your name Wendry Rockbell?"

She stood in silence to the question, for some reason unable to answer the question.

"You seem to fit the description," he continued, giving the paper a flick of his finger, "A wire came in from one of the stations a fair ways off. If you're Wendry Rockbell, then people are looking for you, and you've made quite the hike."

Her mind was so slow to process the statement, and all she could do was mumble, "It's Winry Rockbell."

The officer double checked the sheet with a raised brow, "Oh right, sorry, yes. Odd spelling you've got there."

Without warning, her body did not want to move any more. She'd been dragging herself around town all day and there was not enough adrenaline to keep her mobile. The weightlessness of relief kept her from collapsing all together. By this point, it did not matter who it was, it did not matter when, or where, as long as some prince would come and take her home.

"Have a seat and don't run off on us now," the officer pointed her to a seat, "the wire says a gentleman named Hyland asked this notice be passed around. We'll get in touch with the dispatcher who issued this and see if there's more information for you."


By this time in her endless life, the construction of a perfectly symmetrical pentagram was no longer a challenge for Dante. Adorned in black, polished shoes, the devil child stood square between two points of the pentagram she'd drawn with a paint brush in thick, red blood over the polished floor. Nothing but the bloody circle encompassing a powerful alchemical equation sealed the sigil.

"Let's try this," her spotless hands came onto her small hips.

"You couldn't have used an animal to draw this?" cradling the silent infant, Aisa inquired to her tiny overseer.

Dante only scoffed, "If you're going to try something, do it right. It's no harder to drain a man than any beast," the petite figure turned, "my child, please."

Without further conversation, Aisa obliged. The woman approached Dante, and placed the infant in the small arms of her master.

Adjusting the child in her grasp, the ancient soul moved her young body to the center of her alchemical pentagram and placed the baby, wrapped in a white blanket, down at the center. Turning, Dante faced out, positioning herself between two points of the drawn pentagram and looked cross-room into her tarnished ballroom hall. From the unbroken lamps, scattered rays of light shone orange, carrying the predominant colour of her magnificent room.

Dante clapped her hands.

It was, as it always had been, an exhilarating few seconds. For every ride she'd taken to the Gate, the surge of power and emotion was different each time. There was always something new, something salivating, something so close to being tangible but entirely unobtainable. After hundreds of years, the imagery bombardment began to have moments of repetition – glimpses she'd seen before. She almost, almost, felt like she could recognize the events and piece them together if she could get only a few more visions. No matter what ridiculous information was thrown at her, it no longer frightened her like it did in her youth.

Her ballroom transformed into nothing more than hollow, white space. It stretched on for eternity. Finally, the infant howled, screaming endlessly as it had been hoisted into the air by the frozen hands of the Gate's wall. Once again, this worlds crossing was locked into existence.

Dante looked straight ahead, the Gate at her back, watching Aisa for a moment. The woman had been taken along for the trip to the Gate, though she did not visibly flinch at the sudden change in surrounding. With wide eyes full of never-ending awe at this space, Dante turned over her shoulder and looked up at the towering structure looming over her. An ancient, aching sound tore out as the heavy doors slowly swung open for her, presenting the black abyss beyond the passage.

The eyes and arms of the Gate never greeted her or touched anyone when the baby was around. She was free to romp and roam unhindered.

"Foul entity," Dante's eyes narrowed, looking down at the body she'd drained and left for to the Gate as bait, "at least take the peasants body."

No response was given by the Gate.

"I'm being toyed with," Dante snarled, unable to see the final pieces of her puzzle, "You're an irresponsible wretch when I come alone with the stone, and you won't give me the time of day when I arrive with a child that should be of your liking. I do not understand what I am missing."

Annoyed, Dante tugged at the simple sundress she'd worn for this day's adventure. Her fingers gripped the white and orange fabric and the woman clenched her fists as she forced power into her legs and approached the steps of the looming, vast opening.

Dante's subconscious fears brought her to a halt. Although she knew that in this state the arms of the Gate did not reach out for her, she could not easily brush away over 500 years of caution.

Inhaling a stiff, deep breath, Dante stepped up to the black void that lay beyond the open doors. It was frighteningly silent – she felt more comfortable when it was laughing. I am not so foolish that you can mock me now, am I? Harshly tilting her head back, her juvenile eyes looked up to the shrill child hoisted by Gate arms, cemented into the frame of the passage way.

After a moment, her gaze resettled on the open Gate. It wasn't as though she was looking into a black void; voids appear endless. Even when the eyes and children of the Gate had looked back at her in the past, she could feel the expanse and vast space beyond the Gate's doors. However, the view of darkness the Gate gave Dante with the infant in tow felt more like a curtain standing between herself and what was beyond.

Touch it.

A stubby, right arm was held in air with fingers outstretched. Her eyes were growing dry; she didn't dare blink. In her handful of previous trips with Diana, she had simply observed the change in scenario. She had never before stood so close, and so free to roam, at the border crossing of the Gate. What would happen if she touched it? Was it malleable? Could she reach through it? Would it suck her in?

Why couldn't she make her trembling hand move those last few inches?

This horrible, unconquerable monstrosity was at her mercy – hundreds of years later she could finally touch it. She could make contact. Would it accept her presence now?

The baby had gone silent.

Through Nina's eyes, Dante looked up at the suddenly silent and motionless child. Its stubby arms and legs lay limp, dangling from the fermented hands that supported it.

Was this right? The howling thing hadn't died, had it!

Without giving herself time to think on her actions, Dante's hand thrust forwards and forced into the black space. She stood frozen for a moment in the dead silence, her hand engulfed in the black mess up to her wrist. It was malleable, like thick tar. The tiny woman let her hand sit where she'd placed it, the lack of viscosity holding it up. She slowly moved her arm, watching the black space refilled behind the path her hand carved. Her expression absorbed in fascination, Dante clawed at this space. Perhaps if she dug away at it, something would be revealed. It was a wishful thought – no matter how many times her hand clawed away the material, nothing was revealed.

"I know you've allowed people from beyond the Gate to see our secrets. I've heard the stories and erased them after," Dante wasn't sure if she should be pleading, or continue arguing with an unresponsive entity like the Gate, "passage is said to be possible. The world's delegate told us this boundary could be bridged millennia ago. We were even told how."

Dante pulled her hand from the mess, instinctively shaking her hand free of a non-present black residue.

"I have the Stone, and I have kept it in my possession for hundreds of years. I have perfected its science. Now I have this child, which you've obviously recognized. These are the pieces, what am I missing?" she stomped a foot like a spoilt child. In this form, the only thing that stopped a juvenile tantrum was vanity, "How can I prove that I am worthy of that knowledge? Is the world beyond the Gate simply that much more wondrous than ours that we are no longer entitled to any of it? Have we become that insignificant!"

At that, Dante spun on her heels, "Aisa, come stick your head beyond this and tell me what you see."

It was the first time woman had made her voice heard, "I think it would absorb me…"

"Probably," Dante snorted, angry at the roadblock, "I don't understand. What more do I have to-."

All concentration was lost and the alchemist's attention suddenly fell upon her precious gateway once again. Quickly shuffling her feet away, Dante's instinct moved Nina's body back from the black space. The thick border separating two worlds at the Gate's doors had come alive. The tar churned.

It thrived.

There had been no warning. The sensation nearly knocked Dante of her quick-moving feet, and she stumbled backwards down the steps, giving distance between herself and whatever was suddenly happening. Like an overpowering odour, the black space reeked of life; it flowed in and filled the darkness with the rhythm of a pulse. It was inaudible, but pounded so hard it reverberated deep in her bones.

It was how everything had felt at the time she'd clapped her hands for Winry and reached out for the Gate. At that moment, when the thunderous pulse of the opening doors had made its presence felt, Dante had found herself so overpowered by the reaction she could barely respond to it. Upon sending Winry through, she'd scrambled to disengage her contact. In the end, when the dust settled, the doors had closed and Dante could not figure out what had nearly gone so horribly wrong. But, of all things, Brigitte was then laying on her floor.

Like a child watching in awe of a magician flawlessly perform his tricks, Dante watched the darkness swim. Her initially frightened reaction disappeared and replaced with a thirsty grin.

This was new.


In her own opinion, Winry had been a good sport, but she'd wanted to play along on her terms. She'd participate and then get rewarded by going home – it was the summer camp mentality. But she knew, even if she chose to deny it, that she may never get home. Winry'd instructed herself to play along in the meantime – that's how she'd cope, because moving with society would be easier than challenging it. Suddenly, there were intangible things that Winry found the world refused her to have; intrinsic little things that she would surrender to and say 'fine, I still have this or can do that instead'. The only problem was, she'd lose one every hour or so of each day and each week. Little by little she'd found herself loosing ground.

'You can't do that, Winry'

'You have to do this, Winry'

Why couldn't she have things her way! What was so wrong about her way of doing things?

She couldn't have her favourite foods, she couldn't wear her favourite clothes, she didn't have her tools, she couldn't play with her favourite hobbies, she couldn't sit or stand certain ways, she couldn't sleep in her old bed, and she couldn't have her peaceful countryside. People were constantly everywhere. She would swear they were always looking at her, sometimes they'd continue looking even after they'd realized she was looking back at them.

She'd never felt self conscious before, and suddenly Winry had moments where she'd felt uncomfortable taking her jacket off.

But, she was a big girl, she would cope with that.

Hold your head high and keep going.

Nothing Winry could do helped her to feel more comfortable in the clothing. It looked atrocious on her, from undergarments to outerwear, like someone's ugly toy doll. She would have to parade around, dressed like all the prim and proper ladies should be in this world. The situation felt ridiculous and some greater being must be laughing at her awkwardness.

She could cope with that.

For those nights where she'd sit around, absently thinking about all the ways this world bothered her, a special mention always seemed to go out to the wretched shoes that left the most horrible blisters on the backs of her heels and balls of her feet. She only had one tolerable pair that didn't leave her feet wounded, and they weren't always 'acceptable'.

And, she would cope.

The temperature was too cold wherever she went; indoors and outdoors. Even on the nicest of days, it carried a nip that she couldn't shake and then it got worse the further the mercury fell. Yes, she'd been told time and again, it just seemed that way because she was new from the other side of the gate. But, the air was so dry that her nose would hurt when she'd wake up in the morning. Her skin was drying out and becoming itchy. Why wasn't lotion a popular commodity here?

Fine, she would find a way to cope.

She would take a drink of water, milk, or whatever beverage would be available. It was neither refreshing nor relieving. Cup to mouth. Open. Swallow. It was unsatisfying.

Edward and his father warned her of this, and if they'd found a way to cope, so could she.

But then there were the odd things that they couldn't tell her, or that she didn't want to tell them, mostly girl things. And the dizzying language barrier she couldn't bridge. There was a feeling of loss that this world gave off all on its own, without any help from her; it leeched out from the soil and floated in the air. It was entrapping.

Winry'd decided she could be strong on her own.

And then her empowered self-confidence, transplanted from a world where she could use it into a place where it received no merit, imploded on itself. She found herself standing in the middle of a strange society, having no idea what she was doing. She wanted, more than anything, to be back home.

Even with that wish, she was more than delighted to see Thomas Hyland march in as her prince charming to reset the nightmare. 

And there were the tears, again. Why couldn't she stop doing this? She'd gotten frustrated with herself for crying so much when she'd arrived. In the Thule hall, with Ed, in their house – eventually Winry'd decided she was done with the tears and it was time to cope; there was nothing she could do about it so there was no use being a baby. That was a challenge far more formidable than she'd ever realized. Everything that she'd put in the reinforced 'cope' box of her mind, everything that had bothered her, exploded when she filled it so full that the bottom fell out.

Against the back of the sofa, tucked out of sight from the hallway light, Edward had landed under Winry's weight when his knees weren't strong enough to keep them both standing. She'd curled up; tucking her torn feet under the edge of her dress, her fingers clung to the back of his white shirt for dear life and she'd buried her face into the side of his neck. Her unintelligible sobs carried away a sound filled with everything she'd thought she could tolerate. She needed to have someone hear how hard it had been to support that load. There were no exact words for it, so it would have to be conveyed through the sound of her voice while her face dampened the collar of Edward's white dress shirt.

Ed had remained silent the entire time.

From the moment she'd had enough of absolutely everything and staggered through the door, stumbling out of her horrid footwear as she moved, Ed had been silent. Dumped in an awkward heap on the floor, up against the sofa, Winry'd done all the talking without a coherent word. By the time she'd found herself too rung out to say anything more, her mind followed a wonderful hand that soothed over her back. If Winry hadn't known that Ed was the only person in the room, she would have asked who was there. She wondered where he'd picked that up, because it was the only correspondence he'd given her. In the end, the message she'd gotten out of him was that he completely understood everything she hadn't been able to say.

Somewhere along the way, the chimes for 6AM rang and she couldn't really figure out how time had managed to get to the morning without her knowing.  Winry sat back and shivered in the chill of the morning; Ed had been warm.  She settled on her backside, pulling up a knee and resting her chin to it. She did nothing but tune her thoughts into the vast silence.

I'm so embarrassed.

Winry kind of wished the first thought to strike her wasn't one that made her feel embarrassed. What was she supposed to do now? Laugh? Cry some more? Neither one made sense. She didn't want to do either one. She would be content just to forget the last two days had ever happened. Slowly she rose from the floor, her swollen feet making the task uncomfortable at best.

Ed had not woken up; still asleep in his somewhat sat-up position, propped up against the back of the couch.  How he managed to sleep like a rock in any position she'd never know.

Winry watched him, her arms lost at her sides. Ed was a basket case at the best of times, she couldn't imagine the circles he'd just ran himself in. She didn't want to. Her decision was the quickest she'd made in days – just leave the events behind. She didn't have the energy to deal with it and hoped no one else did either. Ed certainly wouldn't force the issue – it wasn't like him.

Kneeling back down again, Winry came to her hands and knees. This house belonged to someone else, all of the houses belonged to someone else, but they happened to have spent the night occupying this one. Crawling over, Winry lifted a hand to tap Ed's cheek, hoping he'd wake up without startling. 


Izumi's command had been 'sit', but everyone merely stopped.

In the distance, faint through the haze that day, a highway could be seen. Ultimately, they'd follow that highway out of the region. There was no longer a point in staying lakeside at a cabin that had been set ablaze, and none of the group had been able to sleep after the late-night intrusion. Crucial items had been gathered from the house, organized, and distributed. The decision was reached that they would embark on their long walk before dawn. The journey itself was silent; barely a word was spoken between any two individuals. Each person bore a different weight and the walk opened up the opportunity to explore the burden. Izumi had taken the journey lead long ago and would finally stop the progression of internalizing thoughts. She dropped the bag she carried from her shoulder and looked over to Alphonse.

The youngest man's hand gripped tighter with Brigitte, who'd stayed at Al's side religiously since leaving the enclosed lakeside area.

"Sit, I said," Izumi repeated, her instruction to Alphonse more authoritative than coaxing, "everyone take a seat."

The group exchanged glances, and though Mustang was not known for one to handle orders well, even from a superior officer, with his hard gaze locked onto Izumi, he led the seating chorus.

They had embarked on a walk through the Amestris dawn and daylight moving across open country fields; decorated with a scattering of trees, lush shrubs and low-laying vegetation of all sorts. At the fringes of this peace, Izumi had been the last to take a seat upon the cool grass.

The teacher was given the grace of the speaking floor; she needn't ask for it. Everyone's undivided attention was placed squarely on her shoulders, and the story would be hers to unravel. She would discard her voice into the wind and see where it would be carried off.

"Al, when your brother was still around, you, he and Roze knew a woman named Lyra," the teacher's eyes shifted to Mustang, knowing he had this part of the story, before turning back to Al, "she was an alchemist and an assistant at a military outlet in Youswell, which was where you and Edward met her."

Leaning forwards, Alphonse recognized that this bit of information was exclusively for him.

For a few moments, Izumi sat in silence, untangling the wealth of information wound up inside her, before bringing her voice up again, "The description Roze provided of Lyra fits the description of the Prime Minister's past wife. I can only guess that at some point Lyra and Dante met, Dante discarded her old persona and took on another."

"I just want to make sure I understand this," Maria stepped in, "Dante uses the Philosopher's Stone to take over a person's body?"

"Yes," Izumi took a deep breath, clearing the air of this procedure once and for all, "Dante uses the Philosopher's Stone to continue her own life by forcing the soul of a chosen candidate into submission and then transplanting her own in on top of it. That's how I understand it."

For Mustang, as frightening as it was, it was strangely fascinating to hear the applications of the Philosopher's Stone. He had momentarily considered looking into its dangerous science, before someone with a steadier head on his shoulders convinced him to turn away.

Alphonse did not know what he was supposed to make of the stone by this point in time. It was beyond all the laws he recognized, yet, it was something he'd possessed, something that was the cause of all this mess, something he could not remember, and something very intriguing. It was weird hearing so much life given to this inanimate object. However, this object was tangible, endless, ruthless, and cruel in its abilities. The 'how to' manual of the powers had been written by the devil, safe guarded closely, and disclosed only to those privileged and unfortunate.

"Why would someone do something like that?" Alphonse asked. It was a moral question posed to an immoral situation.

"It would be for power, I would assume," Hawkeye suggested, "entertainment is another factor to be considered. As well as a continuing agenda…" Riza's final syllable was left hanging as she caught the gaze thrown towards her by the meeting's conductor.

"The Theory of Beyond the Gate," Izumi said.

She'd thrown the additional puzzle pieces onto the table. The teacher's words again garnered the undivided attention of adult and child alike, "It is a theory deals with the idea that there is another society, another world, or another plane of existence beyond the Gate. A world enriched with knowledge, alchemy and otherwise. It is something, potentially, that is far beyond our ability to understand," she cleared her throat, "for all the things she's used her life to accomplish, bringing together this theory has been out of Dante's reach."

With a stiff voice and unwavering power, Izumi began to shake away the wrappings of an ancient tale. She would be the unwilling breath of life into a story withering away at deaths door.

"Alphonse," the teacher turned her attention to the youngest of the group, "I don't believe Edward is 'property' of the Gate, like we originally thought, but he is beyond the Gate, like Brigitte seems to indicate," Izumi cast her gaze over Brigitte, watching as the girl returned her glance with caution, "if she wasn't sitting here in front of us, with so much overwhelming information, I would never have given the idea a second thought."

Al nearly leapt from his grassy seat, "If Brigitte came to our side, then my brother can come home!"

"If they are masters of alchemy beyond the Gate, why hasn't Ed brought himself home?" Mustang intruded into Alphonse's joy with a damming question.

"I don't know," the concern returned to Izumi's face, "assuming Ed understands his situation, if he was aware of a way home, he would find a way to do it. He's too bullheaded to not to," she sat back a little, mulling her thoughts over, "we're missing a lot of information, most of which isn't on our side of the Gate."

Squirming, Brigitte could only look on in confusion as eyes flickered on and off in her direction.

Taking a moment to step away from her explanations, Izumi re-gathered her thoughts, "On the whole, the theory is based off folk tales from Dante's youth; stories passed on to her generation after already being told for centuries. The stories themselves are found nowhere in today's literature, I would guess they either faded or were expunged."

Maria added her voice to the chorus of aloud thinkers, "And those stories deal with people who exist beyond the Gate? Like Brigitte?"

"People beyond the Gate and people who've travelled across it," Izumi answered, her arms stiff over her chest. She hated this story and loathed thinking about it. Judging by the rising eyebrows and hungry gazes, she was uncertain how her listeners were piecing together the information. The woman's fingers squeezed in thought and she laid a new ground to start from, "It's documented that alchemy began evolving and taking on the applications we are familiar with today several thousand years ago, correct?"

A collective nod in agreement went through the group.

"The theory, and I use that term loosely, claims that ancient alchemists had encountered people claiming they'd traveled beyond the 'Gate'," Izumi's hands loosened as she disposed of a little more of the story, "all of which happened at a point in time before alchemy began it's major evolution – it's those stories that no longer exist."

Alphonse drew his knees to his chest, wrapping his young arms around his legs and clasping his strong hands over his wrists, locking his body while the story filtered in, "You're thinking the travelers triggered The Alchemy Revolution?"

Izumi continued on, conducting her class of abolished history, "The theory discusses the implications of the travelers from beyond the Gate, what kind of knowledge they possessed, and the first historical mentioning of the Philosopher's Stone. It claims that a great deal of information was exchanged before the travelers returned home," Izumi secretly wished someone would speak up and ask a question to divert the endless sound of her voice. She had no problem addressing a crowd; it was the topic that concerned her. "Portions of the theory imply that the principles for alchemy, as we've come to know them today, were established with information from beyond the Gate. So, yes Alphonse, it implies that they triggered our alchemy revolution."

Alchemy had its revolution many, many centuries before the Philosopher's Stone was created. But, because of the secrecy that taught to shroud the science at the time, it was assumed that the alchemical documents and recollections of the past had been hidden, destroyed by mistake, misinterpreted, or went unrecognized and vanished over time. Documented history struggled to validate the origins of a science that was once kept in the utmost secrecy; it had not always been an accepted practice.

"And, the knowledge bases for alchemy are said to be substantially imbalanced in the other society's favour," Izumi continued, "Because of that, it is believed there is something like a Utopia beyond the Gate. At the very least, some type of alchemical perfection that we are not permitted to obtain."

Alphonse's hands gripped a little tighter. Perhaps he'd waded into a pond so deep he may never touch bottom. It was a sudden, sinking realization that came over him that he honestly had no idea the foe he was bound and determined to take on.

"… Or, so says the theory," Izumi finished, "and then there's Brigitte…"

Silence eclipsed the group, no one too certain just how to handle, analyze, or interpret so much foreign knowledge. Mustang and Alphonse were the only two listeners who could associate the information with anything of relevance, while the two supporting female officers could only digest the knowledge as though they were copying a college text word for word, without complete understanding.

"And Edward is there?" Maria questioned suddenly and had Izumi nod in response.

"And Dante wants to get there?" Riza followed up.

"My assumption is yes," the instructor confirmed, "and I don't think she's concerned if we reach Ed on the other side before she's reached anything over there herself. If we do it before she does, that just means she didn't have to get her hands dirty to accomplish the process."

Again, the silence of slow comprehension over took the group beneath the mid-day, over cast skies.

"Validation?"

Until this point, Mustang had only offered his voice once. He had not wanted to interject, but simply absorbed everything given to him and processed it as best he could. Yet the more he wrapped his mind around the key bits that Izumi had given, the less something made sense, "Dante would need some sort of validation for the 'theory' to convince her, to convince you, me, anyone, that its worth investing more than one lifetime in. What is the catalyst, prior to Brigitte, that tells anyone that there may in fact be something there."

Izumi wondered if anyone had noticed her wince. Many things caused her stomach to pinch, but the terror of this thought made it so much worse, "When someone travels to the Gate, you can see everything it holds but never truly understand what it means. What you see is what lies beyond the Gate in fractured, distorted, and incomplete detail. The glimpse beyond the Gate is a tease for what is obtainable and the hell you would face to get it."

"Dante believes all that because she's seen it, right?" Alphonse asked, his voice almost squeaking, "that's why she believes it?"

"Anyone who's been to the Gate has seen it," Izumi gave a nod in response, though her gaze quickly became tangled up with Mustang.

The senior officer had narrowed his eye. Why had she just unquestionably explained away the Gate's imagery? No matter how much he wanted to know, the look in Izumi's eyes created a dark and heavy weight in the pit of his stomach kept him from asking, kept him from wanting to ask, how she could validate 'Dante's' vision of what lay at the Gate and not leave any room for doubt. Instead, he finally chose to digress, "How much of this 'theory' did you gather?"

Izumi snorted, rolling her eyes more so at the weight of information she bore on her shoulders, rather than Mustang's inadvertent ignorance, "I don't know if I should call it 'too much' or 'too little'. To be perfectly honest, there're great chunks that don't make any sense. I don't know if that's because I didn't get all the information or that the information wasn't there in the first place. I have portions of information spanning from how to cross the Gate to what purpose 'baby Diana' might serve," Izumi shook her head, dissatisfied that she had so much information thrust upon her so suddenly in such a fragmented state that she couldn't even confirm how much she honestly knew, "The initial theory itself was abandoned at an incomplete stage, so there wasn't a completed list of information to begin with. It lacked credibility and a great deal of it was next to impossible to prove. The original author was so skeptical of what he'd penned in that he'd abandoned it."

"Wait, 'he'?" Al's attention jerked away from the bewildered state he'd sat in for so long, "Dante's not the author?"

Izumi stopped, her answer coming after moment of hesitation, "It's not Dante's theory."

"Is the author known or does he pre-date Dante?" Mustang took the reins and dropped the question forthright.

Izumi's gaze started out at Mustang, but dropped away into the soil. Her brow wove together as she thought, listening to the weak whip of the wind drift past her ears. Amidst everyone's silence, the threads of grass swayed in rhythm as an internal debate held her eyes down.

Sweeping her attention over to Alphonse, she watched as the boy looked over her, his expression begging for information, "The man who was her first husband. Back then, he signed as 'Von Hohenheim'."


Glancing to his side, Ed watched with a raised eyebrow as Winry turned the brown, paper-wrapped, square package over and over like some child determined to solve the mystery.

"I'd still like to know what you think you're doing?" he rolled his eyes, shaking his head before finally returning focus to the sidewalk the two walked along, "I told you to stay home."

"I wanted to find out what this package was that had caused me so much grief," Winry scoffed, giving the box a shake, listening to the dull contents thud around inside amongst, what sounded like, crumpled newsprint.

In an hour and a half long argument, that seemed to take up most of the morning, Ed had profusely refused to take Winry with him to the post office. Heck, he hadn't even planned on going today - the bloody package could wait a day or two. Much to his chagrin, Winry persisted, and persisted, and pestered, until finally Ed gave in and told her he would go fetch the package he'd believed was more trouble than it was worth. The deal was that he would go and she would stay home with her ass-end in a chair and her feet bundled in wool socks. Winry's early morning had started out that way, but regardless of exhaustion, sore parts and Ed's orders, she'd found herself unable to stay prisoner in a chair. She'd done that the day before and barely survived, but this time Edward had the gall to tell her to learn how to knit to pass the time.

So, the agreement was ratified: Winry would accompany Ed. Insisting that the men's boots and fuzzy socks she had on were comfortable, she'd tagged along with Ed as he entered the postal outlet and followed him outside again like a happy puppy, much to Ed's annoyance and mostly dismay.

"Where are your keys?" Winry suddenly asked.

"In my pocket," Ed spat out, his eyes turning to slits, "why?"

Tucking the cubic package under her arm, Winry grabbed Ed's single good arm by the wrist and tried to wiggle her way into his jacket pocket, "I want to cut the tape and open it. Your keys will work."

"Knock it off Winry, dammit," trying to pull his arm free and turn away from having his keys abducted, Ed wound himself in circles down the sidewalk as Winry pursued, "get some patience and wait until we're home at least, you're going to bre-"

As though irony felt like driving home a point in Edward's favour, the package landed with a dull thump on the sidewalk.

"You're going to break something," he held a snarl of displeasure in his voice. Though, as Ed's eyes looked down at the fallen item with great displeasure, he very quickly realized his keys had been confiscated. Annoyed, he threw his gaze out into the morning street and found his glance narrowing at something entirely different; eyeing the traffic officer in the upcoming intersection that had stopped all lanes of traffic.

Kneeling down to the sidewalk, dirtied with days-old snow, Winry gripped the house key firmly and began attacking the tape that separated her from this mysterious object.

"Oh…" Ed's brow rose momentarily.

Not to be disheartened by the difficulty she was having with the key and tape war, Winry paused a moment, glancing up to Ed. He hadn't barked at her in the last sixty seconds, when he had every reason to do so. She felt kind of bad about this ridiculous tizzy they were at today. It was like some sort of ridiculous cover-up, because barely anything had been said between the two of them the day before. She didn't know what she was supposed to have made of that day, it wasn't as though they avoided each other or she hid away in her room in shame of her behaviour. They'd sat in the sitting room all day together and said next to nothing. Well, the mention of tea came up occasionally, and crunchy buns, but not much more than that. He'd asked her more today about how she'd been feeling than at any point in the prior day. A good chunk of the time, she could read Ed like a book, but yesterday he'd shut himself right up and had vanished into the book he was reading. She was afraid to ask him about it and, more so, really wanted to apologize for it. Winry was certain it was her fault he was being like that and just ended up feeling guiltier because she couldn't convince herself to speak up.

Watching Ed's attention veer elsewhere, Winry paid no mind to his distractions and returned to her self-appointed task. At the final snap of tape sealing this tiny cube of mysteries, she straightened up and held out the box victoriously.

"Opened!"

The sudden sound of a single church bell came – a powerful intrusion startling the both of them. The sound echoed out into the streets, flowing without interruption. The deep chime forced the world to stand still so its sound could run freely through the streets. Again and again the chime rang, racing past with painful force and haste, tugging on the edges of Ed and Winry's coats. Neither one of them could see the steeple that was ringing out a powerful and endless sound that had stopped time.

"Ed?"

The sound of the bell seemed to rise above her voice, attempting to silence her.

"You opened the box?" he glanced over, no longer startled by the deep ringing that continued to thunder around, "happy now? Can I have my keys back?"

Winry's question came with caution, completely thrown by how Ed had suddenly just disregarded the hypnosis of the deep bell, "What was that?"

"Today's the eleventh, it's a memorial day of sorts," Ed gave the response with a shrug, shaking the moment and issue away as though it was nothing, "don't worry about it."

"A memorial for what?" it was confusing to watch him suddenly become so detached from a moment he'd seemed to have been captured by. The box suddenly became Winry's secondary interest, "everyone just stopped for what?"

Ed rolled his head around on his neck before begrudgingly answering, "A war."

"What war?" Winry's tone was more surprised than persistent sounding. No one had told her about a war.

"A big war. A war that's over. What's in that damned box, Winry?" Ed demanded, drawing her attention back and smacking the top of the box with the back of his hand.

Winry blinked down at the box she still firmly clutched, "Right, it's open." Sometimes she truly hated when he'd get so blunt and vague about things that seem so important to everyone but him.

Ed extended his hand, "Keys. Now."

Without a word to the matter, Winry returned the man's keys and proceeded to lift open the cardboard flaps to the box, "What kind of a war?"

Ed watched as she pulled out some crumpled news print and fished for their prize. His melancholic expression grew a shade of concern as Winry wrinkled her nose at the eventual discovery. Ed did respond to her question though, his voice lost in a stagnant monotone, "the kind where lots of people die." He watched her crouch and place the box down on the ground, and then return standing with a thick, brown, leather-covered book, accented with gold plated corners and matching clasp in hand.

"What is it?" his head tilted.

Turning it over in hand, Winry examined it a little closer, "It's a day timer? Or diary?"

"It's too large for that," reaching out, Ed took the weighty object from Winry's possession and held it in his hand. It was oversized, thick, heavy, and quite professional looking. It wasn't exactly what he'd expected for a surprise delivery.

Sliding up to his left shoulder, Winry recognized that the book was too much for Ed to manage standing with only a single hand. With the flick of her thumb, she released the snap-button clasp and pulled open the cover with far more ease than either expected for something that appeared so freshly bound. Ed cradled the binding in his hand while Winry flipped the fluttering pages back until the front page came to be.

"Wait, what!" Winry exclaimed, uncertain if she should be amused or angered by the printed name of the owner on the inside cover, "This belongs to your dad? Why's it coming to you?"

"What the hell? Why was it addressed to me?" Ed grumbled, his interest in the object slowly growing a layer of disgust. Still cradling the book in his left hand, Ed watched as Winry handled the pages, flipping to the title page.

The outer pages were thick, like protectors, but the core of the book was not written on such strong paper – very light and free. Each page was only printed on one side as the ink had bled through, rendering the backsides of each sheet unusable. And it was hand written - the entire book was hand written. The first page gave the title away – stylized in thick, black ink by a dip-pen.

Edward stood and reviewed the title over in his mind more than once.

"'The Theory of Beyond the Gate'?" Winry read aloud.

His nose wrinkling, Ed wasn't sure if this was meant as a game, joke, or otherwise, "The what…?"


"This is as far as I go, folks," the horseman pulled on the reins of his cart, slowly drawing his caravan to a stop, "Pendleton."

Russell Tringham stepped out from the back of the covered caravan, his shoes kicking up the road dust as he moved. All riders aboard the rickety transport had caught the elaborately decorated sign for Pendleton. Russell almost laughed; the city was in no way vibrant enough to live up to the excitement of their welcome sign.

Pendleton, the final city settlement in the west that was governed by Amestris, and even that was in question. The border town itself lay in relative peace and the inhabitants relied on only themselves for support. The government constantly gave its attention to the north, east and south – the Pendleton outlet was left to its own devices. The only time this location garnered attention was when the governing body of the western country raised its voice and threw out the empty demand that the outlet be returned to their jurisdiction.

Looking back into the caravan, Russell gave a nod to his travel companions: his younger brother, plus Gracia and Elysia Hughes. Elysia had tucked herself away in young Fletcher's lap, and the younger of the two brothers played 'big brother' to a young companion. The elder pair of Gracia and Russell kept themselves occupied, chatting with the driver, taking inventory of what they'd brought, and working on how they would manage to get themselves across the armed border to the west. Gracia had refused to go along with most ideas, not because they weren't sound plans to see the mother and daughter out of the country, but because they did not allow for a flawless return for the two boys back into their home country.

Extending a hand for Gracia, Russell helped her out of the cart.

Both Gracia and Elysia had taken on a change of clothes during the trip west. A peasant or farmer's look was decided to be the easiest solution. Four finely dressed people showing up at an outskirt town would raise a chorus of alarm bells. A simple white and pale green dress was collected for Gracia, and a yellow and green speckled dress with bonnet had been found for Elysia.

With feet on the solid ground, Gracia turned back to help her daughter out.

"Get up Fletcher," Russell called as Elysia left the boy's lap.

Calling back to his hitchhikers, the caravan driver gestured out west, "Since I'm not crossing the border, I'll take my leave of everyone. Do you have your things?"

Fletcher handed the last of two backpacks to his elder brother before signaling a thumbs up at their driver, "Yes, Sir. Thanks for taking us out here."

"It's been a pleasure to have you along," chirped the driver, "not often I pick up a pack of strays that come with a couple pretty ladies. Good day, folks!"

The light crack of horse reins were heard, and the caravan that had taken the group from West City to Pendleton continued on without them, leaving a fine cloud of dust in its trail.

"Mummy, I'm hungry," Elysia sulked as she took her mother's hand firmly, "can we go eat?"

Russell would respond as the teen suited up with a backpack and satchel, "We can stop and eat if you two are hungry, no problem with that. Or we can try to cross and see what's to eat out of country."

"Fletcha?" Elysia called, "is food better out of country?"

The boy could only shrug in response, "I dunno, I've never crossed the border. Maybe it's mysterious. Mrs. Hug—er, Gracia? Do you know?"

"Mummy?"

Russell's attention went onto the woman as well, but she could only smile and give the same unknowing response. It bothered the eldest Tringham to hear how she'd forced her pleasant tone to keep her daughter from sensing anything was wrong. As far as the little girl was concerned, they were going on an adventure with Alphonse's friends, a great adventure, and when it was done, Elysia could see everyone again. That's what they were trying to maintain.

But Izumi's letter to them was no adventure, and the boys instructions were clear: see it through to a safe end. Initially, Russell had told Gracia they would hide out in West City, since the conflicts were mostly in the other quadrants of the country. But a problem came in securing their safety – the boys were a liability since they stood a chance of being recognized. Then came the problem of slipping a woman and child into a district that was extremely tight knit. Their names would create another issue. None of them could gauge the extent of Dante's eyes and ears. Changing their names would work, but convincing Elysia to go along with it for an indefinite amount of time didn't seem to be a reasonable expectation for the child.

In West City, it was Gracia who had suggested leaving the country, since it would not be a stretch to get to the western border. Once across, they would all become untraceable. Regardless of the regime change in their home country, most nations had, at one point or another, engaged in extensive combat with Amestris. Though a peaceful border existed in the west, the bordering nation did not let their grudge die so easily. For the most part, the nation was completely disinterested in providing any type of assistance to a warring nation. Hunting down a few citizens wouldn't be a request they'd entertain.

"Are you doing okay?" Russell asked quietly.

Gracia turned, her ears drowning out the bubbling chatter of Elysia and Fletcher as they walked. Her head lowering slightly, the woman released the exhaustion from her face and allowed a peaceful expression to return, "Honestly, I'm tired. I'd like nothing more than to cross the border and worry about things like dinner and accommodations afterwards. If we even ge—"

"No," Russell cut her off, "no 'if' here, we'll get you across, even if we need to go through the country side."

"The country side would be easier, then we don't risk arguing with the border guards," Fletcher piped up.

Stopping, Russell turned on a dime to face his younger brother who stood beneath his line of sight. Elysia tucked herself behind the shorter of two boys as he grinned up at his brother.

Russell flared his nostrils momentarily before lowering one eyebrow, "Last I checked, you were having a conversation about ice cream."

With a chirp to his voice, as if to impress the young lady at his side, Fletcher responded, "You're the one always telling me, 'Pay close attention to what I'm saying, Fletcher. It's important'."

Sliding his hands into his pockets, the elder brother rolled his eyes at his nosy younger brother and found a new line for their conversation, "We need a snack, I'll be right back. Nobody go anywhere."

Gracia looked back over her shoulder to Fletcher. Amusement curled into her expression, but she used the voice of a wise mother, "Be careful not to trodden too much on your brother, Fletcher. He's trying his best to be a responsible for everyone."

"I know, I know," the young boy rocked on his feet for a moment before something moving caught the corner of his eye. The figure in motion was his brother and the younger boy's attention veered towards the new direction his brother was wandering.

"Hey guys!"

All eyes rose to the call of Russell's voice. He had nearly marched to the bakery at the corner of this dirt street, but had stopped in the middle of four crossed roads. With his gaze cast down the only street obscured by buildings, the right hand turn in their path, Russell gave a sharp snap of his wrist and flagged over his companions. After a moment of hesitation, the remaining three in the party joined up with Russell.

At the end of this right-hand turn, no more than 500 meters ahead of this tiny, sleepy town, was the border crossing.

Russell's arms slowly folded at the sight before them. A meek yellow and black painted bar in the road that separated two nations was raised and a shameful little officer's house at the crossing, barely larger than two outhouses, was vacant with the door hanging open. The actual border guard, in Amestris military garb, was unshaven and his shirt lazily done without all buttons. His scruffy brown hair was a bed-mangled mess and his military jacket had been thrown over the back of the rusty lawn chair he lounged in – crossword in hand. An aging peddler pushed his mule-less wooden cart with his own strength across the invisible line without so much as the flicker of acknowledgement.

Russell's grin grew wider. Stealing a look from the corner of his eye, he watched the concern wash away from Gracia's face. Right now, even more so, Russell loved this responsibility he'd been given. Despite the dire circumstances and situation surrounding the upheaval of this family and the stumbling trek into the western quarter of Amestris, the tiny family was a wonderful group to be around. Beyond how contagious the mother's smile was, there was no point in their adventure where he could shake the warm feeling that followed this tiny family at every turn.

Remembering the story they'd settled upon on their way here, Russell cleared his throat, "Ahem… 'Aunt Grace' shall we escort you and your daughter 'home' somewhere over there?"

The woman's smile remained, softening at the thought of safety and pushing aside the sad feeling of leaving the land they'd called home, "That would be lovely, thank you."


To Be Continued...


Notes:

Two years and nine months went by between the last chapter and this. Hopefully the blip wasn't that noticeable in the writing.

Chapter 26: The Theory of Beyond the Gate

Chapter Text

"The Theory Of Beyond the Gate," Dante's abuse of Nina's childish voice rang out, "sounds too mature for a picture book. Let's call it: The Story of the Great Gate. By Dante," the little body turned, "Break it up, Aisa – Dan and Te, with an accented E. It should read: 'Written by Dan Té'."

Aisa raised an eyebrow, taking down the note while glancing to the locked door of Nina's spacious room as the childish creature pranced about over a light grey carpet.

"Chapter One: Once upon a time, hundreds upon hundreds of years ago, there was a philosopher. A great, wise, and noble philosopher…" the child's arms floated around at her sides like an orchestra conductor, "you're taking notes, right Aisa?"

"Yes Miss."

Dante drew up Nina's tiny index finger once again. She spoke as though she were an adult, whimsically addressing young children, playing with their thoughts and teasing their imaginations, "This philosopher was an alchemist. He dared to do things no one else sought. And this man, like so many other alchemists of his time, was a medical alchemist. All kinds of diseases could be cured through his wisdom and compassion. Soon, he would teach the world how to not only make medicines through alchemy but with two bare hands. He lived with a dream that he could create a greater good for society."

She would write a picture book – a child's picture book. Dante gleefully made the decision on her way home from the underground city she coveted. That journey was so easy to do too, some days. Half of the staff in the Prime Ministers private quarters had been brought under, what had been at the time, Lyra's sphere of influence. Now it was hers, but to let on that a child was at the helm of this organized dissent would be absurd. The new controller was simply recognized as anonymous fand far more cold than 'Lyra' – to keep the minions in line. Disruptions continued within the nation at her own discretion and control. She was so close to what she wanted and in her life's legacy she would leave a book written for a child, telling this world how she understood the folk tales, myths and legends that had barely survived through time before arriving in her possession – where she wiped them out.

"One day, a traveler came into town. He collapsed at the philosopher's home, begging for help. 'Oh the hells I've seen, you cannot imagine,' the man cried, exhausted and worn, 'all the turmoil I have been guided through to find you here, Great Philosopher. Please help me.'"

The tale would be something to entertain the minds of young children and be foolishly disregarded as imagination by all their parents. Like the skilled alchemy masters of eons past, this alchemical story would be told in code. If that fateful day would come where she no longer stood on this earth, then let it be her last laugh at an ignorant world.

"The philosopher took this wounded man into his care and soon, through what the traveler described as a miracle, his body was healed.

'You are far greater in your knowledge than I could have ever imagined,' stated the traveler, 'my wounds are indeed healing.'

'Where have you come from, young lad?' asked the philosopher, 'for someone to not know the workings of simple medicine, I'd like to know where our nation may lend a hand and aid your plight.'"

Children's eyes would get to see this mysterious story of the fictitious 'Great Philosopher' and learn more about their own history than their parents could even comprehend. There was no one left to validate the stories as anything more than that and the most important events of their lifetime would sit right under their noses for no one to find.

"'I come from beyond the Gate, Great Philosopher. I was granted knowledge of your existence and was given lead to this world only if I could withstand the hardships; I'd feared I'd have died. I have passed the tests with the aid of Gods and their sons and here I stand.'"

As a young woman in the body she'd been born into, she'd heard the stories. Word-of-mouth tales that grew into greater secrecy as the generations went on, told only to those deemed great enough and trustworthy enough to take on the secrets. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, the legendary tales took place at what was viewed by present-day alchemists as the new dawn of their art. Alchemy, from those fabled stories forwards, exploded. That was the Alchemy Revolution.

"The philosopher laughed, 'I know nothing of which you speak. This great God, his son and crossing Gate - no mention of these has there been in any known time. I am nothing more than a doctor and an alchemist.'

'You are an alchemist?'

The traveler had asked his question eagerly to which the philosopher replied proudly, 'I do not deny that.'"

Dante would put no effort into the advertisement of her book. If a child's eye found it, then let it be so. If they did not, then so it shall be. It could be discarded when the eyes are no longer interested, or immortalize it as a fairytale. Fact-based fairytale stories which she'd taken from the world decades or maybe centuries before. Stories re-told in diluted fashion for any simple mind to read, then reorganized and clearly conveyed as best she and her husband from long ago had ever come to understand any of it – regardless of how incomplete her understanding may be.

"'Shall we converse, Great Philosopher? For your knowledge on the betterment of my wounds, I will, in exchange, give you the knowledge I carry in my fibers for your alchemy.'"

But this book, it was just a toy; a fun little aside to keep her feeling as childish as her body. It did not quell the annoyances. The Hughes', the lakeside cabin, or the little inner workings of the government that a full sized Lyra Mitchell once had much more access too.

The way the Hughes had 'left home' had made her suspicious. Alphonse was with them and that family had far too many connections to people who fit into other parts of the picture. She wasn't certain where to sound the alarm bell, but she'd given a general alarm for the entire situation. The growing number of people who answered to her omnipresent beck and call were in all corners of the country and she'd prefer to hear back from any one of them sooner than later. She couldn't help but wonder about the story out of West City, of a young mother, a little girl and young boy that fit her criteria for Elysia and Alphonse. But what was strange, was the addition of a young man that she could not place on her puzzle board. Was she looking too hard, or was this deliberate to throw her off? In the meantime, Dante would be forced follow the actions of a useless police task force, sent out to track down this 'woman and family' that she was more than certain was not meant to be found again. This drew a vile ire from such a small physique.

Where the hell was Izumi?

Was it Mustang or her own informants that burned down the cabin community? How many bodies? She hadn't heard back – that worried her. As it stood, Mustang and his right hand were missing, but his left hand was about to be locked down, and his loyalists were to be conveniently placed out of reach from one another.

"…Miss?" Aisa's voice came up.

"Hm?" Dante lifted her head, the twisted expression wrapped in thought bled into her face, "I'm burdening myself, Aisa."

"What's on your mind?" the woman squared herself around to the petite figure.

"Everything and that's the problem," Nina stepped forwards again, "I'd like to think that most of this will wash itself out, but I don't want to be confident in that. I dislike playing chess a great deal."

"Nina?" there was a knock, and a familiar male voice came from beyond the sealed bedroom door, "Dear, may I come in?"

"Wretched excuse of a man," the child muttered. A narrow set of eyes tore down the wooden door in thought. The voice of the man she gave an honourary title of 'father' to had startled her, causing her train of thought to come crashing to a halt, "interrupting me constantly. I'm tired of him and his fawning. Something needs to be done about him."

She was half tempted to leave him on the other side of the door to beg for permission to enter her room. Instead, she grudgingly smeared on her nicest expression and invited the bothersome lump of flesh in to entertain him in whatever nonsense he wanted with her this time.


"So, Once Upon a Time…" Edward tilted his head, casting a thoughtful gaze into the corner, "pieces of this world's mythology got tangled up in our ancient history. We didn't know how to interpret mythology and ended up with ideas that formed 'The Theory of Beyond the Gate'."

Gnawing on the last bite of her tea bun, Winry could only shrug, "The messed up rate of time on this side could line our histories up that way, I guess."

The centerpiece of a library table, overflowing with hidden mysteries and unknown wisdom, was the thick, leather-bound book with a golden latch. Each endless page inked in handwritten scripture depicted the skeleton of a theory whose final form was still incomplete.

Rattling the end of his pen on the desk, Ed sat up in his seat. His eyes would fall to the tabletop for minutes on end as he tried to connect the pieces of a fractured map, "The Hermaphrodite Child of the God of Boundaries," Ed pointed a finger to Winry as he read, "You'd said Dante had named the baby 'Diana', right? In the theory, that child at the boundary is called Diana," his eyes flew back to the pages in hand, his brow tightening, "So a hermaphrodite infant is meant to be the purest representation of alchemy, 'one to represent all'. The theory tries to use Diana as a doorstop, but she isn't so much a doorstop as she is a peace offering or plea for assistance," golden eyes darted around the table, picking up mental snippets of other information, "'When an infant is placed at the gateway, the worlds will appear'," Ed read aloud, "In the theory, the 'God of Boundaries' is Hermes – he's the shepherd. One of his children was a Hermaphrodite," his face twisted more as he tried to untangle the logic, "someone in our history misunderstood the mythology references and I think Dante figures that the logic behind Diana will suffice. Make an appeal to the Gate for it to show both worlds and allow passage all in one shot. Why does it seem to be working? It shouldn't."

Winry took up the slouched position Ed had once sat in, rather disappointed that she no longer had any tea buns to keep occupied with. Since they'd entered he public library shortly after it had opened, the pair had only seen one curious attendant wander to the far corner where they had set up fort. No patron had bothered to wander so far back, no other attendant had ventured there either. No one beyond Winry could see the pile of books Edward had collected in an exuberant sweep of the library archives. What notes did not appear on the table had been etched in stone within the Elric's mind.

"For Diana to serve her purpose, two 'Points of Entry' are needed," he reiterated in common form how he'd come to understand the words within the theory to mean, "A point that goes 'there to here' and one that's 'here to there'," Ed somewhat wished he could shake the book and have the answers fall out onto the table for him, "Diana has one point of entry on her stomach with that pentagram, but there can't be a match on this side for it, because alchemy doesn't work. The theory doesn't recognize that at all – it's assuming alchemy functions properly, which almost entirely debunks the theory," he threw his gaze down, narrowing an eye, "but, maybe it didwork at one point in time?"

"Why don't you wait and ask your dad?" It was the third time in the last hour she'd given him that answer to the endless rhetorical questions Ed voiced. Even after being immersed in a science she had very little understanding of for eight hours, as much as Winry appreciated his excitement and unwavering devotion to his science, she was extremely bored.

Shaking his head, Ed couldn't dismiss his day so easily, "And when do you suppose he's coming back?"

"Whenever Dr. Wilson brings him back," Winry gave her defeated answer with a heavy sigh, "but I'd bet he can answer your questions, since his name is on the first page."

Somewhat disheartened by Winry's lack of interest, Ed's train of thought broke away from his studies and switched to hers, "It's obviously my dads. It's done in his style and there's too much alchemical knowledge in it for anyone on this side of the Gate to even have had a hand in it. Now-a-days anyways," Ed redirected his focus to one of his scattered sheets of paper, "They'd called and said they'd be back 'sometime this week' and I'm not waiting around to find out if 'sometime' is tomorrow or three days from now."

The night when Ed realized what it was he had been reading his world stopped. It was the most astounding feeling he'd had in years. The amount of information in his hands was incalculable. The potential of it was inconceivable. Bubbling up from inside was a childish, jubilant side of him that wanted to make sense of it all – now. Why care about where the package came from? He hadn't felt so vibrant in years and he couldn't fight the desire to chase the knowledge around in gleeful circles.

"It's so ridiculous," the end of Ed's pen found his teeth, "The more I look at it, the more I think the ancient civilizations on this side of the Gate had known what they'd possessed thousands of years ago; they just didn't know how to use it. Or couldn't. Their histories are full of incredibly powerful, but absolutely useless information. They must have been beside themselves with frustration."

At his point between England and Germany, Ed felt like he'd nearly drowned in an ocean of knowledge. Places so saturated with information that all he had to do was stand there and it would all come to him without any request or effort. The most exciting jaunt he took was the gleeful dive he took through Greece. Sure Rome was neat, but the whole country of Greece was fascinating. There was some place called Egypt he would have loved to have gone to, but he was unable to reach it. The names of the cities within these countries meant something far different to Edward than they did to anyone else in this world. They were concrete apostles full of stories about everything he'd ever wanted to know and things he didn't realize he could know. In these places, it wasn't always about proper alchemy, but things that could be used in combination with the science and make it magnificent, glorious and unequivocally pure with understanding and power. The history of this world was the only shred of vibrancy Edward Elric had ever found since his arrival. But, as these civilizations died, they'd taken with them mans ability to listen to their teachings – they became history, then legend, then myth. Nevertheless, Ed felt like a kid in a candy store, except there would never be enough days in his life to uncover everything there was to know from this decrepit world's flavourful history. A diverging path led him back to his father and to a country in a great amount of pain. Germany linked to the atrocity of Thule but also to Oberth, who at one time was yet another one of the faintly sparkling hopes he'd latched onto.

Ed threw his arm out onto the table, fishing for a book that he soon scooped up, "Stories here talk about quests people would embark on to arrive at a place of 'great knowledge'. In some cases, it sounds like they're referring to going beyond the Gate. I wonder if they're mistaking it for a religious or spiritual journey, when that's not what's really happening," he had to watch himself to make sure his voice remained low, "but we could still show them all sorts of new and 'magical' things, but when they'd come home with their new knowledge, alchemy still failed to produce," he paused in thought, "or maybe it did work to a degree, just not like it does back home. The bonds between mind, body and soul on this side don't connect. But then, our stories are about people showing up with great knowledge, and that's the basis of the theory," the mindless expulsion of thoughts was ultimately getting him nowhere, but it was it a tantalizing gauntlet to struggle through, "the theory is how we can embark on our version of a knowledge quest and live to tell about it. Nobody's ever done that."

Just then, there was something uneasy about how Winry had cleared her throat after he'd stopped chattering and Ed's suspicious eye wandered to her, "What?"

"I'm sorry Ed," she skipped a drained facial expression around the table, "but am I doing any good by being here? I'm not really contributing anything… useful. I feel like a token in a chair."

The question was a surprise for Ed, having been so wrapped up in this merry-go-round of thoughts that had been very fun to ride, "Well, it's not like I don't want you around or anything," he scratched his cheek childishly, "did you want to go out somewhere while I work on this if you're bored?"

Winry straightened herself in the chair, "I'm happy that you're happy with all this and everything, so I don't want to rain on that by being a spoilt sport. It's just… you sound like you're speaking German."

Ed tilted his head, knotting his brow as he thought over the statement, "I haven't said a word in German since we left the country."

Winry threw a pen from the table that bounced off his forehead, "No, you idiot. Alchemy sounds like German. Neither of them makes any sense to me."

Sighing, Ed's hand came up and feverishly scratched through his hair. She'd been mostly muted since they'd arrived. Unintentionally, Ed had ignored her growing attempts at withering around in a chair to express a festering boredom. It wasn't as though he hadn't noticed; he just wasn't ready to stop the avalanche of knowledge he was sailing down on to do anything about it. The rush was revitalizing and he wanted it to run like water. Slouching in his chair, the end of Ed's pen tipped into his mouth once again. Slowly, the stem was chewed away at as it rolled around in his teeth. To Winry's credit, she'd sat around patiently, albeit twitching around occasionally, but letting him have his day. However, it was going on six hours now…

Ed took a sharp breath, "Did you want to go be Aunty Winry to Margaret for the rest of the afternoon?"

A carefully constructed smile was drawn over Winry's horrid boredom, "I think that would be nice. Thomas can drive me home later, I'm sure."

"Sorry," Ed shook his head at himself, spitting out his pen to the table.

"What for?" Winry chirped sharply.

Ed laughed at himself, looking down to the pile of papers he bundled up, "I got carried away. Sorry."

Folding her arms, she shook her head at him, "Don't apologize for that. You, of all people, need to have fun once in a while," Winry reached up and quickly ran her fingers through her hair to make sure it hadn't tangled while she'd rolled around in the chair, "just give me a mini digest version when you have one, so I know what the heck I'm stuck in the middle of."

Nodding, Ed brushed his papers together, keeping an eye on Winry's actions as she gathered up the books. He wished he could resist offering. He knew it wasn't her thing, he knew she didn't understand it, but there was simply no one else around to hear him ramble on and not chastise him for it, "I can give you a mini digest version of… erm… the general purpose for the Gate, if you're interested?"

"Alright," amused, Winry rolled her eyes, "tell me why."

Through flared nostrils, Ed took a sharp breath as he twisted his grin to one side, "Basically, big, ominous gates are meant to keep people out or keep people in. If the door is always shut, then it's probably supposed to be that way. If a gate was around with its doors wide open and a paved road going through it, it would serve no purpose. Nobody builds things like that."

Winry continued with her paper shuffle as she let Ed continue, "That makes sense."

"Both worlds are established with exactly what they were meant to have, so we don't destroy ourselves. Our world has things that would ruin this world and so much of this world would be extremely dangerous back home," his low voice carried out harmoniously and filled their quiet hide-away at the back of the library, "the nightmare you're subjected to getting to the Gate isn't meant to challenge our resilience or be some measure of a man like we want to glorify it as, it was meant to frighten us away," Edward slowly released the remainder of his breath through tight lips, "Sensei was right. She's always been right."

Edward couldn't recall if he'd ever voiced that in any capacity before. He didn't want to be wrong, but he had to concede that his teacher had always been right about the dangers of seeking what the Gate had to offer. The Gate did not offer some grand and lavish knowledge waiting to be discovered, the visions from the Gate were visions of a hell that teased secrets it buried deep within. Were the extinct secrets of a fool's gold mine worth it? It was a cruel trick and it had captured Ed, his father and dragged in Winry. Izumi had been frightened away and had tried to instill that in her young apprentices. Ed had heard her words but hadn't listened properly. Perhaps, he had been too young to understand how to be frightened by it. Perhaps, he was trying too hard to be brave in front of all of it.

"I think Izumi would be really happy to hear you say that," Winry grinned, patting a hand down on the stack of books that reached nearly to her shoulder, "then she'll punt you into next year for all this."

Ed paled, shuddering a bit as he stuffed away his paperwork into his briefcase, "Ugh, don't I know it."


The point where Al had been horrified at the thought of who his father was had passed. Perhaps, he'd been desensitized to the idea by Dante. Why didn't this information horrify him anymore? He didn't dwell on it.

The point where Al had been livid with Izumi, with everyone, for not telling him anything about his father until now had passed. That didn't matter anymore. What was he going to do about it anyways?

The point where Al had wanted to curl up and wither away had been a feeling he'd not been able to discard so easily. It had nothing to do with who his father was, or what his father had done, but it had everything to do with the military crew who had carelessly told him: as that wretched suit of armour, he had a solid, vivid memory of his father. A memory, like these others, that had been snuffed out. They were not forgotten, they were not lost, but they were gone.

Life was not fair, everyone knew that. But this was unfair!

He had been too young to remember his father. For some reason, no amount of his brother's belligerence against his father seemed to sway Al's idea that a father figure would be grand. He wanted to fume against his teacher – how dare she not tell him about his time with his father!

Once Izumi had mentioned Hohenheim as the author, the walk had resumed while Alphonse voiced an endless stream of questions pertaining to his father. At some point, Mustang had made mention of the stop in Resembool where they had met Hohenheim around a year ago and Izumi brought the troupe to a halt with a verbal assault that started off with, 'You inconsiderate troll…'

At some point, while Al was reeling from an emotional belly flop and locked in his own world of disenchantment, they'd hitched a ride in a truck's hay carriage. At that point, he had found a quaint little spot to ball up in and indulged in a selfish desire for solitude. He'd pulled his knees up, put down his head and was graciously left alone for the entire ride. Alphonse never noticed the horse drawn carrier stop.

"Stand up."

Al lifted his attention to Mustang's voice.

"Pay attention."

"Sorry," Al drew himself up; looking around at the rickety town they'd disembarked at. He'd let his mind wander for too long it seemed. The trip had passed him by. Stretching his legs, it felt as though he was waking up from a restless sleep. Alphonse caught the women in the group taking a free stroll away from the ride they'd taken, watching as they went along without urgency. Maria had Brigitte's hand.

"Alphonse?"

Again Mustang asked for his attention and Alphonse apologized for being dopey. Al hopped off, glancing over to the officer as he cleared the cart, eyeing him as he slung Brigitte's camera bag over his shoulder.

"Are you about done?" Roy tilted his head, looking down at Alphonse with the classic, no-nonsense expression the boy had come to expect from him.

"Done…?" Al began to walk, not certain about what to make of the question.

Mustang followed; his brisk, military pace adjusted to match the careless strides Al took, "With your sulking? Or do you want more time for that?"

Frowning, Alphonse wasn't sure if he was supposed to be insulted or was expected to come up with some smart-aleck response to the question, "Is this how you use to talk to me and my brother?"

Somewhat caught by the question, Mustang ran the idea through his mind, "My conversations with your brother weren't always the most civil; though I think I was a little more provocative with Edward. He was my subordinate, but you had no obligation to me."

Alphonse couldn't shake the feeling of discontent and wrinkled his nose as he spoke, "I still have no obligation to answer you."

"No, you don't, but I wasn't demanding an answer out of you," the officer adjusted the strap of Bridgette's case against his shoulder as he brushed his feet along the dirt road, "I wanted to see if you'd volunteer a response, or if you'd go back to feeling sorry for yourself a little longer."

Al tightened his brow and continued to hold the wrinkles over the bridge of his nose, "You have an odd way of asking someone if they're feeling alright."

Mustang chuckled at the response, glancing up to the open sky, "I've always been of the belief that both you boys can handle what I throw at you, even if you don't want to hear what I have to say. I've yet to be disappointed," the officer slowly rolled a curl through his expression as he chewed on a thought, leaving him with a distant look, "I have another question for you instead. Which one frightens you more: The thought that you'll grow up never knowing who your father is, or that you'll grow up knowing your father knows nothing about who you are?"

The question was surprising and Alphonse stopped, shrouding his feet in a light dusting of the dirt road. Turning his gaze down, Al mulled the question over. There were the memories that he'd created of his father: they were based off of the pictures he could see and the things his mom and brother would say, even if Ed's stories had evolved into things that weren't very nice. Al had always had some foolish daydream that he could have some sort of relationship with his father, because in his mind that was possible. He wanted someone he could come home to and talk about his day to, someone he could go out with and do father-son things with – but there was no father figure in his life.

Although he recognized that Alphonse wasn't moving, Roy took a few extra strides before coming to a stop and looking back over his shoulder. His expression left no room for discussion, he was looking for an answer, "Well?"

"If I don't know about my father, even if I had a way of finding out for myself and couldn't, there are enough people around who can tell me about him, like my brother, you, or the other people that met or knew him," was the response Alphonse gave, "I'm the only one who can tell Dad about me."

"And regardless if you remember it or not, you did meet him. You didn't listen when we told you that," Mustang pointed out, watching as Alphonse bristled a little, "and you spent an entire night with your father. Alone. Talking. I do know that he asked you to talk about your mother and your adventures up until then; I was standing there. Even if you can't recall that part of your life, wouldn't you think that you'd probably have told him most everything you would tell him today? Unless you can think of some reason why being a suit of armour would change everything you want to talk to him about."

Al's gaze drifted away into cityscape. He wasn't sure how that was supposed to make him feel. Usually, the thought of finding out that someone knew the Metallic Alphonse Elric was upsetting, but the idea that his father knew him like that didn't have that same nasty bite. He'd always wanted to talk to his dad about his mom and how much she loved him, and how no matter how much Ed acted like he hated him, he was still their father. Did he really get the chance to say all that? If those things were important in his memories a year ago, before they transmuted their mother, then they would have still been important when he'd become the armour. That would make sense.

"Dad got to see how good we'd become with alchemy, right?" Al's attention suddenly perked at a question that bubbled into his thoughts.

Frowning a little, alchemy felt too natural to Mustang at this point in his life to know if he could recall either of them performing anything in front of their father's eyes or not, "I'm certain he knew. Your existence was enough of an example to satisfy that."

Alphonse took that answer as positively as he could.

"So, are you done sulking?" Mustang drew upon a more authoritative tone than he'd been using moments earlier, "or do you want to find another corner to hide in while we set up?"

Rolling his eyes, Al sighed and lightly shook his head, "I'll live…"

"Good."

Sharply drawing in a breath and forcing it out again through sealed lips, Alphonse wrinkled his nose, "At least I know what Wrath was talking about now."

Mustang frowned, puzzled, "What was this?"

Shaking his head, Alphonse tried to shuffle together his thoughts, "When we found Shou Tucker's body and I met Wrath, he told me that Diana was part of some Gate theory that 'Hohenheim' came up with. He was rambling on about Dante, Nina Tucker, Diana and just nonsense. I had no idea what he was talking about," he laughed lightly, foolishly at himself, "I didn't know what to do with it, then we found Sensei."

Silently, Mustang mulled over the thought that there was a little AutoMail equipped golem running around half-naked with possibly a plethora of information on a very vile topic, "What would Dante want with Nina Tucker? Why would Wrath care?"

Alphonse paused. Mustang watched as the young man turned his attention away in thought. Not thought of the question, he figured, but thought on how to answer.

"Wrath said that Dante cut Tucker's head off because of Nina," he mulled the idea he'd hoped wouldn't become part of the puzzle, "He said that Tucker had made her and that I'd helped with the Philosopher's Stone."

"You'd helped?" Mustang asked, wondering if he'd ever honestly get a foothold at some point, "With the Philosopher's Stone?"

Alphonse shook his head sharply, "I don't know. It's like 'he said, she said' because Wrath heard it from Dante. I don't know if it's true or not," he wished it to not be so, "I don't remember it."

Mustang mulled his thoughts over, "And Nina was valuable enough to her to permanently shut Tucker up." He wanted to shout out how ridiculous it was, but he withheld it, feeling that perhaps there was some point that he was missing that could connect all the dots. Folding his arms, Roy's thoughts drifted, "You don't remember how Nina Tucker died, do you?"

"No," Al's attention tilted up to the officer asking a question he must have known the answer to, "how did she die?"

He responded by wrinkling his nose and giving a momentary laugh. He remembered, clearly, the night surrounding Nina Tucker, "That is one of those questions that, when I tell you the answer, you will regret having asked," he gave a light shake to his head, "it was an egregious indignity to a human life."

"I wouldn't have helped to bring her back?" Alphonse asked, "not willingly?"

The answer was solemn, "No, you wouldn't have."


Thomas's crossed arms fell lose at his sides and a moderately horrified expression followed in its wake, "You two… will have this nonsense cleaned up before Charles returns home, I most certainly hope?"

There was paper everywhere. There needed to be paper everywhere. Sheet one had everything to do with sheet 11, and 11 had everything to do with 53, while that was linked into sheet 32. The chain went on endlessly. It needed to be all 'there' at his fingertips, Ed discerned; he needed to have the links line up without having to flip through and find each sheet over again. He wished he could draw lines between everything. The centerpiece for this sprawling mess was the gold accented handbook.

"We'll have it tidied up," Winry responded courtly, her feet tucked beneath her in the side chair, "we don't need to be evicted."

"Very well then," Thomas cleared his throat, adjusting the coat he still wore. He looked around the study the two of them had holed up in. Winry's chair had been taken from the main room and added to the side of the desk, the one electrical light upon the desk had the shade removed, flooding the room with light. The room itself was stuffy; the windows were closed, though Thomas soon figured that Ed had done that to keep any paperwork from sliding around. He'd seen Edward in a set-up similar to this before.

Slowly, Thomas's arms came back up to his chest. His speech was careful and calculated, "My wife and child wanted to know how the two of you were doing, since we haven't seen you in a bit."

Winry had opened her mouth to respond, but Ed beat her to a response, "We're great Thomas, thanks."

The visitor's gaze narrowed at the Elric who wasn't giving his presence fair attention, "Did you two want to go out to a park with the family later? The weather is quite fair."

"Not today Thomas, we're busy."

Thomas detached his focus from Ed and tossed it to Winry. She could only shrug, feeling the same presence in the room that Thomas could – the ragingly annoyed one Ed created around himself when his concentration was being intruded on. What Winry couldn't recognize about the awkward conversation was the unwanted sense of déjà vu that was creeping in from a discarded stitch in time.

"What are you working on that has you so enthralled, Edward?" the Englishman finally began to pry.

Ed cleared his throat quickly, lifting his head and giving Thomas a wary eye, "Complex math equations." He spoke pointedly.

"Right…" relenting, the visitor gave a nod to the response, "complex math is an extremely good use of your spare time."

"Are you deliberately toying with me, Thomas?" Ed narrowed an eye, an undertone of aggression filtered into the low vibrations of his voice.

Winry's brow rose at the inflection in his voice. It was strange that he'd become defensive over what they were doing with Thomas in the room. Rising up from her chair, the pile of paper Winry had collected in her lap was set aside and she brushed the backside of her skirt smooth, "I think going out might be good for everyone. And Ed needs to clear his head, I think." Winry's hands came to her hips. Ed's train of thought never broke for any passengers, stop light or hazard sign. It was a wonder that he hadn't run out of fuel, "I'm starving and want food, so since I like the idea of getting up anyways, why not just go out."

Unable to help himself, Thomas simply had to ask, "Have the both of you been trying to figure out complex math?"

"It's not my kind of math, but I'm trying," Winry shrugged, "We're trying to find an equation that'll find and open a door."

Both parties caught the sound of Ed's hand slapping his face as she'd spoke.

"Is this New Math?" Thomas stretched his brow, "Sounds more like a riddle, since opening a door is a fairly simple thing to do." Tilting his head, reaching a hand to his face to brush away an assortment of stray hairs, all the while keeping Edward in the corner of his eye, "What does the door look like?"

Stepping through Ed's paper map spread over the floor, Winry made her way through the room, "Not too sure. It's big though."

"And you need math for this? A big door should be easier to find than not. Are there handles?" the hand at Thomas' forehead swept out in front and he offered a courtesy hand-hold to Winry as she cleared the obstacle course. His voice took up a provocative tone, "Edward, does your complex-math door problem have handles?"

Unwilling to snarl or voice his displeasure in words, Ed wrinkled his nose and shot an unimpressed gaze up to the two of them as he rose to his feet. Unlike Winry had done, the papers in his possession were carelessly discarded to the floor, "No, it doesn't."

Lifting his head high, Thomas gave a grin to the response and tilted his gaze back to Winry, "Then I certainly hope you can push it open when you find it."

Thomas had barely released the last two syllables of his careless thought before realizing he had unintentionally brought an arctic chill to the room, and everything froze. Edward had not finished standing up. Hunched over, his knees bent, Ed's widened eyes stared far beyond the baseline of the wall and carpet that intersected his line of sight. Straightening up with muscles and joints cleansed of all their restrictions, Ed turned to look at Winry. His widened expression held her thoughtful gaze for a moment before the stun finally washed away. The room melted. He could feel it, in flesh of both his hands – in the palm of the hand he had never lost and in the shadow of a memory that he had of the other. Ed could feel the pressure, the strain on his shoulders, the temperature of the doors, the resilience that ran in his veins and the clairvoyant stream that propelled him forwards at the time he had first returned from his initial escapade beyond the Gate.

"We can push it open…"

"Alright you two, don't lose me," Thomas quickly glanced between them, "don't take some crazy thing I've said, run off with it and drown in the river. Are you both coming or not?"

"No! We can't, not now!" Ed's voice carried out suddenly. His excitement had bubbled up again and Edward was back in the middle of his paper nest, snatching up pages.

In stark contrast to Edward's sudden jubilation, Winry felt Thomas' polar reaction. Without warning, Thomas took Winry by the upper arm and hauled her into the hallway. The sudden behaviour was uncharacteristically harsh for Thomas and Winry could only stumble along. Stopping out of earshot of Ed, the Englishman's expression had clouded over and he spun her to grip both arms.

"What 'calculations' are you really doing in there, Winry?"

"Um…" she had no idea what was going on or why he was so angry, "I'm not too sure about the exact formulas and terminology myself, but Ed knows what he's doing, so…"

"Is he playing with alchemy again?" Thomas spat out the question with an overwhelming volume of disgust, "some magic door in the heavens? You're letting him see madness again?"

Winry did not and could not understand the reaction. She glanced back towards the room Edward remained in through the cool, dimly lit hallway before reestablishing eye contact with Thomas, "I'm sorry, what? …Yes?"

"For Gods sake woman, you seem smarter than that - why are you letting him fill his head with witchcraft and nonsense?" Thomas spoke pleadingly, loosening his grip but taking hold of her at both shoulders, as though begging a young, ignorant child, "it's dangerous to let him think that he can make magic happen with circles and stars on pieces of paper, especially in this post-war time. Only mad-men and gypsies do these sorts of things, Edward is neither and is too young for so much trouble," he shook his head, lowering his gaze momentarily in thought before re-gripping her arms and looking again into Winry's eyes, "the pneumonia did horrible things to his head, made him terribly sick, bleached his eyes, caused him to think of strange things under his breath, and made his mind a mess. We worked very hard to purge the blasphemy before he went anywhere with it. Please don't encourage him anymore."

… Wait, what?

Standing with her back against a white wall, Winry looked back into Thomas' expression. Her mouth open a touch, poised to give a response, but having no idea what that would be. Defensive instinct told her to stiffen and demand to know what's wrong with alchemy, like she could correct Thomas' line of thinking. Yet, everything about his behaviour told her she would have no luck. She had no proof to substantiate anything. There was no alchemy in this society. There was no alchemy references anywhere beyond the places Ed could provide.

"But, he's happy with this stuff and not hurting anyone. It's harmless, really," she finally answered.

"People's thoughts are dangerous, Winry…" Thomas again pleaded, "and he can't always see that clearly."

She wouldn't argue that.

"If someone thinks he's trying to play God with occult science the church will have him committed, deported or something. Lord, in the countryside, he'd be tied to a stake and burned alive. What he is doing is not acceptable in this modern city and he knows that and he also knows the trouble it brings," he adjusted the grip on her arms, "please burn his papers and find him something else to play with."

Cornered in a chilly, darkened hallway, Winry stared into the eyes of a man so convinced of his position that she couldn't argue. Her lips poised to respond but nothing was immediately forthcoming. Looking back down the hall, Winry took her bottom lip into her teeth.

"I'll talk to him about it."

Her response held little honestly, but was delivered for Thomas' sake. A white lie would ease the tension.

"Thank you."

Thomas finally relinquished his hold on Winry. She watched as he quietly straightened the coat over his shoulders and adjusted the buttons. He gave a glance back her way, but did not offer another invite. Leaving Winry standing alone with her muddled thoughts, he walked away into the dim candle lights and deep shadows towards the household exit.


With the whip of his wrist, Roy Mustang swung the pool cue around and seamlessly threaded the tip into the notch of his index finger and thumb. Lowering his eye, head and shoulders to table level, he looked out across the deep green surface, darkened by the low and nearly absent light at the back of the pool hall.

"Three ball, corner pocket," his right hand snapped, two balls collided, and the three ball did as was instructed.

There was no playing partner. He was left alone at the back of this dreary tavern. The bar counter at the far other side of the modest building had the odd straggler hunched over their beer mug, drowning their mind in a thick brew. The careless, round wooden tables and chairs were scattered around the floor without plan or care – the seats barely occupied by anyone in this town. The lone pool table at the back of the room sat in near darkness, maybe ten minutes earlier the flickering light bulb that hung by its wires overhead had given up. Mustang's one eye had no problem with the poor lighting though, it was more his mind that was out for a romp than any skills he might have for this game.

The choices were simple: the in-house nanny, Aisa, whom Roy suspected would prove difficult to run a history trace on, or the reconstructed body of Nina Tucker. One of the two would be Dante. If Dante were Aisa, then Nina Tucker was a marionette, guided around the most important office in the country. If Dante were Nina Tucker, she was in direct contact with the most influential people in the country and Aisa would be a pawn. Irregardless of which one of the two stood to be actually Dante, both options would be dangerous and monumentally difficult to prove.

Dante: a woman who was the conductor in this game. A woman he had never met and a woman whose existence eclipsed everyone else.

The noise of chattering men from outside the building broke Roy's thoughts up. With a hint of foregone vanity, he took a glance down at himself - he looked like he'd been traveling in the same thing for days, a visual made worse by the shadow beard. How disgusting. At least he was dressed to look like he belonged at the back of a filthy pub and wouldn't draw attention to himself. Though, he would certainly love to wrap himself up in fresh shirt and they were close enough to Central now that he would probably have one the next day. The pool cue slammed down into his two hands again and Mustang stalked around his table, eyeing the pockets in which to bury his prey. His footsteps made no sound; however, the quartette of low ranking officers who'd wandered into the dive while he stalked the table made enough noise for all five men.

The Hughes family was removed from the picture being painted. Somewhere, deep down, a great relieve basked in the warmth of that knowledge. The surface temperature raged with fire though. Brigadier General Mustang felt responsible for that family's welfare and to be left out of their situation just wouldn't sit. It almost burnt him like a failing, but he couldn't quite convince himself of that.

"Four ball, side pocket," the pool cue whistled through the air as it tore a sharp path.

Izumi had been located and had brought with her more information than Roy could have ever imagined. What an infuriating woman to be involved with. And an Alchemy Gate? How absurd that sounded on its own, without any qualification. How many people running around on this earth had this kind of knowledge of his mastered trade? It was as though it were trying to patronize his own knowledge by appearing so much larger than the science he understood.

The white cue ball cracked off of its target.

"Are you winning?" came a voice that had broken away from the noisy group of young men.

Roy snorted, straightening up, "One can never have too much practice."

Dressed in his standard military garb, having entered with the fellow soldiers on evening leave, Broche made his way into the darkened back corner, "I'm not so good at this game," he took up a cue that rested in the stand mounted to the wall, "I'm a bit better at darts. After a few drinks, that is."

"Darts are for long range artillery generals and grenade throwers," Mustang whipped the cue around his wrist as he continued to circle the table, "pool is for precision workers: assassins and snipers."

"You're walking better," Broche polished the cue tip with a blue chalk block.

Roy's nose wrinkled in disgust, "I'm ignoring it."

"Ah," the young sergeant walked up to the near corner of the table, "there's a recall notice out for you. They've rescinded your medical leave and want you back in Central."

Mustang's eyes drifted carelessly but deliberately to scan over the crowd in the heart of this rural dive, "Have they?"

"Major Hawkeye's vacation has also been withdrawn. Notices have been sent out regarding it," Resting the cue along the polished wood frame of the pool table, Broche scanned what was left atop the pool table, "it looks more like a warrant. If anyone sees the two of you, they're to escort you back to Central. Someone isn't going to interpret that bulletin correctly."

"What fun would it be otherwise?" Mustang gave a laugh to his words, as though he'd known that was coming, "I made too much noise before I left.  Figures our little parasite wouldn't want me far away."

"I'm sorry, Sir?" Broche's gaze rose in confusion.

Shaking his head, Mustang returned to his table of entertainment, "Don't worry about this one. Keep your nose clean and eyes open wide," stepping up to the table's edge, he slipped his gaze over to the young officer, "take your shot, Sergeant Broche."

Without any real thought to the layout of the pool table, the sergeant brought up his pool cue and laced it through both hands. Taking barely a moment's thought to his course of action, Broche cracked the cue ball and sent two balls scurrying; tumbling into opposite pockets.

"Nicely done," Mustang drew on a mild grin.

"Thank you, Sir," he stepped back from the table, watching as his superior returned to a careful examination of the table, "Lieutenant Havoc has been arrested for the disappearance of Miss Rockbell."

Broche drew back as Mustang's path began to envelop an aura, filtering off of his shoulders like steam. The pool cue came back to both hands again, his thumbs sharply spinning the finely polished wood in the palms of his hands, "And their evidence?"

"I don't know, Sir."

"It's a notice to us, then," stopping his march, Roy firmly gripped the handle of the cue with his right hand, slowly setting the stem down in the crook of his left thumb, "To pay attention," his voice came out low, but mockingly, "he'll be held hostage to deflect attention away from whatever had really gone on."

Broche flinched at the sharp sound Mustang drew out from the cue ball as it cracked off of the six-ball, vanishing into the far corner pocket, "I don't understand how Winry's ended up being an issue for this situation. She wasn't in the market. She wasn't at the hospital when we first met Alphonse. She came in from Resembool for Alphonse. She'd had an arrest warrant issued as a ruse, we just needed to talk to her.  Only a handful of us ever saw it and I don't know if it was ever formally submitted.  Then you threw it out."

Mustang's ears listened as he signaled the young sergeant back to the table.

"She's not an alchemist. She's not military. She doesn't work for the government. Why target her apparently at random?" Broche leaned down to be eyelevel with the table, swiftly lining up his shot, "the situation we were dealing was different when she vanished, and since we're assuming it wasn't random, what could she have had at that time that we didn't have?"

Watching as the shot rang out, Roy's eyes followed the one ball that danced into the side pocket, and the other that bounced off the edge and rolled into the center of the playing field.

"Knowledge."

Broche stood up, unfazed by his missed shot.

"Knowledge is something we have now that we did not have before, it's something easily and quickly acquired, and its something that can be just as swiftly silenced," Mustang lined up the easy shot left laying on the table for him, "there's been a pointed effort to try and control or silence people with knowledge. Us. Havoc. Tucker. Brigitte."

Pool balls cracked against each other again and the familiar sound of a ball delivered to its pocket was heard.

Broche returned to the side of the pool table, eyeing the layout of the clean white ball, the numbered character ball, and the ominous black eight ball. Mustang did not remove himself from the table edge like he had previously, instead he hovered over it. His hands gripped the side as his thoughts dug deep through the run-down layout of the tap house.

"Winry roamed free between the Prime Minister's residence and the Hughes' household. It was only Gracia who'd controlled Winry's movements within the city – asking for her over to the house," Roy drew back, "from Dante's perspective, she was an uncontrolled element within a situational experiment. But, she did not factor into the experiment because what she had to offer was inconsequential. At what point did she become a danger to the experiment? The only time her actions were controlled was when her tool case had gone missing – she was drawn back to the Mitchell house. Does that make the entire staff under that roof part of the problem? She didn't have enough time to endanger the experiment. None of us were even aware that Dante had been under that roof."

From beneath his brow, Mustang watched as Broche's attempt at a double shot, failed, leaving the two remaining balls in play in near perfect alignment.

Tapping his cue on the table's edge, Broche looked to his superior, "Maybe Dante screwed up and Winry found out."

Rolling the pool cue through his hands, Mustang again snapped the rod through the air, listening for the faint whistle it would generate. Slowly and seamlessly he again laid out his shot; hand gripped carefully at the end of the cue and balancing the tip perfectly at his index finger and thumb. Roy held the position for far longer than he had intended as he ran the idea that Winry had encountered something tremendous at the Mitchell property. What was left behind of hers were nothing more than a pair of shoes and tool case that she might not have found.

The balls on the pool table cracked again, each rolling as Mustang had desired, soon vanishing beneath the surface of the deep green table top.

Broche had said 'nice shot' but Roy had not acknowledged it. He had never imagined that he would have wished a standard street-side kidnapper to have been anyone's fate – especially for a sixteen-year-old girl. However, it seemed frighteningly more attractive than the how the alternative was unfolding, made worse by the fact that there was absolutely no tangible trace remaining of Winry Rockbell. No ransom. No threats. No tease. Just silence.

"Sergeant Broche, you should join your comrades for their drinks and mind this old pool shark in the corner."

"We never met, Sir. Don't worry."

Reaching into the pockets, Mustang began fishing out the balls he'd vanquished.


There was no snow tonight, no overcast skies, no angry wind; just a winter chill in the air that didn't have the same bite as the earlier days. Ed wondered when the winter had stopped feeling so cold.

Years ago, he would have sat on the porch on nights just like this, watching other people's lives move along, and wished he could go home to his. But those nights, sitting outside, never lasted long. It was so cold he couldn't tolerate it. But, those first winters were no colder than this night, he figured. Winters back home were nothing like they were here – Winry could probably attest to that now better than he could. Ed missed that disgusted feeling he once had for so many of this world's traits.

The last few days had been so exhilarating, so passionate and so alive. Like a wild animal, set free to chase down its prey, he ran headlong through the information in the gold-plated text. Doors opened. So many doors. With the exception of the one he desperately wanted to reach. But, never before, at any point, had Edward Elric ever felt like he'd been so close. The vibrant thoughts of finally escaping coursed through him and it kept him running on high.

He snapped his wrist and brought his hand up once more. Looking at the etching he'd recreated of the bastardized transmutation sigil upon the Thule Hall floor, Ed ran his eyes along the grossly misaligned creation. How did this factor in? It wasn't in the theory. The theory was bitter and resentful of the alchemical 'wonders' beyond the Gate, but it was not cruel. Not like this.

"I am…"

Ed turned over his shoulder.

"… so good!"

Winry burst out of the door and onto the porch to announce, "Dinner is served!"

Laughing, Ed allowed a deviant into his grin, "You're fitting in so well, Winry. They've domesticated you already."

Sputtering, she missed smacking him upside the head with an oven mitt, "Congratulations Jackass, now your fate is to starve to death. I can eat a mountain of mashed potatoes all on my own without any help from you."

"You'll get fat," Ed's voice almost sang his words.

"This temple is not getting out of shape any time soon, okay?" Winry flashed her hands in Ed's face before throwing the door back open, "there is way too much walking in stupid shoes in this world for that to ever happen."

Shaking his head, Ed glanced down to the sheet of paper in his hand, listening as the door creaked at Winry's thrashing, "Never pictured you as a shoe girl, Winry."

Turning back to grab the door handle, she rolled her eyes, "Neither did I. And then I found a place that had more horrible shoes than I knew what to do with. I am a victim of circumstance, Edward Elric."

Ed glanced over with a feigned look of innocence, "Is this where I apologize for that?"

"Yes, you do."

"Oh," he again flicked his wrist and looked at the penned transmutation circle in his hand, grinning as he heard the door slam.

Why did Winry first appear on this sigil? It was ridiculous to think it was coincidence. Where did Brigitte go when Winry appeared? It didn't make sense.

Raising his eyebrows, unprompted, Ed looked over his shoulder again, "What?"

Winry stood in the doorway again, hip propped up against the doorframe, arms crossed and face twisted, "Dinner is served."

Ed thumbed back to the door, "I thought I was sentenced to Death by Malnutrition?"

"Idiot," Rolling her eyes, Winry reached out and swiftly wound Ed's loose right sleeve around her hand and yanked him inside, "Stop staring at the paper, it's not going to answer you tonight."

Snorting, Ed rolled his eyes as he slid out of his shoes and stumbled into the house. He took a quick sniff of the dinner aura before responding, "I still have no idea what the hell it's for," he dumped the sheet with the gross sigil on the dinner table, "a good number of the conditions for the theory are met back home, its just that there is no matching 'there to here' connection to the Gate on this side. Instead, the only historically documented 'drop zone' for the Gate is this ugly alchemy sigil on a German sect floor."

Plunking a myriad of steaming plates down upon the cloth covered table, Winry shook her head as she busied about the kitchen, "Then its time to seek out more advice. Thomas told me when he stopped in to check on us that Mr. Wilson and your father would be coming home either tomorrow or the day after. They've gotten tired of discussing politics with people. Apparently, your dad said something about how he'd been reminded about why he'd chosen a career in education over one in politics."

"Winry," Ed took up his fork from the table, "Thomas came by again today?"

"Um," she sat down, putting the oven mitts in her lap, "before noon sometime. He wanted to know if we'd actually cleaned up the mess or if he had to tell Doctor Wilson that we were running a pulp mill triage center."

Casting his gaze across the layout of steaming dinner, Ed tapped his fork on the table, "Would you not talk to Thomas about what we're doing? At all. Period."

"Why?" Winry threw one leg over the other and leaned forward for her answer.

Leaning back, Edward narrowed an eye at her forthright behaviour. Regardless, his response came out bitterly, "Thomas can gossip better than a swarm of thirteen year old girls. I don't want our alchemy to give him something new to focus on."

Rolling the motion through her shoulders, Winry pulled her hands over her knees, "You don't want him to purge your blasphemy?"

Dropping his fork down, Ed sat up firmly in his chair. If he'd had two arms to cross, he would have done so, "I knew he'd said something. What the hell did he tell you?"

With the flick of her wrist, Winry took up a spoon from the table, swept it through her prized whipped potatoes and licked the winnings away, "That magic doesn't happen with circles and stars and that only gypsies and cults do alchemy. I'm supposed to discourage you."

Snatching up his fork again, Ed sharply stabbed the prongs into a fat cauliflower head and pointed it at Winry, "I've told you alchemy is not an accepted science here. It's defunct, obviously," he waggled the dripping end of his fork over the table and Winry threw him a napkin to keep the tablecloth clean. "The first time I brought up alchemy with Thomas I didn't realize why my dad had told me not to do that with anyone. Thomas persisted for a bit before telling Charles about it. That ass arranged counseling for me at the church with his priest. It was the highlight of my time here at that point: getting told that I was traveling on a road to hell and needed to get off and follow their path back to the holy light."

Winry giggled, swallowing hard on her potatoes, "That's special."

"Sure," Ed rolled his eyes, popping the cooling vegetable into his mouth, entirely unimpressed with the memory, "Doctor Wilson and my dad had a good yelling match that ended up having a bunch of my things burned."

Winry's tone changed to something less amused, "Um, now that's a little extreme."

Ed laughed at that, shaking his head, "Winry, the single most important lesson you're going to take away from this world that has nothing to do with alchemy, is that you do not screw around with people who orchestrate the 24 hours of their day around their god."

Turning her attention back to dinner, Winry began picking away at her evening's culinary accomplishments, "Is that why it took you so long to start getting your information on alchemy together?"

"You mean the stuff back in Germany?" he sputtered out after popping a spoon in his mouth.

Winry nodded, "Yeah, you didn't seem to do anything for your first while here."

Shaking his head, with the spoon handle trapped in his teeth, Ed popped the utensil out with the snap of his tongue and flick of his wrist, "Like I said, a lot of my things were burned. Paperwork included," Ed raised his hand, waving it dismissively, "what I'd worked out wasn't much good anyways. I couldn't find anything useful at first, not until Thomas got into college and he'd gotten me access to the library. I wasn't up for it initially anyways; I had other things to deal with when I got here."

"Like New Monia?"

The spoon woven through a few left fingers and a strong thumb tapped down onto the edge of Edward's plate. Lightly, he tapped it against the porcelain plate as he ran a tight knot through his upper lip, "Yeah, like that."

It wasn't so much of an Edward Elric Wall as it was a rickety old door, and Winry narrowed a curious eye, "Can I ask what it is?"

Like the fork earlier, Ed brought back up the spoon and held it firmly between them, "No, not at dinner, you can't."

She felt a twinge of fascination, making her feel like a curious five-year-old and she replied sweetly, "Okay."

Watching as Ed began to wave the spoon back and forth through the air, Winry's curious grin grew as Edward's face slowly adopted a ridiculous smile. She watched in amusement as the spoon slowly developed at deliberate pace, seemly timed with the tick of the second hand on the wall clock.

"What?"

Ed chuckled, dropping the spoon limp in his hand, "I'm going to get us home."

It was irrelevant if Edward did or did not know how that would happen exactly, it was the first time the tone in his voice had been honestly believable. It had always been words before – words of comfort. Words of confidence tingled within the body so much more and wrap you in a warm blanket that you never want to crawl out from.

Grinning like some silly juvenile school girl at the delightful statement, Winry gave a sharp shake of her head to clear the childish air, "Not if you don't eat! You die of malnutrition and I'm screwed," Winry's two index fingers suddenly began directing table traffic, "You. Me. Dinner. Now."


To Be Continued…


Chapter 27: Rebellious Ignorant

Summary:

Ed's revitalized interest in alchemy causes him greater trouble, while Havoc's continues to take the fall for Winry's disappearance.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Once upon a time, a traveler from a far off land and a great philosopher had come to meet. One man possessed great power, the other possessed great knowledge. Their voices became one for the first time and, from that fabled encounter, a new dawn was brought forth.

'I had no idea herbs could be manipulated in such a way,' fawned the traveler in awe.

'I had no idea alchemy could behave in such a manner,' cheered the philosopher in delight.

Each man spent days at the other's ear, sharing words of wisdom that eclipsed the others.

'I stand in your world somewhat humbled, Great Philosopher. My knowledge is nothing beyond sparse compared to your wisdom and profound abilities. I truly came unprepared for our encounter,' the traveler lamented.

'My young man,' cheered the philosopher, 'you have shared with me wisdom that my children's children will know the benefits of. You are far too harsh on yourself.'"

The traveler raised his head – an idea overtaking him.

'May I be so bold as to make a proposal, Great Philosopher?'

'By all means,' the wise man encouraged.

'I shall take my leave of you now and cradle in my heart all that which you have given me,' explained the traveler, 'I shall return to my land with these riches and share what I have learned with my people. I will request of my peers the procurement of our knowledge so that each time our paths may cross, new knowledge can be exchanged between our kinds.'

'An equivalent exchange?' questioned the philosopher.

'That is my proposal,' was the travelers response, 'for you have the methods to which our knowledge may be applied.'

'With open arms I will await your return, and shall too work towards perfection of theses sciences for both our nations.'

 


 

Why was it so much more enthralling, and obviously time consuming, to sit at this poorly lit desk and glare at this poorly written alchemy sigil, than it was to drown in all the other information? The conclusion seemed to always return to: because it was a mystery. Mysteries are always so much more tantalizing and invigorating than easy pickings.

The permanently established sigil upon a German sect floor was grotesque. It was constructed with a plethora of understanding, completed deconstruction, but completely failed at reconstruction. At points, the sigil was deliberately designed to seek an alternative outlet for reconstruction. In a desperate attempt to fulfill its intended purpose it would rebound and devour the alchemist. The mind, body, and soul would be unceremoniously torn apart in no particular order. The power flow would just be desperately grabbing for whatever it could get and ultimately never getting enough. No amount of life force could ever be provided to satisfy whatever this sigil was meant to do.

Ed continued to question it, though. If this sigil was meant to do something, what would it do? That question was a greater mystery than realizing it essentially did nothing at all. There wasn't the slightest indication that it had a functional purpose beyond being 'pretty fancy to look at'.

Edward frowned at the sheet. It made him queasy thinking about what attempting to control something like that might feel like. Leaning over it a little further he narrowed his gaze as a curious thought crossed into his mind – a thought that was unceremoniously interrupted by two stealth hands that came down past his ears to rest on the desktop.

"Fascinating."

Ed glanced to the intrusive flesh, "Bugger off, Thomas. Who let you in?"

"Who would you assume let me in?"

Rolling his eyes, Ed moved to remove the sheet from the table top, but missed his mark when Thomas beat him to it. He turned over his shoulder, watching the Englishman hold the sheet cautiously by its corners.

"Yes, fascinating."

Unimpressed, Ed's tone rose at the intrusion, "It doesn't fascinate you at all. You even tried to scare Winry the way you tried to scare me off."

Without qualifying the statement, Thomas released the paper from his fingers and allowed it float down to the floor, "Why are you doing this Edward Elric?"

Scoffing, Ed reached down for the paper, but found himself unable to reclaim it as Thomas placed his foot over it. He glowered up from below his brow, "Don't say my name like you think you're my father or something.

Using the tip of his foot, Thomas slid the paper away from his verbal jousting partner, "I thought we came to an understanding on this a long time ago, that's why I invited you to accompany me on campus – so you could see other avenues to channel your knowledge through," the man gave a disappointed sigh, "you're smart, Edward. Really brilliant; I watched you make an entire theatre of senior science students sound like schoolchildren without a day of classroom education, yet bury your intelligence in fictitious alchemy. It makes you seem a little mad and I'm quite certain you are not," Shaking his head, the Englishman couldn't clear the befuddled expression, "Did the Germans convince you this was an acceptable waste of your time?"

"Do you people ever run out of things to blame the Germans for?" Ed stood up, stomping his good foot down on the remaining portions of exposed paper, "just go home and play with your kid."

Thomas's brow knotted and the man lowered his gaze over his shorter counterpart, "You sound like a sympathizer."

"Guess what, Tommy," Ed chirped his words. He stiffened his shoulders and, extending his back to challenge the man who did not seem to be as tall as he once used to be, said "I would have to care about some fragment of this world to sympathize with it and I don't. Get out."

"You try very hard not to care about anything around you, don't you Edward?" the Englishman tilted his head, allowing the gaze to slide down the bridge of his nose, "you didn't even care enough to come to Julie's funeral."

Wishing he could spit in the man's face, Ed disengaged the staring contest, left the paper etching to the floor and abruptly turned back to the desk, "I was in Rome. You can't get from Rome to London that quickly and I didn't know she'd died until later anyways."

Thomas reached down and retrieved the sheet of paper from the floor, "You never said a word to anyone when you'd left. I thought you'd at least do her the courtesy of saying goodbye."

"I had no plans to say goodbye to anyone and I had no plans to have to come back here either," Ed looked away while running a memory through his mind. He turned around sharply, resting his backside against the front edge of the desk.

Thomas's hand came up with the bastardized sheet of paper. His gaze running over the deliberately plotted lines that meant nothing to him, "So, now what will you do? Continue to expand on this nonsense and play around with all these unknown things you hide in your possessions."

"That's the general plan," Ed nodded affirmatively, stepping out and snatching the sheet of paper back with the sharp flick of his wrist. He held it up at eye level, looking over the sigil as he walked back to the desk to replant himself.

What a lurid nightmare this sigil in his hand was; much more of a nuisance than Thomas, but entirely silent about it, thankfully.

"What does it do?"

Surprised, Ed looked up, "What?"

"That alchemy symbol," through nearly tight lips, Thomas gnawed on the question, "you'd told me once how you can customize symbols to behave in certain ways. What does that particular one do?"

"Um, nothing you'd like. Nothing I'd like," he raised an eyebrow at it before turning the image around and holding it up for the man to see, "you're a religious man, Thomas. Your God really wouldn't like this idea; this kind of alchemy would make him reel. I haven't a clue what its intended purpose is, but if anyone tried to use it for something, all you would see is someone disintegrating and vanishing before your eyes. You'd be scared and completely ignorant about what you'd just witnessed, but your God would understand what had actually happened," he took a step closer to Thomas, his voice dipping low and grave, "his precious man would have been ripped apart at the fibers of his being. That man's mind, body, soul, and all the ties that bind him would be torn down, consumed, and thrown at a crossing in life's journey that neither takes him to heaven nor hell. Normally, his soul would be absorbed and used as fuel for another kind of life in a subsequent realm, but with this…"

Edward suddenly stopped himself. Something within his mind told him to narrow his focus and stop the train of thought before it moved too fast. Slowly, Ed's brow rose again and he could feel his heart trip up as it began to race. He turned the sheet around again to look at the configuration more closely. Wildly he ran projections, computations, assumptions, theories, and outcomes through his mind.

"… There would be too much to digest. It would probably choke," lost in his thought, his shoulder slowly fell and his eyes widened as he spoke to himself, "… are you serious?"

Thomas was left standing without a word for his verbal sparring partner. The Englishman watched as Edward turned the paper around, flipped it over, spun it upside down, and held it up over his head.

"That is disgusting, Edward Elric," the unwelcome addition to the room finally spoke, "these things you're playing with, they have no place in this King's country."

"Oh, I agree," he answered swiftly, all the while his gaze continued to pierce into the fibers of the sheet of paper in his hand as he began a slow inquisition of the ludicrous and disturbing idea in his fingers, "my dad comes in early tomorrow morning, right? I'll ask him if we can leave and I'll take my ideas with me. Put in a good word for me, okay?"


The bustling halls seemed to stretch forever throughout the building. Every blue-dressed military official moved through the hall either chattering with a companion or locked in silence within his or her own thoughts. They all seemed so disinterested in what moved outside their own bubble. The allowance of Central Headquarters to be divided equally between military and government officials created a mix of society's people. Security was in mild shambles and still not certain how to proceed for fear of creating strife between the two distinct factions. At this point in time, no one would question an extra face and Izumi Curtis was the only face of the travelling lot that could not be distinctly recognized walking through Central headquarters.

With her hair down and dressed in a simple burgundy peddler's dress picked up from a market on their way into town, Izumi continued her march through the building. The group had arrived in Central early that morning and Izumi's instructions to start the day were simple. The outcome would be predictable provided she abstained from using any alchemy to turn the building into her own rendition of modern art. For the sake of everyone involved, Izumi had no intention of creating an utter mess like the last time she'd barged into a federal building.

Stopping in yet another hall she'd been freely allowed to wander down, the woman confirmed the room number written down and gave a firm knock to the door with her ring-bearing hand.

"Enter."

Without flinching, Izumi did just that.

"Can I help you?" the voice came without looking up.

The teacher's abrasive voice broke out, "This is supposed to be the office of Brigadier General Roy Mustang and you are not him."

The structured face of Hakuro snapped up a narrowed gaze at the intrusive woman, "He is no longer in this office. What business do you have here?"

The woman's hands came to her hips; her voice as firm and powerful as ever, "His office is in charge of the investigation, reconstruction, and restoration for the main Central Market group. Myself and other families are looking for the compensation promised by this office that has not been delivered by your establishment. Our own funds are nearly gone and we have children to feed and clothe. Unless you plan on putting diapers on our babies and food on our tables, you need to get me the person in charge of this issue now."

"Who let you in here?" Hakuro abruptly questioned her with a mixture of ire and panic seeping into his tone.

"No one. I walked in," ironically, it was the only piece of truth Izumi would speak, "who the hell are you?"

Clearing his throat, Hakuro quickly scraped together a method of expelling this woman who'd unlawful entered a government office. The last thing he wanted was for it to become public knowledge that a member of the general public had actually been able to enter this far into a government facility, "I am Major General Hakuro and I can't help your situation at the moment, unfortunately. I'm not the individual you need to speak with. But, I can set you up with an appointment agent who can arrange for you to sit down with one of our compensation workers and irons things out."

"That lazy twit you have working in appointments turned me away. You think I'm going to trust her to actually complete the job just on your say so?" Izumi threw some snap into her tone, "If I leave this office without any type of satisfaction, I can guarantee our families won't be getting any of our promised compensation and I will not stand to let that happen Mister Major General Hakuro," Izumi took a delightful pleasure from watching the man boil as she berated him, "at least the last occupant of the office did me the courtesy of snagging some useful four-eyed thing who did up papers and got us store tickets. Those are about to run out. I want to work that arrangement with her again."

Moving from his desk, Hakuro played along with the situation, extending a casual arm towards the office door to escort his intruder out, "If I can get her name, I can certainly try and set you up. Believe me when I say that ensuring that the Central Market and all its resident retailers are well taken care of is a high priority issue."

"But it's not your problem," Izumi's eyes rolled.

"It is a problem," the man fought to keep his cool, "it just doesn't fall into my sphere of influence. We have some good people taking care of that, just give them a little time," taking hold of the door handle, one of the highest ranking officers in the complex opened the door for Izumi and gingerly escorted her into the hallway, "If we're running short on time, then there's no need to create a mountain out of a mole hill. If you'd like to deal with the same people you dealt with before, I can arrange it."

She could have giggled with how amicable he was trying to be. Turning herself around to look the general square-on as he deliberately accompanied her out of the office, probably to ensure she didn't burst back in on him, "I had this young four-eyed girl named Schezque or something working the issue and she gave me nice little Band-Aids for the problem," Izumi swung her arms up and crossed them at her chest, "If she's still kicking around, I'd like her to get us another box of Band-Aids, please and thank you Major General Hakuro."

"I should be able to find someone with a name like that. I'll check the department rosters…" sighing, Hakuro seemed reluctant to take more than three steps away from the office door; deliberately standing between the office and the steadfast woman, "If you head back over to the desk on the second floor, I will give a call around to a few departments, see where she turns up, and have her sent over to Appointments to give you a hand."

"Oh no you don't!" Izumi's hands came crashing to her sides; she had no idea where the heck Appointments was on the second floor. Raising a pointed finger at the man, the adlibbed tirade continued, "I'll get myself over there and someone will say they have no idea what's going on and I'll have to haul my ass back here to raise more of an issue than what this needs to be."

"Ma'am you need to understand-"

"No, I've done my share of understanding. You think I like scrounging for money and pawning my things so I can afford the basics in my life!" she watched Hakuro grow un easy and she began to realize there were people in the hall watching her little escapade, "I don't have the luxury of your paycheque to pamper my ass with. If you're going to call around to track down this girl for me, I'm going to stand right here until she shows up, then I don't have to track you down again and make a scene when she doesn't appear. I know how you government types function – pawn off your problems. Perfect bureaucracy," Izumi wrinkled her nose, calmed her voice and re-folded her arms. Her tone was adjusted to contain a touch of sweetener, "I assure you, when she shows up here I'll be out of your way. Promise."

Hakuro sighed, the absolute last thing he wanted on his plate today was a public relations disaster, and the louder her voice got, the more it was becoming one. Ears and eyes were sneaking peeks at the event. The thought of having to explain away why security had to haul out a screaming victim of the Central Market fiasco would be glorious fodder for anyone looking for more reasons to cause issues for this new regime. Everyone in the nation was growing aware of the bureaucratically charged messes that bogged down many of the ongoing efforts in areas that stretched far beyond the Central Market – trials and tribulations of a new government, or so people were told.

Raising a hand to rub over the back of his neck, the officer relented. At least the woman would be in the hall and not interrupting him in the office. It would be quicker to summon someone to this location anyways, and as long as the woman was satisfied with someone beyond himself helping her out, he would take it with a grain of salt.

"You'll have to be patient, she may be on break or involved in a task."

"I will create patience out of my worn out patience if you're going to get the job done for me," Izumi gave a careless shrug, leaning her hind-side against the wall across from the door. She did indeed have patience, a great deal of it if it would get this job done. What was lacking was time. Izumi sincerely hoped that standing around, waiting to pass along a message in a bottle, wouldn't put a crimp in everything.

A pleased grin showed up in her expression when she heard Hakuro lock the door behind him upon re-entry of the room. She glanced down through the ends of the hall, watching as the curious onlookers dispersed into their workdays.

'Hm, I bet Mustang'll have kittens when he finds out he's been expelled from his office…' she thought.


The voices could be heard street side, though muffled by walls and doors into incoherent shouting. A passerby might stop to wonder what could have a house up in such a frenzy; it didn't matter though, it wasn't their house to fuss over, so they would just keep walking. The warm billowing of heat escaping from a burning fireplace was a little thicker and a little darker than normal – but nothing beyond ordinary. And then the voices flared up again; it was as though the walls of the house yelled at the neighbourhood. The voices that gave the walls inanimate life thundered around in the middle of winter.

"WHAT! You're just going to let him DO THAT!" Edward's voice tore out, flustered and irate. Unable to throw himself free without a second arm, Ed had been restrained by his father; a strong right hand holding his good arm while the man's left hand held firmly at the back of Ed's fully buttoned shirt.

Charles Wilson added a handful of papers to the fireplace.

Just as it had happened years before, Thomas had alerted the doctor about Edward's interests in alchemy. And again Hohenheim held back his vile son, watching the days of work burn in the fireplace.

"Do not make this worse. You can rewrite your notes, Edward," the father spoke low, with only enough effort for his son to hear.

"Say that a bit louder!" livid, Edward pushed away into the hallway, rather than continuing his charge into the core of the household, "say that a bit louder so the good doctor can hear I'm not the only nut job under the roof. SAY IT."

Hohenheim let his glasses slide down his nose a little farther, casting his retaliatory gaze over Ed's torrent voice and refusing to engage him verbally.

"Maybe if he went through your things instead of my things he'd get to see it," the youngest man in the room threw his left arm out wildly, "your name is even in the goddamned book!" his hand swung to point accusingly at his father, but his voice continued to be projected throughout the house. His raised index finger continued to flail around the hall while his words were deliberately sent tumbling in Doctor Wilson's direction, "The teaching thing is all a cover, because he's a better alchemist than me!"

The elder father's brow lowered sharply, "Edward…"

"And YOU," Ed spun back to challenge Hohenheim's call of his name face-to-face, "are a shitty ass, pathetic excuse for a father!"

"… Shut up."

"WHY!" Ed threw his voice around angrily; there was nothing more that he was able to do about any of this beyond yell, "No one seems to listen to what I have to say! Everyone here has always seemed to think that I'm either a problem on two legs or a couple cards short of a full deck, and for SOME reason they think they all know how to set me right," his voice sharply pitched with disdain and mockery of the British accent, "Poor old Hohenheim got stuck with that foul EdwardWhat a burden that boy must be some days. Don't think I haven't heard these people say that about me before."

Drawing a deep breath in through clenched teeth, Hohenheim inflated his chest bound with folded arms, casting his shadow a little more prominently over his son, "Are you deliberately trying to turn this day inside out, Edward?"

The vile son beamed with malice, "YES, I am! He's burning my research and you're stopping ME, not HIM!"

"Can you finish making noise sometime soon, Edward?" Charles' voice ran through the house, annoyed and empty of patience again.

Ed's hand slapped down against his side, "See? Not listening."

"I have no problems with my listening skills Mr. Elric, and I'm certainly glad that your father has enough sense to know which one of us is in the wrong here. Though, you are acting like quite the child, again. I wish someone would treat you like one - throw you over his knee and tan your backside red with his belt," his gaze cast over Hohenheim as the father of the howling son gave a darkened warning glance in return. With every footstep Charles took, the man's stiff voice came marching down the hall towards Edward, "what book is this you're mentioning? That's the second or third time you've referred to a book and I didn't see any book belonging to you or your father when I swept my house for your craft."

As though playing to a crowd, Edward began to laugh. It was so hearty and contrived that the bitter taste in his sound gave the two elder men cause to tighten their expressions, "I don't know what you're talking about! I have no book for you to burn!"

Slowly, Hohenheim's hands rose to his face, slipping under his glasses to give a deep rub to his eyes. He was going to have an uncompromising headache; he could feel it coming.

Charles' face narrowed, fighting to keep his voice in check – his throat was already sore from earlier, "I think Germany has made you more belligerent than before you left. I will not tolerate your shenanigans under my roof, I know you are aware of that, and hiding it in your belongings doesn't change that."

Ed rolled his eyes and refused to acknowledge the memories of this place he tried hard to purge, "You know, there are famous people in your recent history who tried to understand alchemy and I don't see you chastising them! They're even included in your education system!"

"Those men were from a different time and a much less modern era. We're far wiser now than we were before, so those men's ignorance can be forgiven," with each few words he strung together, Charles' voice rose, "your actions cannot, because you are neither stupid nor ignorant. You are a fool. You acknowledge alchemy to be a useless science, yet you continue to construct these ridiculous things and ideas as though you're hoping something may change," the doctor's voice dropped to the floor, "you make no sense. So, the nonsense will be discarded and you will use your brain to find something else to do with your spare time," Charles' eyes slipped from the boiling man to his unsettlingly frozen father, "won't he, Hohenheim?"

There was no response.

Ed snorted, the bridge of his nose knotted up as his face contorted, "This from a guy who bases his actions on instructions created from a fear-mongering interpretation of a convoluted work of fiction that talks about people who did unreal and ridiculous things hundreds of years ago. I do not see how I'm the one who's the fool."

Steeped with serious warning, Hohenheim's voice finally rose up, "Edward Elric, that's enough from you."

The announcement of his name by his father was the cue for the son to step up to a tumultuous line drawn in the sand, "Oh come on, don't tell me you haven't been itching to tell any one of these prawns a good reason why God doesn't exist?"

The conversation would end there. Without another verbal warning, Edward found himself lurched around by a hand that suddenly appeared; taking firm hold of him at the front of his shirt. He blinked into the startled realization that he was nose to nose with his father.

"I think it's time you took a walk," the father's stone voice instructed.

Ed's eyes narrowed, his voice lowering, "I told you I hated this place. I told you over and over…" he found himself surprisingly off balance as the hand with his shirt beneath his chin drove him backwards towards the house's entry way, "and over and over…'

"Come back when you can keep your tongue down and we can have a proper conversation," the father's voice matched low and so deep that it vibrated around them as though the pair stood together within an oil drum. Hohenheim's free hand ripped Edward's coat from the closet as he marched his son towards the door.

Ed didn't care if his father had wanted to keep the doctor from hearing their words or not, his voice again rose loud and coarse, "You're just too busy bending over and letting this place have its way with you. Too afraid to have these people think that you're more screwed up than your kid," Edward's good left hand come to firmly grip the hand at his chest, though it could offer no real challenge.

Hohenheim released his son without warning and watched as he stumbled at the closed door, "You know where I stand and what my answers are. Throwing a fit won't change that," the elder Elric created a free hand by throwing the coat over his shoulder and returned his attention squarely to Edward, "I am extremely picky when it comes to the battles I choose to take on in this world. Some fights just aren't worth it."

Ed opened his mouth to speak, but ended up startling as the hand Hohenheim had him with returned. The towering father reached beyond his son and threw open the front door. Ed planted his feet in defiance, spat out a slew of profanity, but Edward ultimately managed to accomplish nothing beyond further frustrate and infuriate the contents of the house, all the while allowing the cold winter air to drain in at everyone's feet. Ed's hand fought with the fist that had hold of his shirt, but eventually lost the entire battle at the door when Hohenheim lurched his son up off his feet with the power in his monstrous right arm and forcefully placed Ed outside the front door.

The obstinate Elric had tried to remain standing, but the wooden leg did not cooperate, and Ed found himself flat on his ass on the front walkway. Before even being able to get his bearings again, Edward was digging out from beneath the coat that had been thrown over him. Fumbling to his feet, and eyeballing the more than delighted doctor standing in the shadows of the house behind his father, Ed pulled himself up straight and sharply threw his coat over his shoulders. He stood a moment on the walkway, staring back at the exterior of the building that his outbursts had caused him to be evicted from. For that moment, all three men finally wore silence. Without another word, Ed turned and marched himself down the walkway, unfazed by the sound of the door slamming shut behind him. He would give no one the pleasure of being forced to ask to return. Without bothering to do up his coat, Ed dropped his good hand sharply into his left pocket and continued to walk away.


The entire summer could pass by like this and Pinako wouldn't mind. She was neither a farmer nor a rancher, so the constant sunshine was grand. The sun lit the countryside, gave way to warm evening shadows, and generally was the most naturally pleasant thing about where she lived. The fans would run to keep things cool indoors, the neighbours were too far away to notice if the heat caused her to dress a little unsightly, and as much as she loved her granddaughter, it was days like this that she appreciated how Winry had other interests that would allow her to enjoy this day all to herself.

Den suddenly barked.

Pinako grinned to herself. She couldn't forget to include the dog in the day's enjoyment.

Den barked again and it woke the baby the animal protected.

Pinako glared at the wall, unimpressed by the fraying coming loose around the edges of the day.

Den barked again and again. It was the 'someone new is at the door' bark. Pinako chomped down on the stem in her mouth and threw on something presentable as she flew through the upper floor of the house. Dropping a bottle in for the baby, and stomping down the stairs from her second floor workroom, she was finally able to hear the knock on the door that had her dog all out of sorts.

"Hold your horses, I'm coming. Don't anger my dog. Damn it all."

She marched to the door and unlatched the hook. Nobody shows up on days like today; it was simply rude. Everyone in the country knew that. It must be a buffoon from out of town, since it was simply too hot for normal or knowledgeable customers to show up in the mid-day sun. She'd thought about saying something in a sarcastic tone along the lines of 'what can I do for you today?' or some other pleasant words in a crude tone, but when she finally opened the door she suddenly wielded a very scripted response.

"I have no interest in assisting the government or military today. I have no donations to provide. There is no one in this house to conscript. You will leave my property now. Good day."

"I'm sorry ma'am," the voice was as generic sounding as the young man's face was to look at. At the AutoMail engineer's door stood two young, clean cut, freshly shaven, identically dressed men, "but we have a warrant to search this property."

That was a new catch line for a uniformed officer at her doorstep. This time it wasn't a military officer delivering a message to her door; it was a government officer that, along with the statement, ensnared the old woman's undivided attention, "A search warrant? For here?" she pulled open the door, "what on earth for?"

"It's printed in the warrant, Ma'am," came the other generic voice as he handed her the folded wad of legal papers, "may we enter?"

"Boy, I may not be a proponent of all the laws of this land but I am still a law abiding citizen," she stepped away from the door, unfolding the paper bundle, "if the law says you have to enter, then that's what'll happen. I really have no idea what you want from here though."

"Evidence, Ma'am."

Pinako snorted, almost choking on her pipe, "Obviously."

The two men entered and made their way slowly through the main room as the grandmother curled her nose and tightened her brow at the documents she held, "I hate legal papers. Just tell me what matter involves my house?"

Perhaps these young men were twins, or close brothers, because neither showed any particularly distinguishing features from each other. The one stepped away from the mantle as the other approached the staircase.

"I asked a question of the two of you," Pinako snarled, allowing herself to grow annoyed at the intrusion.

"It's for an ongoing criminal investigation, Ma'am. You've been advised."

Pinako could have thrown her pipe at the officer, "Yes, in a document full of fancy speak, young man. I am a mechanic not a legal assistant."

The one officer continued upstairs while the other remained on the main floor, looking over to the stout woman who bubbled at a low simmer, "Lieutenant Jean Havoc has been charged with the abduction of a minor, falsification of records, and destroying evidence. We're here to gather evidence in relation to the charges."

Pinako stood with a curiously confused look in her twisted face at what she'd just heard. Her wrinkled hand slowly removed the pipe from her mouth. She thought for a moment about asking the officer to repeat himself, but realized that she had heard him clearly. That officer's name was familiar, she was certain of it, but for the life of her couldn't pinpoint where she'd heard it.

"Those are serious charges for a military man," she watched as the officer looked her over while she replaced the pipe to her lips. She couldn't place why he had suddenly had such a strange look on his face, "I still don't see what this has to do with my house. I want nothing to do with either the government or the military."

"Did you get the wire, Ma'am?" the voice grew passive, drawing out a strand of meager concern.

Pinako found herself quickly growing to dislike this officer's presence, "Last wire I got was from my granddaughter. She sent me one not long after she'd gotten to Central and that was who knows how long ago. I sent her one back. I told her I'd put money in her bag to buy herself something nice with for her birthday if she ended up being gone that long."

The officer cleared his throat with the warm mid-day air, "You were sent a wire last week prior to our arrival. You were told to expect us."

Folding her arms, the old woman cast a foreboding gaze of doubt over a man at least twice her size, "No wire came for me."

Looking around the room uncertain how to proceed, the young officer seemed to stand in debate of how to proceed with the conversation. He looked to the woman of the house, her foot slowly taping with impatience. Clearing his throat, the officer finally spoke, "I regret to inform you, Ma'am, the minor the Lieutenant is accused of abducting is your granddaughter, Winry Rockbell."

It took a moment to register, but Pinako's pipe finally hit the floor as her voice hit the ceiling, "WHAT!"

"It was in the wire, Ma'am. We'd sent it into your local enforcement office in advance. It was to be forwarded to you," the officer tried to state in his defence.

"I DIDN'T RECEIVE A WIRE, YOU MINDLESS FOOL."

The officer sputtered an apology, trying to explain the situation as best he understood it, but that was entirely insufficient. The woman, barely half the size of the official, very quickly felt himself overshadowed by the elderly lady as she challenged him.

"How long did it take you people to tell this child's legal guardian that she'd gone missing! Have you fools have been sitting on your legal and political asses!" the woman fumed with a red fire that consumed the entire floor and flooded up into the second, "do you know what that poor girl has been through! What our family has been through? We don't need this!"

The old woman's bitter words could be heard echoing across the lush landscape of grasslands that were deeded to the Rockbell and Elric families. Her voice continued aggressively, angrily, and furiously for the whole empty countryside to hear. The words would be useless when all was said and done. All words did was provide a descriptive escape for emotions and not much else. As far as Pinako was concerned, this country's authority establishment was too incompetent for much else to come from her words and it certainly wouldn't solve the issue of her apparently missing granddaughter.

After verbally stripping both officers of every valued moral and shred of decency she could conjure up, Pinako threw her hands up at them, left the officers to her house, and stepped outside in a compact ball of fury. The elderly woman snapped a match into her pipe and took a sharp inhale before practically spitting out the dirty air. Angry and frustrated, she gripped the pipe tight within her teeth and stared off into the countryside. Calming down would be a daunting task. But, as much as she wanted to listen to the rushed feeling in her chest and head to Central, Pinako acknowledged that she should remain in Resembool. Roze was not back yet and she had left for the Hughes household shortly after Winry had left for Central. The grandmother was left in care of her child and the infant boy's mother hadn't contacted her since departing. The picture of Central being painted at the back of the woman's mind was showcased with no sign, no sound, and no word from anyone who'd left with intentions of crossing that city. The more she thought about that, the more unsettling it was that every voice traveling into Central was falling silent.

Forgoing the idea of heading into the capital, Pinako took a strong mental note to make damned sure she let her local enforcement office have more than a small piece of her mind.


It was two hours past midnight; the world had gone silent and the world had fallen to dark. There were always so few stars in the sky to accompany the ill light of the moon. So, to compensate for the tired moon, there were porch lights. People used porch lights was like welcoming mats – if the light was on, company was welcomed and if not, then it was a request for peace at night. At this particular house, the light had finally been turned on shortly after a new calendar day had turned over. So, after staring at the glowing doormat until the bottom of the hour, Edward finally decided to be the only intrusion in the house at that time of night.

"Welcome back."

Or so he'd assumed.

Ed's gaze borrowed into the darkness of the home to identify the location of the voice, slowly shutting the door behind himself, "Why are you still down here?" he asked the voice within the darkness – no candle, no music, no existence beyond the voice. It took only another moment before he realized the sound had come from the sitting room of the Wilson home and Edward's path took him slowly towards it.

"Are you better now?" the old father's voice traipsed through the darkness, "because I did say we'd have a civil conversation."

Ed faintly laughed at the ridiculous notion, his eyes not having adjusted from the outdoor lighting to the complete absence of anything indoors. He squinted as he followed the rug down the hall. Edward allowed himself a moment to think about how strange it was that after such a morning; his father had actually hung around waiting for the civil conversation. Civility usually took a few days to reinstate itself.

"Don't think for a moment you didn't deserve that," Hohenheim's voice came around again, "I know you know better than to even start that line of conversation."

Leaning up against the doorframe to the sitting room, Ed's gaze helplessly canvassed the small, pitch-black room. He stood silently, his eyes slowly adjusting to illuminate the darkness, "Whatever," the pitch in Edward's voice sharply changed, though the volume never rose, "you had the gall to throw me on my ass outside when this problem was yours in the first place," he took a quick glance down to his faux left leg, "I think I need to have Winry look at the leg now – I'm limping. I hope your skull can handle her wrath."

The elder man sighed, shaking his head, and choosing to leave that line of conversation alone, "Speaking of Winry, she was quite smart; she hid the book in her underwear," as unabrasive as his words were, Hohenheim's subsequent sigh drifted through the room like the sound had been ripped from the old man's rotting core, "I asked her to show it to me this afternoon."

Not responding immediately, Ed took a few moments to see if he could figure out just why his father's tone didn't sound right, "… You didn't know the book was coming?" His question was cautious.

"No, it was supposed to be locked away in my office at the university. I've never shown it to anyone," the taste of Hohenheim's words was thick and heavy – wrought with frustration that had simmered for hours in a pool of anger, "Which means someone has gone through my office, found it, and sent it our way to entice you."

"It worked. I'm enticed," the son's words were abrupt, completely disinterested in his father's personal concern for the matter, "And now you get to tell me more about this book before you get going on anything else."

Hohenheim gave a light laugh at the commanding tone his son tried to use. Straightening his back as his hands came down to his knees, he took a deep inhale of the night air, "That thing… it came from a hypothesis I'd thought up a very, very long time ago, after the third time I'd accessed the Gate. At that point, Dante and I had wondered about the possibility of this world being part of the old alchemy folklore. Some things that had been passed down through fables matched far too well," his head slowly drifted upwards as he spoke in thought, "it was never a plausible or functional theory, so I should have left it as a hypothesis. It was impossible to complete without being here. I was the one who'd discontinued it, but Dante was the one who couldn't let it go."

Sliding his hand up the doorframe, Ed gripped the wood with a firm left hand as he continued his questions, "How complete is the version I read?"

Uncertain, the man's head shook, "It's at eighty percent, I'd say – give or take. The information needed to complete the theory is not available; it will never be," Hohenheim inhaled sharply, tightening his jaw before he spoke, "The version that remains with Dante is far less complete. But, she is going to believe that it's much farther along and use it's concepts to access this world."

The mid-night silence drifted through the room again, negotiating with Edward's hand as it slowly slid down the polished wooden frame of the sitting room doorway.

"That's dangerous," he finally said.

Shifting in his chair, Hohenheim looked down into his hands shrouded in the absence of any night light, "Dante'd thought this world was so rich and vast that it had grown beyond any desire for our world; we weren't worthy. We'd been given the recipe for the Philosopher's Stone and could not create it. What failures they must have viewed us as," his words were steeped with hints of sarcasm, as though to mock her assumptions, "She'd concluded that this was why documented stories of travelers from beyond the Gate had stopped. They were always the ones coming to us; but we were never able to get to them… not until we could complete the Philosopher's Stone at the very least. By the time we'd created it, we were far too late to present it to anyone."

Edward's fingers began to drum against the wood, "That's not why they stopped coming."

"If there ever was any honest ability in this world to perform alchemy, it has been lost through natural evolution and no other reason. I do not expect either you or I to ever find out what method it was that this world used to breach the Gate thousands of years ago," Hohenheim's voice and gaze became entangled and then lost to the darkness of the far corner of the room, "that knowledge and information cannot be touched."

Wrinkling his nose, Edward stiffened his jaw and cast aside his eyes, "Even if Dante can't talk to the people of this world's history like she wants, there is a ton of information still here that can make her very dangerous."

"Dante would become a catastrophe," his hands clenched over his knees, "she will seek out a way to stop the degradation of her soul and I have no doubt she would find a solution here. That would make her the nearest thing to immortal either world may ever see. There is also the chance that she could unintentionally destroy the symbiotic relationship between our two worlds with her attempts at breaching the Gate. Who knows what happens from there," the father withdrew his wandering gaze. His old pair of wrinkled hands clasped together as the equally aged set of eyes looked over to his son, "Edward, when you get home, as powerful a person as Dante is now, the knowledge you take with you will make you far more dangerous than she is."

Without taking time to digest the ideas his father had just outlaid, Edward poised a burning question, "Do you know what the sigil on the Thule Hall floor is meant to do?"

Hohenheim's answer was abrupt, "No."

"Bullshit," Ed chirped, "because I think I've figured it out, which means you already know."

Without responding to the accusation, the senior alchemist would keep a quiet moment in time for himself for as long as he chose to burden himself with it. Disinterested in how long that would take, Edward would wait within his father's capsule of time until he spoke again. The dark evening's silence was very glad for the younger man's earlier words, because it would again be allowed to drift into the room while Hohenheim sat without a word. The older man wouldn't allow silence to settle though; scattering it like dust blown from an untouched ledge as he took a deep breath and slowly released it. His clasped set of hands occasionally bounced at his knees as though a conversation were taking place, though no words had been spoken by anyone until Hohenheim finally broke the evening.

"I have no idea how someone managed to conjure that up and I do not want you to even think of using it."

Ed's gaze narrowed, his voice entirely unimpressed, "We can't use it – we're on the wrong side of the Gate. And even if it was workable, I wouldn't take a chance with it unless I had no other choice."

At his son's words, Hohenheim finally rose from his seat, drawing out a path through the darkness of the night towards where Ed stood. His hands drew up as he approached, falling down over his son's shoulders, rocking the young man's balance, "It is not a choice at any point, Edward. It is vile."

The younger Elric paused, caught only for a moment, before the stiff glare returned to Ed's eyes, "I'm going back to Germany. Someone there knows who constructed this sigil and I want to talk to them."

Hohenheim's voice rose over the darkness, "Edward, the only ones who would have the skill to construct that are Dante and Envy and I am certain Dante isn't entirely responsible. You don't know for certain where Envy is."

"Someone knows who drafted that floor ornament, that'll trace Envy, and I'll stay clear. Envy isn't the same this time around. He's restricted to the form of an ordinary man and I have no interest in engaging him," the younger man's face tightened and his words came out as absolutes, "what I am interested in is the route that got him to a point where he could craft that sigil. If he'd been working on a backdoor scheme for Dante about how to forcefully return someone from beyond the Gate, then tracing his footsteps might help us. There has to be more than one way to establish a point from 'there to here' and I'm going to find it. That path starts at the Thule hall."

Hohenheim's jaw tightened, not wanting to bring this overnight hour into an uproar with the issue, "What about Winry? She might not want to return to Germany."

Moving away from the doorframe, Ed's fingers slipped from the polished wood with a squeak, though his feet made no sound with his strides, "She hasn't done anything to anyone that warrants what's been done to her. I want to go home; Al is there and I want to be there for him. But Winry, she has to go home. She'll understand why we have to go back," Ed's eyes quickly shot over his shoulder at the father figure who remained in the doorway, "you can do whatever you want, but I'm done being in London. There's nothing for me here, there never was. It's just a place full of memories that I don't want."


Both Izumi and Mustang crouched down, their presence masked by the shadow cast by the wall they'd used to conceal their figures. Izumi's nose curled as she forced herself to put up with the body odor stench that was trapped so deep in this building. She continued to wait for Mustang to give her the signal for what needed to be done next.

It had been an orchestrated twenty-four hours. Izumi's message for Sheska contained instructions from Mustang, which the young officer was given the entire day to arrange. There would be no way for the low-ranking woman to get confirmation back to the group that she'd completed the tasks requested of her – Izumi and Mustang would have to fly blind. But, of anyone in the building who could effectively arrange military and government paperwork on short notice, it was bookworm like Sheska. The burden of trust to get things done within a cloak of invisibility was squarely on her shoulders.

Havoc's location had been mapped before Mustang and Izumi had entered the complex and his entire collection of block-mates had been carefully arranged. Mustang had instructed Sheska to coordinate an exceptional collection of men into one spot – a roster that included some of the filthiest to have been put behind bars in the recent years. Now, the task set upon the officer and the teacher was to get in and get out without having their faces seen or themselves identified. Mustang, if he used traditional tactics, would give himself away in an instant, so his behaviour would have to be more in tune with the rest of society. The surplus shop provided the black head-to-toe outfits the pair would use to become shadows and Mustang had been able to retrieve the only black pair of ignition gloves he'd ever had made. They would rely on their own wits, wills, and skills to get through the remainder.

The Brigadier General's eye combed the ceiling, following the cords of hanging lights. In this block of cells at the second basement floor there was one faint clock that ticked away and one pair of soldier's boots echoing on the concrete. The way down this far had been cleared, walls had been moved, floors had been reformed, and shadows had been created. The pair had moved into the crevasse where they now waited.

"Lights," Mustang directed Izumi's attention to a connector box at the ceiling, a half a cells length away from them.

Her eyes picked out the target. Concealed in the darkness, with the silent placement of her hands together, Izumi put her hands to a wall and carried an alchemical command up to the high ceiling. With a slight crack of the concrete, a thin slice of rock severed the electrical cords. The corridor went black.

Mustang had not been given the opportunity to witness Izumi use alchemy until it had been decided that the two of them would be the best suited to complete this mission. Their combination of skill-sets made the job far too easy and, regardless of preference, neither one could deny they'd have to partner up. What surprised Mustang the most about her was not the command she had over her alchemy's precision or quality, but it was watching this woman clap her hands just as he'd watched Edward Elric do numerous times to control everything. She required no sigil, no writing - nothing. He had never thought anyone beyond Edward Elric could do something like that. It wasn't supposed to be unique to the FullMetal Alchemist? How she could learn a skill like that, or how someone as young as Ed could have learnt that skill, he had no idea.

The corridor seemed to have life breathed into the stench as it went black, but no hint of honest concern came into play until Mustang's right fist knocked the one security guard flat on his back. Izumi took care of the rest – her figure carefully following almost directly behind Mustang's movements as she swept in, strapping a heavy piece of electrical tape over the downed guard's mouth before he could call out. With Mustang's knee pushed into the security officer's chest, the man's arms and legs were quickly bound before he could break free from the siege.

Mustang had moved ahead before the final knot was tied. Izumi confiscated the key ring at the guard's hip, collecting the pile of keys in her hand to keep them from making noise. She slapped a single hand to the cement floor twice, her cue to Mustang that she had the task completed. Mustang had already made his way to the far end of the room to work on the next assignment.

First major hurdle had been cleared.

A vigilante's voices called out, wanting to know what was going on. One other called out in concern and another simply laughed.

Mustang's next move would provide the only moments of light they'd have to get their bearings one last time. With his hand placed at the base of the far wall, he sent a charge shooting along the cement. With a spectacular crack, enhanced by a quick dusting of gun powder, the officer brought down the wall. If the guards on the upper levels were at all concerned, it was only a matter of time before someone arrived and broke through the strategically placed obstacles the pair had set up in advance.

Again, they quickly moved. In the light, Izumi had selected a labeled key from the ring and presented it to Mustang as she stepped into his position by the gaping hole in the wall.

There were a total of eight cells in this hall with two men per cell. Havoc occupied cell B2-5, third on the north side. Deliberately, Mustang first unlocked B2-7 and threw the door open wide as the rusted hinges bitterly complained.

"It's jail break time, boys," Izumi suddenly barked, hearing the shrill sound of the cage opening, "get the hell out!"

Whether or not the two occupants of that cell would move or not was something neither Mustang nor Izumi cared about. As long as some of them jumped at this opportunity, they were happy.

Second major hurdle had been cleared.

The key ring was numbered in order; they'd known this in advance, so two keys subsequent from this one was Havoc's. Mustang wrestled with the key in the lock, throwing open the creaking metal bars once the lock surrendered. Through Sheska, Havoc's cell mate had been pre-arranged, as had nearly this entire block. Knowing from the start that Havoc would not bolt in a jail break, Mustang made certain that whoever else was in the cell would most certainly run. Much to the officer's unseen delight, the temporary cellmate did not disappoint. No sooner was the door open than a body blew by Mustang and towards the gaping hole.

"What the hell is going on?" Havoc's voice came out of the dark.

"We're running low on options," Mustang responded as he stepped into the block, his voice stepping below the growing crowd noise. He felt Izumi run up to his side and he handed off the key ring so she could open the last two cells on the pre-planned list.

It had taken a moment of astounded silence before Havoc finally responded again, "… Sir-?"

"Don't," Mustang didn't want his name heard, even if there was little chance anyone would pick it up. He'd figured Havoc wouldn't have any idea it was him until he'd said something. Following the sound of Havoc's voice, Mustang reached out and placed a strong hand on the companion's wary right shoulder, "you need to follow us."

The sarcasm started to leak back into Havoc's voice as he shook off the surprise over his visitor, "Do I get a choice?"

Smirking, Mustang gave a firm slap to the man's shoulder, handing over a firearm borrowed from Major Hawkeye into his other officer's hand, "None whatsoever."

Third major hurdle was cleared.

Staying alongside his superior as best he could with the loss of light, Havoc stopped suddenly when Izumi's hand grabbed his upper arm. He stood stiff in place as her instructions were quietly relayed into his right ear. She finally released his arm and pushed him on his way, back in towards the crevice in the wall the two infiltrators had been tucked away in moments earlier.

With a quick trick of shielded alchemy, Izumi removed one key from the collection and passed the remainder off to Mustang. The pair split; each moving to one of the four remaining cell doors on the south side and quickly released the end unit's locks. This time, they chose not to throw open the doors and both bolted back towards the entry point where Havoc had slipped away, entirely ignoring the two center cells at the south block. Ducking into the protection of the shadows, and with an emphatic clap of her hands, Izumi slammed her hands against the wall and deliberately set off a wailing prison alarm – she may have cut the trigger when she'd severed the lights, but it still had a perfectly good battery.

"What'd you do that for!" Havoc choked out hoarsely, "what are you two doing?"

"Making it interesting to cover our asses," Mustang reached over and slapped him upside the head, "didn't I tell you to shut up?"

With sound wailing at their ears and an annoying red light pulsing above them, Izumi pulled off one last command and formed a make-shift door at the end of the protected darkness. Without a word, all bodies slipped through the exit and she promptly reformed the wall as though nothing had ever happened. The trio found themselves standing atop a staircase that dipped down into an unlit tunnel within the structure.

Final major hurdle had been cleared.

"… What is this?" Havoc tried to peer down, but the darkened corridor hindered his attempts to see much of anything until Mustang finally ignited the lantern Izumi held up for him.

"Well, now you two trolls can add 'Jail Bird' and 'Prison Break' to your resumes," Izumi quipped, pulling the tight fabric of the bodysuit off her head and looking thoroughly disgusted with herself, "I cannot believe I just helped out with that."

"Where are we?" Havoc spoke cautiously, taking a few steps down the narrow hall stairs, lost somewhere between utter fascination and complete shock.

Following Izumi's lead, Mustang pulled his head free of the restrictive face mask and took a deep breath, "The old service corridor that ran along the wing… slightly remodeled."

"I had to rearrange things a bit to keep visitors out," Izumi shrugged, rolling her shoulders to loosen them up, "but it'll take us clear out of the building, no questions asked. Each trigger point we pass, I'll reconstruct it like it never happened. Now, get your asses in gear, I have work to do while you boys fumble around."

Dawning a dumbfounded expression and holding a finger pointed out in front of himself, Havoc turned right around on the balls of his feet and came to face Izumi, looking up at the woman from a few steps lower than where she stood, "And who the hell are you?"

"Izumi Curtis," she replied indisputably, putting her hands down on her hips.

Havoc slowly tipped his head to the side, a very lost and befuddled look growing over his face as his superior officer grabbed him by his shirt collar and dragged him further down the stairs.

 


To Be Continued…


Notes:

I'd always kept in the back of my mind that Ed's interest in alchemy was not supported while he was in England, but he was able to branch out once he left. Thomas and Charles behaviour is not a reflection on everyone's reaction towards alchemy though - these two just have strong reactions that developed over time (culminated with two years of dealing with a very, very stubborn and headstrong Ed).

Chapter 28: At Crossroads

Summary:

Ed and Winry's adventure in London winds down, while Dante practices her alchemical mind games.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

"Does summer NEVER end?" Russell whined, slouching down in the rotting wood pew as the day's sun showered the roof above their heads. The old church the Tringham brothers sat in was bathed in colour, created by the multi-coloured stained glass windows high above their heads. The boys baked in the sweltering room. The summer day was quite nice, but there was practically no draft in this building, even with the multitude of broken windows – not like there was any wind outside to stir things up anyways.

Not unless you stood by the basement entrance.

"We were this close to getting our job wrapped up," Russell whined, pouring a bit of his bottled water over a rag and slapping it over his face as he dumped himself back into the old wood again, "if that angry little ankle-biter hadn't buggered things up we could have just gotten it all done and booked it out west again, but NO. My life isn't that easy."

Again the voices within the old abandoned church fell silent; nothing moved and nothing stirred. Both boys listened to the silence, waiting for the sound of footsteps to return. Russell was right, they had been 'this' close to getting their job wrapped up, but their designated assignment from Izumi hadn't been completed as ordered. The escort mission past West City had been short a few bodies, through no fault of the boys, and the pair had to make a choice: stay beyond the country border as ordered with the Hughes family, or go back and retrieve what was left behind. The brothers chose the latter, and the decision was proving problematic.

"You're awfully quiet, you know," Russell finally spoke up in spite of the moment.

Laying down against the seat board of the pew in front of his brother, Fletcher shifted a bit, his eyes staring ahead to the roof above, "I'm just thinking about it, that's all. I'd never seen it before."

"Yeah," the elder brother drew out slowly, "that empty city is terrifying to look at, especially from above," pausing a moment at his last word, Russell sat up, ripped the moist towel from his already damp face and looked around the building sharply, "why did we get roped into coming here again?"

"You're here to see Dante too!?" a little voice chirped.

The moments of hesitation were followed by the scream both boys let out as they scrambled from the pews and fell into the isle.

"Oh, shit," Russell stood, wide eyed and squared around, his brother tucked in behind him as he stared back at Wrath, standing at the other end of the long length of seat.

Taking a little bit more than a moment to assess the situation, it was Fletcher who realized something was a little odd with this frozen situation, "Are you okay, Wrath?"

The little creature's face twisted; his expression mild and aloof, "I'm hungry, do you have food?"

"Uh huh?" his expression soaked with suspicion, Russell straightened himself as his younger brother stepped out from around him, "why, you can't feed yourself?"

"I'm tired of garbage," the little boy whined as he hopped up onto the rickety seat and began to walk the length of the pew, his arms suddenly fanning out at his sides, "and I have to do sooo much first before Dante says she'll give me any red stones, so I'm hungry! Red stones are tasty, but I'm hungry for anything."

Exchanging glances, the brothers eyeballed the scrawny, auto-mail equipped, bushy-haired homunculus as Wrath lazily walked himself towards them.

"When you don't have any red stones, then you're not violent," moving up next to the bench's ending arm, Fletcher leaned up against it as he waited for Wrath to finish his approach, "I think that's what we were told. Have you run out of red stones, Wrath?"

"Loooooong time ago," the boy drew out his words as his head and chin swung from one shoulder to another, his words almost musical, "and Dante won't give me any more."

"Good," Russell snorted. Coming up next to his brother, he placed one hand on the boys shoulder and another on the back of the seat, "we don't need to be worrying about you too. Where did you come from?"

"Downstairs in the city," the little monster answered frankly, without care to the importance of his answers, "Dante wasn't home, so I guess I have to go and do things," the creature's arms bounced off its sides as he hopped off the seat, jumping over Fletcher as the young brother ducked and landed on the dust ridden floor, "I'm really hungry though, do you have something I can eat, please?"

Again the bothers shared an exchange of befuddled glances before Fletcher moved to retrieve his bag, "I have a bun you can have, I guess."

Quite put off by the beaming smile the homunculus gave, Russell kept a wary eye on both Wrath and his brother as Fletcher fished around in his bag, "You said Dante's not here?"

"Oh no," Wrath shook his head, wrinkling his nose with a pouting lower lip, "she had to go do things. So you can go do your other things too."

Bringing a hand to his forehead, Russell swept away the sweat trailing down. His attention followed his younger brother as the boy handed Wrath a soft bun from their bag. Both boys took a sharp step backwards when Wrath ravaged, and almost instantly devoured, the bun with savage glee.

"That was yummy! Thanks!" he beamed.

"… Yeeeeah, um, no problem," Russell gave a few flicks of his wrist to tell his brother to get over to his side, now.

His attention and head swinging between both boys like a little puppy as they moved, Wrath tilted his head and asked a curious question, "How come you two came to see Dante?"

"We didn't," Fletcher answered, "we're waiting on a friend."

"Oh! Well okay then I hope you have fun waiting," nodding carelessly and suddenly rocking sharply on his heels, Wrath turned. With sudden disinterest in the Tringham brothers, he made his way for the door, "I have to find a friend too, so I have to go!"

An alarm suddenly went off in Russell's head as he watched Wrath make an abrupt exit, "What friend are you looking for?"

"What friend are you waiting for?" Wrath called back, not stopping his hurried pace as he took off.

"Right," Waving a dismissing hand, Russell let the creature go, "whatever."

As Wrath left the building, it was Fletcher who curiously followed the path the homunculus took to the only outside door this building had to offer. With his hand clenching over the warm door-handle, he watched Wrath meander away into the township that surrounded them.

Folding his arms and coming up to stand at the back of his younger brother, Russell cast a narrow gaze beyond the doors, "That was unsettling."

"Yeah," Fletcher turned from the door and slipped around his brother to move back into the core of the religious oven. The younger boy didn't get back to the seat he'd intended to sit down at; the sound of echoed footsteps caught the attention of both brothers.

Swiftly walking past his younger brother, Russell made his way to a makeshift archway that had been constructed. It burrowed down, deep through the floor of the holy structure. As though it would bite or burn if he weren't careful, the elder brother gingerly placed his hand down on the dirt arch and peered in, "Did you find anything you were looking for, Roze?"

An answer was not immediately forthcoming. And Russell took a step back to allow her to come out. Lowering her head to clear the arch, Roze dusted her hands off on her dress, "I don't think so."

Russel's shoulders fell as the woman and her words re-emerged, "Then we came here for nothing."

"Oh no," Roze shook her head, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, "coming here is never for nothing," raising her smile, she turned to Fletcher as he joined his brother, "you can close it now, though. It's been exposed to fresh air long enough. We have to get going."


"Surprise!"

Winry stepped back from the door she'd opened, a grin splashing over her face, "Well, hello there!"

"Winny!" Margaret scampered past her mother and into Winry's legs as quickly as she could muster, "Hi Aunty Winny!"

"Hello there, little Margaret," Winry crouched down, glancing up to Patricia as the mother closed the Wilson's door behind her, "look at you, all bundled up in your winter coat and little boots. I bet you were the cutest thing that anyone saw the whole way here."

"Yay!" the little girl chirped and Winry started to unbundle her.

Taking off her own coat and slipping it into the closet, Patricia looked down to Winry, "Don't worry about that, Love. I can take care of her."

Dismissively, Winry waved her hand, "Naw, I'm fine! Doesn't take a lot of Aunty Winry effort to unwrap a little girl, does it Margaret?"

"Nope!" the little child bounced.

Hearing the commotion, Ed poked his head around the corner from the top of the stairs. Gazing down the stairwell, he called out, unable to clearly see the front entrance below, "Winry, who's at the door?"

It was Patricia who stepped forwards, sticking her head into the landing at the bottom of the stairs, "Good afternoon, Edward."

"Oh," his brow rose, not expecting to see her, "hey, Patti. Um…" he looked back down the hall and suddenly vanished, "hang on."

Tilting her head, Patti left Margaret to Winry and took a few steps up the stairs, "Are you alright, Edward?"

"I only have one leg on!"

The absurd sounding statement from Ed tumbled down the stairwell and it made Patricia laugh. The woman shook her head and climbed the remainder of the stairs, "I drew a very funny picture of you in my mind just now, Edward."

"Sorry! Winry was adjusting the leg when you knocked, what brings you out?" Edward's question came out from the room he'd ducked into.

Patricia moved towards the sound, peeking in around the corner of the doorframe to see Edward sitting on the corner of Winry's bed, his white dress shirt hanging down long around a pair of black shorts and his faux leg on the bed. It was odd to see Ed without two legs and then to see the bare stump of his left leg was even stranger.

"Well, since we're sitting," Patti turned to close the door to Winry's room and reached out to collect the stool that sat below the window, "I wanted to talk to you."

At those words, Ed grew suspicious, and his suspicion came out clear as day in his words, "You wanted to talk to me, or Thomas sent you to talk to me?"

The young woman ran the words through her mind as she sat herself down upon the stool, deliberately placed between Edward and the door, "Thomas did ask me to talk to you, but the words are my own," watching as Ed opened his mouth to voice a protest, the mother raised her hand and requested that he hush his voice from the air, "Please, just listen to what I have to say."

Casting his gaze around the room, Ed found a growing desire to groan in frustration, "Alright."

Properly placed upon the stool, hands daintily clasped in her lap, Patricia took a breath and began, "Do you remember a few years back when we took two weeks and went to Scotland?"

Ed ran the memory through his mind, "Yeah, I remember."

"I remember you said that you liked Scotland; there were wider spaces and fewer people. You'd said it reminded you a bit of some places you'd been to as a child," the woman's hands slid out to rest over her crossed knees as she drew in a deep breath, "you'd also said you wanted to go back someday. So, I was thinking that if you and Winry would like, I have some friends who could find you somewhere nice up there…"

"No Patti," Ed raised his hand to bring an end to the conversation.

She ignored him and continued, "…And you'd find it calming, you could relax in the countryside, and let all of these worries go…"

Sitting forwards, unable to approach while not dressed with both legs, Ed stiffened his tone, "No Patti, I'm sorry. I'm going back to Germany."

"But why? I honestly don't understand," the properly poised woman seemed to come undone from his response. It was apparent in her collapsing posture, in her pleading voice and in her knotted expression that she simply could not understand Edward's reasoning, "You could have so much going for you if you could just stop and think for a while. What good do you do for yourself, Winry, or your father by running around the continent so aimlessly?"

His eyes having already dropped away and his lower lip being ground down by his teeth, Ed couldn't even begin to properly answer her, "I'm sorry Patti," he reached around sharply for his leg, "I get that everyone is worried about Englishmen in Germany, but that's just-."

"That's just it, Edward," Patricia interrupted him, her voice pleading, "You say you're English, but you're obviously not."

Ed found himself stopped by her statement.

"And you're not Scottish, Irish, French, Spanish, Danish, German or anything else for that matter," she sharply let go a sigh that was more frustration than exasperation, "I can't place you anywhere; you're quite to the contrary of every walk of person I've ever met. No one can ever figure out where you're coming from or where you're going to. I'm certain you must worry everyone you meet."

At the edge of Winry's bed, Ed tightened his jaw and sat without any verbal response to her. His gaze carried down to examine the faux left leg in his lap that he used his good left hand to fondle. Between his thumb and index finger, he repeatedly unsnapped and re-sealed a fastener. He had wanted to reply with something like 'well that's their problem' but couldn't bring himself to give her that quip.

Having not received any type of retort to her statement, Patti continued, "Before you'd arrived, your father had called us. He was so worried after what had happened with you and your arm; truly worried, Edward," the young woman stood up and, with the sweeping motion of her hands over her backside to smooth her skirt, sat down next to him on the bed, "he knows that you and Charles don't exactly see eye to eye, so he arranged for their trip together – just to give you and Winry some time to find something comfortable about being here. We had hoped you would find some kind of peace here on your own, without persuasion."

With his eyes cast down and away from the side she sat at, Ed continued to withhold any reply. What a difficult sound to argue with – his mother's voice.

Reforming her proper posture and setting a composed tone back into her voice, Patti continued, "Then you started playing with alchemy again and the things that everyone wanted for you came undone, because now your head is full of foolish ideas and you're going to go back to Germany," the woman ran her hands over her skirt as though to smooth it more than it already was, "And I'm sure alchemy is fun and all for you, but you could be doing so much more with yourself than playing with impossibilities."

A grin came over Edward as she said that, and he put the spare leg aside. Pulling up the good right leg to his chest and wrapping it with the good left arm, Ed put his chin down on his knee and gave her the courtesy of looking her in the eye as he handed a smile over to her, "I like impossibilities; they make life interesting. I'll take them any day over what my alternatives are. I don't want the life that everyone seems to think is best for me; I am not willing to accept this as my life. I belong somewhere else. Your intuition is right; I don't have a place here."

"Don't twist my words like that, that's not what I meant," though her words were scolding, her voice was tempered. Patti's shoulders slowly fell, as did her voice, "I cannot find a way to see things from your perspective, and I just don't want to see you being so narrow and stubborn. What will it take for you to draw the line with all this?"

Wrinkling his nose at the question, Edward didn't want to think of that – he'd never allowed himself to think of that, "What would it take…?" he spoke his thoughts aloud, trying to refuse himself the opportunity to even entertain any idea to what that might be, "I don't know, I'm not sure."

Patricia examined the look that grew over his face as he fought away any potential ideas, "And what happens when you do know?"

"Well…" Ed rocked his chin atop his kneecap, trying to shut the valve off to his flow of thoughts. There was nothing this world could offer him that could ever convince him to back down and there would be no guessing to what might dissuade him either, "I guess I'll call you about Scotland if that happens."

Lowering her head, the woman swallowed the response most unwillingly and pulled herself to her feet. She responded to the statement with a quietly disappointed word, "Alright."


There was a stagnant and stiff aura in the air. One by one, as the day's clock wound down, government officers and the highest-ranking military officials left the Prime Minister's office. The official office room had finally been completed only a few days prior, and it had kept a constant stream of visitors from all angles and walks of authority. Beyond his direct aids, General Hakuro had become a constant fixture in the office, practically having the title of military liaison shoved down his throat.

As one of the last aids departed from the room in the later day, Nina slipped in around the exiting man. Standing just steps inside the door that swung shut behind her, she looked between her 'father' and Hakuro; both men seemingly shrouded in clouds of frustration and exhaustion. Hands were at their heads and their noses were deep in paperwork.

"Are you okay, Daddy?" Nina asked, stepping into the dimmed room.

Both Mitchell and Hakuro lifted their heads from their paperwork, looking surprised at the unexpected intrusion.

"Nina, darling, how did you get in here?" Mitchell asked, clearing away a few sheets of paper in a rush.

Looking back to the closed door, Nina answered, "The officer who just left let me in, but the secretary brought me up. Aisa and Diana are downstairs," she turned back to the two men, "Daddy your work should be done by now, we were supposed to go out for dinner."

Running his fingers over his eyes to wipe away a blur of paperwork, Mitchell looked to Hakuro; the man remained silent in both voice and demeanor, "I did say that, didn't I?"

The wide set of the imposter's eyes again looked between the two remaining men in the tired office, "If you're busy, we don't have to go out. We can play games when you get home, maybe?"

Sighing, Mitchell shook his head, "I'm sorry to disappoint you dear, I'm not even sure when I'll get home this evening. You might be fast asleep by then," looking around at the mountains of responsibilities surging upwards; he could only focus on the growing stress he was being buried under, "we're going to have to reschedule entirely."

"Paddy Cake will make you feel better," Nina smiled, walking over to his desk, casting a glance over to Hakuro, "Paddy Cake always makes Daddy feel better. We're practicing for Diana. You should play too."

"Aren't you a little old for Pat-a-Cake?" Hakuro responded to the little girl as she walked past him, "I don't think your father has time for games, Nina; I certainly don't."

Sauntering around the large desk her 'father' was at, Nina threw a pout-face back to Hakuro, "That's too bad, Mr. Hakuro. I think Paddy Cake is a lot of fun for everyone," putting her hands down on Mitchell's knees, Nina looked up at the man pleadingly as he reached down to pick her up and place her on his desk.

"Hakuro, I'm sorry, would you please excuse us, I need to have a word with my daughter," Mitchell looked seriously into the eyes of a little girl who batted her eyes too sweetly, "she needs to understand a few things about wandering about in this facility."

"Of course, Sir," standing, Hakuro gave a curious eye to the little girl and made his way out of the room.

As the door swung shut, Mitchell took a deep breath, pulling himself up close to the desk in his office chair, "Now Nina…"

"Daddy I'm sorry, I just wanted to practice playing Paddy Cake, so I can teach Diana properly when she's bigger," the little girl's face pouted, swinging her legs freely over the edge of the desk.

The child made the highest-ranked person in the country sigh, and look upon her with a touch of guilt in his eyes, "I understand that, but you need to understand that sometimes this office is not a place for little girls to come in and out of whenever they miss their daddy," he took a gentle hold of the girl's two hands, "There are some very important things that go on here, they aren't places for little girls."

"Important things like what?" she asked innocently.

Sitting back in his chair, letting the girl's hands go he folded his arms in thought of how to explain his statement, "Hmm… legal things, military things, government things, safety things…" he gave a laugh at a passing thought, "things that require a lot of years of education that don't always do you any good."

Pursing her lips and running her hands over the ends of her dress, Nina continued to swing her legs freely, "I heard on the radio that some bad people broke out of jail. I feel safe here with you."

"You're safe at home too, dear," Mitchell reached out with his left hand and gently took her by the chin, "We have one of the safest homes."

Twisting up her face with a frown, Nina wasn't interested in that response, "I'd feel safer if the bad guys were caught. Do you know where they are?"

Patting her on the head, Mitchell sat back, "I'm sorry to say that I don't. Though a couple of the criminals that escaped have been caught, so that's good!"

"Yes, it's good!" Nina grinned, though she allowed it to slowly fade away. Huffing out an elaborate sigh, the little face frowned at the man she called father, "How come it's so hard to figure these things out? Is it really that difficult to catch criminals and find missing people?"

Running his hands over the leather arms of his chair, the Prime Minister sat back and lounged in thought within the chair. He looked to the ceiling as he composed his thoughts for a response, "People are devious, honey. Some people are even evil to the core," he shifted his weight to his left side, leaning into the strong arm of the seat, "Those types of people are the hardest to find and sometimes the smartest out of everyone. We just have to find a way to become smarter."

Nodding sagely as though to accept the response, Nina shuffled herself along the desktop and suddenly grinned wide to her father, "I promise! One quick game of our nightly Paddy Cake practice and I will go home and stay there safe and sound. I bet you'll feel better too."

Relenting, Mitchell held up his hands for her, "Alright, one round of Pat-a-Cake tonight."

Eagerly, Nina flew into a collage of smiles and gleefully clapped her hands and grabbed her 'father's' fingers, "Yay."

The child's limerick sung in the voice of an adult and ancient child echoed within the room. The words matched harmoniously with the electric sound of the child's exuberant handclaps, so rhythmically that Dante could have purred along to the beat. The witch had to focus though; so carefully, so delicately and so precisely for this child's game. If even one touch of her hand wasn't done just right, she would only be a farmer of vegetables, when the song was meant to be about a baker and his oven. She gleefully exchanged a round of silly hand motions in her charade to properly prepare this child's dish. She'd taken so much delight that she found herself giggling by the time they were done.

"What's so funny dear?" Mitchell asked, his hands coming to rest on his lap.

"Nothing," Nina continued to giggle, "I just think I'm getting really good at Paddy Cake."

Shaking his head, Mitchell patted the girl atop her head and pulled her off his desk, "It's not a game that's hard, Dear. Hakuro is somewhat right; you are a little old for it."

"I never played it when I was little, so I'm playing it now! Even an old dog can learn a new trick," Nina announced triumphantly as she skipped around in a circle next to the man. Executing a triumphant pirouette, Nina clasped her hands in front of herself and looked up with a smile to the Prime Minister, "Daddy, what were you so stressed about earlier, exactly?"

Suddenly caught in with honest confusion, Mitchell looked down to the child, "I can't recall if I was stressed about one particular thing; I just have a bunch of signing left to do."

"Oh," Nina twisted her face playfully, clapping her hands like a giggly child, and reaching up to take hold of her father's hands again. The child's touch bled with raw electric power that she'd ensured his body was too numb to feel. She would be the conductor or an orchestra wrought with intangible power, "I thought you were upset because escaped detainee Lieutenant Jean Havoc murdered Winry Rockbell and nobody can find him. That is what happened, isn't it?"

Involuntarily, Dante stopped Nina's heart with anticipation, but only for the moment it took the man before her to pause. She withheld the urge to widen her eyes in curious fascination at whether or not she'd accomplished anything. Alchemy, on a human body, no matter what it was – the Elric brother's notion that they could reclaim their bodies, Tucker's idea of memory implantation, or her own methods of soul suppression & transplantation – always required the most precision, the most expertise, the most concentration, and above all else, most importantly, the Philosopher's Stone.

Mitchell's brow rose with an honest display of amusement and intrigue at Nina's words, "Of course it is, dear. Everyone knows that."

If you wanted to ensure it was done right, any type of human transmutation, regardless of what it was, required an egregious amount of Philosopher's Stone…

Holding tight to his hands, the little girl bounced her undeveloped hips from side to side, her voice ringing with childish delight, "And doesn't it make sense that Roy Mustang, the former Flame Alchemist, must have helped cover up his comrade's crime?"

… And Dante loathed using what little she had left of it so frivolously, so she'd do her best to use it to place her cards just right…

"Of course, it makes perfect sense," he said with a laugh, as though there had never been any doubt to that fact. Withdrawing his fingers from her grasp, his hands came down to her shoulders and turned the little girl around and began to usher her out of the room.

… She'd convinced herself that some things were necessary. She would pay that price begrudgingly; she was too close…

"Oh goody!" the little girl beamed, skipping ahead at this man's prompting.  Her tiny hands flared out in the air playfully as she walked up to the door, "I'm so glad to hear that, because when I was playing with the Chief of Enforcement in the halls earlier, he agreed with me too."

… And once she reached beyond the Gate, she doubted she'd really need to rely on cuts of a red stone any longer.


The charm of the hours after sunset most nights was that no one's voice was heard yelling, talking, or interrupting. The evening and overnight darkness would court the silence and dance about freely in the wind until the sunlight rose to chase the darkness into the corners of the world and told silence that it wasn't allowed to entertain in the day. Because of that, Edward was careful – well, only as careful as his creaky bedroom door would let him be. Each step he took down the hall was as quiet as the next. He had no problem letting silence gleefully wrap around him; he preferred this house when it was quiet. Sliding into the bathroom, and picking a glass from the counter, Ed excused himself from silence to run the faucet, only enough to fill the lower third of the glass.

As the glass tipped back to his lips, Winry's hand came out of the darkness and to his shoulder, "Ed?"

The glass very nearly came crashing to the floor as Edward not only spat out the water in surprise, but inhaled most of it first. Bobbling the glass in his hand, he ended up bouncing it into the sink where it clattered around as though it were trapped in an oversized oil drum. The noise was ridiculous and silence was none too impressed with either of them. His flailing left hand finally trapped the noisy, but unbroken object in the sink as Ed bent down at the knees, coughing to expel his drink from his lungs.

"Not supposed to breathe water," Ed's hand left the glass and came down clenched as a sharp fist against his chest.

"Sorry," She apologized as quietly as possible, requesting a hurried return of the silence they'd chased away.

Coughing, and straightening up, Ed looked over to her sheepish expression and whispered, "I thought you said you were going to bed?"

Winry could only shrug, shaking her head in response, "I couldn't sleep. I'm a little anxious about the trip back. I heard your door open, so I came to see if you were up."

Ed looked back to the sink and the glass that had made a ton of racket. Picking it out and setting it back to the counter ledge, he ushered himself and Winry out of the bathroom, "I never went to bed, just dimmed the light," sighing, then coughing once more, Ed turned towards his room, "I've been trying to convince myself I'm wrong."

Wrinkling her expression, Winry cast a curious gaze to him, "About what?"

Ed's hand came to Winry's shoulder and gave her motion to follow, "Come here, I'll show you."

Tailing along behind Edward, the two slipped silently into his room and Winry quietly shut the door behind him, "Show me what?"

Amidst the mess of his belongings, packing and bed sheets, Ed had pushed his bed against the wall and built a nest of new paperwork for himself. Crawling onto the bed and back to the epicenter of all things, Ed reached under the comforter and produced a sheet of paper with the alchemy sigil from the Thule Hall floor. He held it up with the etching facing her, "This. I know what this is supposed to do… and I wish I didn't," he refolded the sheet along the four seams creased through it.

Winry hesitated before replying, her eyes drifting around in thought. Crawling onto the bed and up next to Edward, she sat down at his empty right shoulder and put her back against the wall. Ed handed the sheet to her, watching as she opened it back up.

"What's it do?" she gave it an unknowing stare.

Ed cleared his throat, "I've told you how a rebound works, right? The alchemist isn't able to perform a transmutation properly, so part of the alchemist is used as a substitute for the missing portions," he watched as Winry gave a slow nod. Ed reached across and gave the sheet of paper in her hands a flick, "This circle uses inverted components of some markers used for human transmutation. It rebounds almost instantly, because there is insufficient life energy from the Gate to draw from here, and the equation is designed to seek out an energy source. Ultimately, it deconstructs your existence to try and create the missing energy and cannonballs you into the flow of life traveling to the Gate," he took a moment to take a deep breath before continuing, "When you get to the Gate, the Gate is tripped up because the only thing that should be there is your soul. The mind and body would be kind of like pollutants; they don't belong. So, the Gate is forced to reconstruct you to extract the unnecessary components, finishing the transmutation processes that the sigil doesn't complete."

Winry slowly slouched down on the bed, stretching her legs out over the mattress and sheets, shooting her toes out over the side. Her arms folded tight against her chest as she scrunched up her face as she tried to add alphabetized numbers.

Swallowing, Ed looked down to Winry's questioning expression, "So basically, this transmutation circle uh… kills you by ripping apart your existence and then it fires you in a big, messy ball of 'existence stuff' to the Gate," he cleared his throat, not certain what to make of Winry's slowly evolving expression, "then the Gate puts you back together when you get there," his eye shifted sharply, his words suddenly hesitant, "that's how I've theorized it."

Through a tight brow, Winry rolled the idea through her mind, all the while gnawing on the inside of her right cheek. Startling Ed a little as she finally stirred from her sloppy position, he leaned away as she bounced to her knees, slapped her hands to her legs and threw a very perturbed glare into his path.

"That's sick! I don't want to do that! What kind of sadist is Dante to think this bullshit up?"

"No, Dante's not responsible. She couldn't be," Ed shook his head, drawing his hand up to dismiss her name, "It has to be Envy; he's the only one of them that could know enough about how this world works."

Winry sat back a little, her expression remaining twisted.

"Even with that, it has to be activated from the other side," his left hand rubbed over his face, slowly pulling down to his chin, "but, if anyone at home is standing at the Gate, it will cause feedback to the circle because the doors are open. If you stand on or near the sigil, you should be able feel it," the Elric's hand came down, pushing himself up straighter where he sat, "I swear I've felt something out of that thing before, but the people at home would have no way of knowing that you're standing there waiting unless you have a way to send a signal."

Sighing, Winry crossed her legs as she slipped back into the hole next to Ed at his right shoulder space.

Ed gave one final qualification to his statement, "And THAT is also dependant on if they know how to establish a connection with the sigil in the first place… I haven't a clue how you'd actually turn it ON from the other side."

"Are you going to try and use it for anything?" Winry dropped her anxious verbal bomb without hesitation once it was clear to her Ed had finished with his explanations.

"Hell no! I don't know if it even works. If that thing ever activates, and it doesn't go right, you become a lot more than dead…" he gave a short, poignant laugh to the idea, "There's no word in any dictionary I've seen to describe what's happened to you, and I can't imagine how much it'd hurt," his eye twitched at that passing thought, "but, I want to know if there's a reason it's in the Thule hall, if I can take any properties from it and modify it, and if I can trace Envy's path to figure out how he came up with it," reaching over, he took the sheet with the transmutation circle back from Winry, "if he's managed to construct this there might be other clues we can uncover to find out where his sources were for this. We can use the information to find a way to send a message home."

Winry gave her consent away with a quiet voice, "Alright…"

The ensuing silence in the room was suffocating and the both of them seemed to quietly suffer from it. For his part, Ed was more than ready to dismiss the thick black cloud he'd created. Suddenly he shifted on the bed, rolling up his left pant leg and pulling off the fake leg, "Yeah, hey, um, I still don't think it's right."

Giving the object a serious eye, she took it from Ed's hands and turned it over, "That's stupid! Your leg is fine. There's nothing wrong with it."

"I'm telling you, it's still not right," Edward plead in protest and shrugged his explanation – he was not the mechanic, "maybe something compressed in the socket when I landed on it?"

"It shouldn't have, but I'll take a look at it later," Winry wrinkled her nose and took an eyeballs glance into the leg socket, "I bet there's just something wrong with you, 'cause I am an artiste. I don't do shoddy work. I swear there is nothing wrong with this leg."

Ed slapped a hand to his face, rolling his eyes beneath it, "Just fix it, please."


Jean Havoc's roar of laughter was too much to contain in the hotel room everyone had jammed into, so it forced its way out into the hallway as well, where there was far more room to scamper.

"That is excellent, it's even a decent picture," Havoc held up his 'wanted' poster next to his head and, with a saucy grin and devilishly narrowed right eye, he asked the room, "I think Central did a pretty good job with it. Should I frame it?"

The collection of people in the room rolled their eyes, sighed or shifted awkwardly in their seats at the Lieutenant's poor attempt at lightening a heavy situation.

"You could do better," Riza gave a straight-faced, entirely unimpressed stare at her co-worker.

Maria cleared her throat, stifling a laugh for the situation, "I think it would look better on you if it didn't say you were wanted for abducting an under-aged girl."

Dropping the sheet of paper down onto the table, Havoc shook his head, trying to give some kind of positive spin on a frustrating situation, "Thanks ladies, I really appreciate the support."

Entirely unimpressed with the Lieutenant's behaviour, Alphonse kept a stone cold face throughout the quips, "Does anyone even know where Winry is? I mean, she's missing! Hasn't anyone-"

Izumi's hand came down firmly atop his soft head of hair to silence him, while her gaze canvassed the room for an answer, "Well?"

The only one who'd had ties to Central over the last while had been Havoc and all he could do was sigh and shrug, "Sorry kiddo, when I could look into it, all I got was dead ends or road blocks. Nobody gave me the time of day on this one," the liberated officer's attention moved from Alphonse to Mustang, "which is strange on its own. Usually when you try and pass on the buck, people just take it and put it at the bottom of the workload. No one would even take it. It was like they either knew the axe was falling on me or they were told not to take it," with the drift of his hand, Havoc cast his attention to Izumi first, to see the annoyed look in her eye, before giving his attention entirely back to Al, "I honestly don't know."

"Alright," Mustang's arms folded as he shut his eye and began to run a thought, "which jurisdiction oversaw the proceedings against you?"

Havoc rolled the unlit cigarette through his teeth, "The military court had to be involved because I'm an officer, but it was a federal investigation – it was taken from the military's workload and given to the government's law enforcement division."

Lifting his eye open slowly, Mustang unfolded his arms, sliding one hand into his pocket and the other held to a point directed at Izumi and Alphonse, "Dante has had her own seat near the top of this country's political throne since her last mule was removed. But, for at least six months, she has had access to every government department and position because she sits next to the man controlling our 'democracy'," the officer's words came out with mocking disgust at the term, "she has had uninterrupted time to weave herself into everything this country does under the act of a new government. The only department she has lost access to is the military, because her footholds were removed," Mustang carried his words straight to Alphonse and his teacher, "If we are hitting a wall on Winry, and its coming from within the government, then Dante must have something to do with it."

"What'd she do with her!?" Alphonse's voice rose again, despite his teacher's hand, "she can't be dead!"

"She isn't dead," answering a scared child's panicked question quickly, Mustang finally withdrew his pointed finger, "Dante likes to leave bodies lying around as a display of her power and control over us – like what remained of Lyra and Tucker once she was done with them. Winry would be a trophy she'd mock us with if she'd had reason to kill her."

"Where is she then?" Havoc asked the question, since ultimately it was going to be him who'd have to fall on the sword if she turned up in any state other than conscious and breathing one.

Mustang couldn't answer that question; his arms just came to refold across his chest as he stared back at his Lieutenant.

"So, what do we do about it?" Hawkeye's voice came up with the question this time and, for this question, she would receive an answer.

"For the moment, there's nothing we can do about Winry's case," came Mustang's absolute response, and he turned his words to his military comrades, "But, there seems to be this larger, growing problem of this corrupt government. Dante lost her connection to the military, so she established the next best thing to rise up with. Since her sphere of influence is not over us, the military is going to have to step up and have it removed."

"Oh, that's rich," Izumi blurted, disgust bleeding from every word, "you are going to use your almighty military prowess and band together whatever you can of this shambled excuse of a military organization, which by the way, the people are quite disgusted with after the reports on Lior and Ishibal were made public – that's how the title of State Alchemist was expunged from our vocabulary," the aura Izumi carried about herself flared up as she approached the military official at the center of the room and threw her tirade at him, "And you're going to bring down the entire establishment that has spent months and months throwing false hope at the average citizen; convincing them that 'this' is better than an authoritarian military state?" she gave a sharp, disdainful laugh in his face, "When you emancipate that lovely delusion right in front of their eyes, and break spirits again, do you understand the social disaster that'll be left behind?"

The military crew within the room seemed to shift silently in place. Throats cleared, postures were adjusted, lips were bitten and all eyes drifted between Mustang and Izumi. Havoc chuckled as he took the cigarette from his mouth and tucked it behind his ear.

"Ms Curtis," Mustang's eye canvassed over her as his body straightened to perfectly square off in front of her, "Nobody deserves to exist in a delusion of false hope. If our people are living in a fantasy, then we do them a greater crime by not telling them, than we do by allowing it to continue. If I chose to go blind to reality, I should turn in my resignation right now, because I would not be doing what my service in this army is meant to."

Alphonse glanced from the officer and his teacher as she stared back at him, stone solid in her stiff and unresponsive expression.

Mustang's voice rose like a foreboding shadow swallowing the landscape while continuing to address her, "I want to understand the mess that the Elric brothers, Dante and yourself are mixed up in, I really do, but I've been coming to the realization that I'm constantly five or ten steps behind wherever you are going. I am not your decorative caboose," the unchallengeable tone swelled through his voice, "and Dante seems to think that it's fun not only being five or ten steps ahead of you, but also adding all sorts of things externally around everyone to push us back. None of us will ever find ourselves walking in stride with her at this rate," the man scoffed at his own forthcoming thoughts, "that is part of her game: to see how fast she can make these little mice scurry through the maze and catch the cheese she leaves around for them. So, we change the game."

Taking a stiff inhale, Mustang's shoulders rose and he slipped his thumbs into the belt loops of his trousers and continued to stare right back into the eyes of a woman who showed no fear standing right in front of him.

"I can lead."

A singled eyebrow on the most learned alchemist in the room twitched at the suggestion.

"I can lead people to break down the walls of the maze, bring down the game and flush out this parasite leeching off our nation. Then perhaps we will have slowed her down enough for you to catch up in some way. Ideally, it'll give you time and space to find a way to figure out the information you have and reach beyond the Gate, or stop Dante from doing the same. Regardless of what you chose to do with the opportunity, it will be there. That's how I'm playing this game from this point forward."

There was a moment of silence where the alchemy teacher and former state alchemist stood face to face, separated only by the solidarity of principles both of them held steadfast to.

The moment broke when Izumi started to laugh. She threw her arms up and roared with laughter, eventually slapping her hands down over her knees with a thunderous clap. What an asinine dilemma. The worst part, which she hid behind the laughter, was that he was right – disgustingly, horribly right. It was a good idea. Their group, on the whole, was just one easy target stumbling along.

The government couldn't be trusted; individual people could be trusted but not the establishment on a whole. There would be no way to extract what cleanliness remained within the infestation, Dante had a web and knew what every string was to pull plus how and when to do it. Because of that, there was no way they could properly do anything. To get anything at all accomplished, everyone would have to rely on a loyal pack of military hound dogs. They were the only establishment that remained relatively unscathed, standing at the fringes of the web.

Snapping her fingers, the teacher repositioned herself in the unmoving officers path, "I can see how you piss Ed off so much," turning on her heels, Izumi walked away from Mustang, a humourless grin scrawled across her face, "you can't act until we know exactly which one of the two Dante is. You have no rallying cry if you can't identify the corruption properly. Any one of your pawns screws up and every single one of us is expendable."

"I'm well aware," Mustang remained standing at the center of the room, refusing to release the woman's attention from his grip.

Clenching her fists, Izumi gave a begrudging sigh as the strength in her voice backed down, "How much do you want to bet that there have been men before who've learnt about Dante's secrets? What do you think happened to them, if no one has ever really known about what this woman is capable of until now?"

Mustang's sneer came well equipped with a sarcastic reply, knowing he'd won the debate with this wretchedly intelligent and frustratingly headstrong woman standing five steps ahead of him, "It's my turn to find out."


The sun had barely awoken and did not have nearly enough strength to take away the overnight chill just yet – the light was still trapped behind the silhouette of the boat in the harbour. Why ferries had to start running so early in the day was beyond most anyone, but it always seemed to be full of early morning risers; willing or otherwise. As it was every morning, a crowd of travelers and a crowd of well wishers had gathered at the docks to bid adieu to their loved ones, comrades and companions.

Crouching down, Ed got as close to eyelevel with the child as he could, and put his hand on the head of the baby Hyland, "Alright Margaret, I need you to do me one favour in your life!

The little girl's eyes widened, "Okay Uncle Edderd!"

A childish and fun smile for the little girl formed throughout his face, "I need you to grow up and be the prettiest little Hyland there ever was, so your dad ends up staying up all night stressing over what kind of trouble his pretty little girl is getting into, while his hair turns grey and falls out."

"Hey!" Thomas barked as Patricia and Winry both burst out laughing.

"What kind of request is that, Ed?" Winry giggled, a mitten hand covering her mouth.

"It's a request to give Thomas bags under his eyes," Ed nodded sagely, pointing a wary finger at Thomas, "it'll serve you right."

The young father could only respond with a very blank and unimpressed look, "She's only two years old, she doesn't need your bad influence. Unhand my child and be gone with you!"

Patricia crossed her arms over her chest, though one hand continued to flutter around her mouth, "You're so mean to him Edward Elric."

Shrugging, Ed rolled his eyes. He reached his only hand out to pat the giggly little girl on her head before pushing back to his feet. His gaze looked over to his father and the doctor that were coming to join them. Out from beneath him, Margaret gleefully scooted towards the two senior men, followed closely behind by Winry. Ed smirked, laughing to himself as Winry snagged the little girl under her arms and carried her the rest of the way.

"So, my wife tells me you again have no plans on returning to grace us with your presence ever again," Thomas's words were sarcastic but playful, though the man still received a smack on his upper arm from his wife.

Ed continued to hold his smirk, knowing enough to tell when Thomas's words weren't meant to be taken too seriously, "Absolutely none. So, good bye, Thomas Hyland and Patricia Hyland; I hope we never meet again."

It was one of the few times Patricia would ever roll her eyes at someone, and the woman gave a 'tisk' at the toying grin Ed held as she stepped forwards to give him a hug, "You take care, understand? Write to us once in a while."

"Yes ma'am," in the back of his mind, it felt so odd for him to hug her, but strangely welcomed at the same time. Her hugs were exactly the same.

As his wife stepped back, Thomas held up his right hand next to his head, "You still haven't a right arm to shake with, Edward."

Shrugging, Ed offered his left hand with a grin, "I wouldn't give you my right hand, anyways."

"Now, that's just strange," Thomas laughed, accepting the inverted offer.

As the two men's hands met to shake, both found themselves caught off guard by Patricia's laughter, and the woman shuffled her way towards Dr Wilson, Hohenheim and Winry. Both younger men glanced to the ridiculous face-making competition going on between Winry and Margaret that the two older men had begun to laugh at.

"I respectfully request to have my daughter returned to me, Winry Rockbell!" Patti called out.

Pursing her lips and wrinkling her nose in the little girl's face, Winry hollered back, "Can't I keep this one?"

"You may not!"

The shoulders of the 20-something men fell, Ed rolling his eyes while Thomas shook his head. Sighing, Ed went to take back his hand, but had it quickly claimed by Thomas as he gripped Edward's only hand tight.

"You take care of yourself and make sure to take care of Winry as well, understand?" Thomas instructed.

"I already got that lecture from your wife," Ed narrowed an eye, taking as firm of a grip as Thomas gave.

Nodding in agreement, the young father conceded that fact and released Edward's hand, "Yes, and now you're hearing it from me, because this time I'm here to see you off properly."

Reclaiming his hand, Ed could only give a reluctant grin to the statement before turning his attention back to the crowd that had come to gather with them on the docks.

Folding her arms, Winry spun away from Patricia as she gave up Margaret and came to stand next to Ed's vacant right shoulder, "I think I want one," she announced, picking up her suitcase.

"One what?" Ed blinked.

Pointing to the mother and her child, Winry looked up to Ed entirely unimpressed, "A baby, you ditz."

Ed crossed his eyes, lightly wincing at the thought, "I don't think there's a world out there that could handle two of you."

It took a moment of dead silence and dangerous glances before, in the blink of an eye, Winry had swung her oversized suitcase up and snapped it down overtop Edward's head, bringing the man and her collection of personal belongings and equipment crashing down to the ice cold cement in a heap.

Grinning maliciously, Dr. Wilson put a hand down on Hohenheim's shoulder, "Unlike Edward, I do think Winry would make a perfectly sound parent."

"Thank you," she beamed.

"Hey!" Edward's voice rose, snapping to attention, and lurching to his feet - dangerously wielding a pointed finger to the doctor, "I'll have you know that I'd make a damned good father."

It was the second time in the last minute Edward had wished he'd had the foresight to keep his mouth shut, or at least have said something different, because there was a chorus of 'you would?'s that came from every single person he stood with, each instance spoken with some level of fascination or intrigue. All eyes full of amusement and wonder looked back on him, pinned him to the ground, and demanded an elaboration.

Ed's hand ran over his slowly flushing face, "Uh…huh…"

With a bemused grin eating him up and a teasing jest in his tone, Wilson patted the young man's father on the shoulder as he spoke, "Edward, to be a father, you first need to be aware of how a child is conceived. As you are nearly twenty-two and have been celibate and single since the day we met you, I'm of the opinion that you're quite ignorant to the process. You might want to consult Winry for some clarification."

"Excuse me!?" Winry squawked, "he can go buy magazines for that."

The dangerous arrow of his left index finger swung out, nearly taking off Winry's nose as Edward barked at the doctor, "You know, I could kill you, throw you off these docks and, before any authority finds your dead body, I'll-"

With a hands raised, Hohenheim stepped into the middle of everything to stop this portion of the world from imploding on itself. With the wave of a few hands he directed final hugs and handshakes, though Edward was far more interested in waving a deliberate finger in the doctor's direction as opposed to anything else. The oldest man in the gathering ushered the two young figures he'd escort through Europe onboard the ferry, remaining behind as the two found themselves snagged by the stream of people boarding.

"Your son is an idiot," Charles proclaimed, a defeated grin worn on his face as his hand slapped into Hohenheim's for a final handshake, "To an extent, I can understand why you have to return to Germany, but why in God's name did you not just burn their passports and force them to stay?"

While giving a firm shake of the hand he held, Hohenheim laughed at the suggestion he had seriously considered, "Because Edward would have just hitchhiked his way back to Germany and Winry would have followed. That would have been a bigger nightmare."

Rolling his eyes, Charles Wilson took his hand from his companion and slapped it to the man's shoulder, "You really need to have a serious talk to that boy and set him straight. Talk to him like you're actually his father for a change. Your young man is full of potential and alchemy will get him nowhere. Allowing him to wander around aimlessly as a lone soldier without a proper cause doesn't do anyone any good. He'll be lost if he ever has to submit to reality."

"Edward is fine as he is," taking a deep breath of the cool morning air, Hohenheim gave it a few moments to warm in his chest before responding, "you know full well that I have no opinion one way or another on the subject. But, what Edward does, or what he thinks he's doing, gives him hope."

Wilson's brow rose at the seemingly odd statement, "Hope? Might I ask, for what?"

Folding his arms, Hohenheim looked over his shoulder to where Ed and Winry stood, peering down over the ferry's edge to the group standing seaside, "Hope for a better future. He's already had a lot of important things taken from him; too much for someone his age. I don't want to be the one to take that prospect from him. He wouldn't have much left to him if he lost that."

The doctor stood for a moment, facing his companion, trying to determine the seriousness of the statement. Withdrawing his hand, Charles folded his arms and raised an eyebrow at Ed's father, "That wasn't the answer I was expecting."

The grin returned to Hohenheim's expression, "I know it wasn't. I have to keep you thinking, Charles. There aren't enough challenges in your life if you don't have my son around to completely throw you off."

"Confounded old man," Dr Wilson twisted his face, choosing to laugh away the statement as he smacked Hohenheim in the shoulder.

With his grin unwavering, Hohenheim took his final round of hugs and handshakes from everyone. As the departing well wishes passed from Thomas to Patricia, the old man took a final, selfish moment to look into her eyes one last time before leaving a kiss on the cheeks of a beautiful woman and her baby girl. Stepping away, the old father scaled the ramp leading up to the ferryboat shielding the rising morning sun from everyone's eyes, and allowed the return trip to Germany to commence.


To Be Continued…


Chapter 29: The Orchestra's Conductor

Summary:

A few Germans start to focus their interests on Winry, while an unexpected visitor begins to fill in some blanks for Al.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The loud crashing boom of a metal slider on the filing cabinet hit carelessly, and Hohenheim flinched at the noise he'd allowed to echo in the empty school halls. Sealing up the finalized semester of schoolwork and papers in the cabinet within the desolate educational building, the old man couldn't help but turn the tight expression he wore into a grin when he heard his companion's bemused reaction to his earlier statement.

"Wait… Edward did what?" Karl Haushofer gawked through a choked laugh.

Hohenheim shook his head and caught the contagious laugh. Turning around, he tossed the desk keys into the air and, snagging them with his other hand, said "He and Winry got home, did laundry, and Edward shrank the majority of his good clothing in the wash."

"With money so tight now-a-days, how does he expect to replace his wardrobe?" with his hands raised, entirely amused by the failure, Karl looked to the ceiling, "And that is why women do laundry! We men just don't have the skill for it."

"Trust me, Winry has been letting him hear about it," Hohenheim's stifled laughter continued through his words, "his pants can be hemmed and his shirts… well, some fared better than others, so it's not that bad there. But he came downstairs completely oblivious to the length of his pants, and Winry and I had to point it out – he wasn't impressed," his eye twitching at a subsequent thought, "as long as he keeps wearing his winter boots, no one will notice while he's out, though I wish he'd shrunk those God-awful slippers he came back from France with."

Waving a hand to clear his thoughts, Professor Haushofer gave an intrigued response, "I'm assuming Edward and Winry didn't venture off into France just for bottles of wine and a pair of fuzzy slippers?"

With a prevalent sound of disgust, Hohenheim narrowed his eyes to his friend, "He won those at some ridiculous carnival," sighing, the father could only shrug his shoulders, "he met some gypsies in Belgium who gave him some crazy ideas that he wanted to look into outside of Paris. He invited Winry along and told her she could see the grand city of Paris; which she saw and wasn't too impressed with. It was too busy for her," he chuckled, though entirely unimpressed with the two of them as he let a displeased tone of voice crawl out, "Winry doesn't know a thing about France or French and Edward's language skills are somewhere between non-existent and poor at best. Apparently, that made things difficult when they lost the gypsies," Hohenheim rolled his eyes to the ceiling, "now they're home and in one piece, thank God."

Karl's hand ran down his face, sputtering as he began to laugh at the situation drafted up in his mind, "Good Lord, that boy."

Raising his hands in defence, Hohenehim's unimpressed expression prevailed over all else, "I honestly don't know sometimes."

Clearing his throat and leaning a shoulder up against the wall of the office, Haushofer's sideways grin wouldn't be undone, "Speaking of Edward and Winry, may I ask you something about Winry?"

Hohenheim's left eyebrow rose curiously, "She's not my child, so I might not know the answer… but yes?"

"Is she involved with Edward at all?" was the curious question.

The question brought both of the father's eyebrows up, "I'm going to take an assumption on what you mean by 'involved' and respond with 'not in a way that I've been made aware of'. Why?"

Haushofer waved away his question with the flick of his wrist, "I was just asking as a concerned citizen, and that's all."

Hohenheim replied with the fakest and most contrived laugh he'd given in weeks, and he continued to hold his inquisitive friend in the crosshairs of his line of sight. His tone bottomed out sharply, "Why?"

"I just told you why," was the sly response, "now forget I asked and hurry up. We have dinner in under an hour."

Wagging a finger, Hohenheim warily returned to his attention to his office, "I don't like it when you put me off like this, Karl."

"I'm not 'putting you off'. Now, lock this nonsense down and we'll get going."

Hohenheim flipped through each key on the heavy ring as he looked for the one to the cabinet. His thoughts suddenly changed to a more pressing concern he'd been withholding, "Say, Karl, did you notice anyone come in or out of my office while I was away?"

The companion wrinkled his face in thought, "I don't believe I noticed anyone down this way. Why?"

Hohenheim shook his head, snagging a sliver key in his fingers, "I just found some things out of place when I got back, and one item was missing altogether. I was just wondering if maybe someone came through my office."

"Are you certain you just didn't forget where you'd left things? You were gone for some time," Haushofer questioned.

Hohenheim gave a deliberate laugh to his words, "No, I'm not senile just yet."

"Who would do something like that?" Karl Haushofer frowned, looking rather disgusted with the idea that someone would rummage through another professor's office, "your office remained untouched the entire time you were gone. I have to pass by it every day and I never saw tampering. I don't know how anyone would have gotten into your things if you had the keys."

"I'm just saying, Karl, that someone went through my office," Hohenheim nose wrinkled when he turned to the man, "things are missing and things are out of place."

With a hand to his shoulder, Haushofer wished for the man to let the issue slide, "Yes, and things are also locked and secured. You have the only set of keys to those cabinets."

With a deep breath and heavy sigh, Hohenheim let the topic slide, "Quite. Very well then."

"Hey, now that's your voice putting me off," Haushofer clenched Hohenheim's shoulder, grabbing on to his dress jacket and pulling him towards the door, "there is no sign of the locks on either the office door, the cabinets, or the desk drawers being picked. You would think that a thief or rabble-rouser of some sort would leave some kind of evidence that would show a break-in – beyond missing papers."

Hohenheim withheld the urge to respond that he already had evidence to the contrary, but figured that discussion of the thick book of theories was too much trouble to engage in, "Perhaps you're right."

With less force this time, Haushofer's hand patted over Hohenheim's shoulder, "Come on now, it' s Christmas season, and Christmas break begins the moment we walk out that door. We don't need to engage this building for another three weeks. It's time to humour the dean with a post-semester engagement, and then spend time with the family."

Hohenheim opened the door to his office, pushing it wide, "This end of term event the dean hosts is so horribly dry. I hope I last the night."

"Just think," Haushofer grinned, "you are not paying the bill. Take it for all it's worth."

Hohenheim reached back to pull his office door shut, firmly ensuring the latch had clicked behind him before inserting the key to lock it for the remainder of 1921. He gave the knob a firm jostle with his left hand to ensure it was secure before following Haushofer down the hall.


There was a constant and endlessly reverberating ring of gunfire for background noise. It had gotten to the point where the gunfire was nothing more than a sick sound that carried in the air and a resonance that would be heard through the night that completed week one.

It had been one week since two regiments of troops had been dispatched to the north east to fight off a swell of insurgence at a location in the remote foothills.

In Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong's eyes, the confrontation was a pre-arranged engagement that both side had been lead into. For the most part, the fighting remained at a stalemate, though the front line tended to shift by portions of a kilometre over the course of each day – either forwards or backwards. The exchange of unpleasantries seemed to continue on only because that's what they had been told to do, not because there was any meaning to it. Over the course of these endless, sleepless days, the major watched over a troupe of nameless, unmarked soldiers fighting a purposeless battle; dying for no viable cause.

There was the itch that bothered the major again. The one that made him clench his fist and wish he could slam them full force into the earth and, with the rip of an alchemy current, end this ridiculous fight and get these boys home to their families. But, that action was forbidden. It was written into law that the military would no longer engage alchemy as a source of fighting power – it was overwhelmingly accepted after the calculated display of 'atrocities' committed by State Alchemists that had been shown to the public by the establishment that eventually came to power.

The towering officer glanced to the poster tacked to a corkboard in this makeshift field hut. Lt. Havoc's face stared back at him, surrounded by bold letters; most predominantly were the words 'WANTED'. Absurd! It was absolutely absurd, as far as this man in the Armstrong family was concerned. And, although there was no poster for it as of yet, every man knew of the judicial Order to Appear issued for Brigadier General Mustang. Every man knew why and, slowly, men were questioning it.

"Sir?"

Armstrong's tired and frustrated thoughts lifted at the familiar voice calling his name, "Lieutenant?"

Breda stood in the doorway, a cockeyed and bemused expression to him, "I got them thinkin' about it again."

"I'm sorry," the man's deep voice rumbled low in the air, "who's thinking about what?"

With the sweep of his hand, the fabric 'door' swung shut and the lieutenant slipped into the hut, "About what's going on with the Brigadier General. The boys are smart and they're listening. Now, they're thinking about it," Breda sat down in a folding wooden chair within the light of the lantern-lit enclosure, "you're right, you can see it in them when they think about it."

Clasping his hands and resting them down against the top of a sorry excuse for a worktable, Armstrong nodded at the young man's assessment, "I appreciate how you're handling this for everyone, Lieutenant. Everyone does."

"Naw, don't worry about it," Breda gave a laugh to the compliment, "I'm just planting the seeds for you and letting the guys make their own conclusions. It just takes a while to get ideas to grow."

Armstrong smoothed a hand over his chin, "There is an Armstrong family technique passed down through the generations that's said to aid the acceleration of thoughts in the mind. Typically, it's used for school, but perhaps that can be applied to expedite the process."

Grinning nervously, Breda tried to wave away the Major's 'helpful' suggestion, "No sir, I think that might be a bit extreme. You'll want them to see on their own how they're using Havoc and setting up Mustang for the fall, and come to basically the same conclusion."

"Which is how it has been going so far, correct?" the major asked.

Breda nodded, "Everyone's kinda talking under their breath, sharing their thoughts, asking who's heard what. I didn't have to spread the suggestions to everyone, just the right people."

"Very sly, Lieutenant," Armstrong tipped his hand to the young man.

"Thank you, Sir," he laughed a bit, "I learnt from a girlfriend in high school about spreading gossip."

Sighing, the lumbering major took a glance to the waving light of the lantern, "These men will only be able to take so much before they see through the futility of why we're out here. Once they're able to see that, the cards will fall in the Brigadier General's favour."

The lieutenant's voice lowered to a hush, "Mustang wants to speak with them eventually, doesn't he?"

"He does, yes," Armstrong brought his deep voice to a similar key, "he thinks that's important. But it won't be much until we can rendezvous at Central."

Breda perked with curiousity, "What's he going to say?"

"The facts, most likely. The truth as best he can," Armstrong nodded, folding his arms.

"Will he tell them what he's told us about Dante?"

"That depends on how much of the Dante story is believable by that point. If you were approached by anyone that you did not know as well as we know Mustang, would you have believed him?" the major watched his conversation partner look to the corner in thought, "what is believable is that no one is leading us properly anymore. Men who sign up for the military sign up with the expectation of being lead responsibly. There is a powerful, driving force behind a man in uniform – not only the force in your soul, but the force that guides and moulds that soul to evolve; to become more," the huge man spoke with a firm and powerful jaw, "that's responsibility to guide and shape the world is part of what a leader does, and trust me when I say that the Armstrong family knows this power well. But what's going on here? This is not leading. This is nothing more than a distraction to thin out the power. The further apart the ranks of the military are placed in this country, the weaker the military become as a whole."

"You know," the lower officer spoke carefully, "you can end this stupid stalemate we're stuck in."

"I know I can," came the solemn reply.

"Will you?"

Armstrong looked up, his ears catching a change in the normally consistent ring of gunfire. With his hands firm on the table, he pushed to his feet, nearly sending his head through the canvas ceiling, "When I have the earnest support of these men around me and Brigadier General Mustang tells me I can. I have to show my respect for his judgement if I expect anyone else to."

Standing as well, Breda closed the folding chair and tucked it away at the corner of the tent, "The men are going to get restless fighting this battle. It's not winnable," his eyes turned over his shoulder to the towering superior officer, "they'll eventually see that."

"I know," a grin broke through the steadfast Armstrong, "and when they find that point within themselves that this order we are withstanding is not an order worth fulfilling, they'll be shown a leader and given orders they can follow," again Armstrong's attention was diverted by a change in flow from the world outside of this tent, "I just hope that point comes sooner rather than later."


At five thirty in the afternoon, dinner is usually being cooked, the kids are being told to do their homework, or general chaos is ensuing for the hours that exist between 'after work' and 'dinner' served promptly at six. But, none of those sounds existed in Hohenheim's German household. The only interruption was the sound of the fireplace crackling in the back wall of the home, and it was running low.

Ed and Winry had passed out on the couch hours ago – each claiming an opposite arm of the couch to curl up in. Ed's forehead was shoved into the space where the back plush cushions met the soft couch arm, the seat cushion beneath him had slipped out a little over time as he'd slouched further down and the collar of his partially buttoned dress shirt had slid up to his ears. His feet were on the coffee table, something his father vehemently disapproved of, but the old man wasn't home, so who would know? Besides which, Ed had on the most gaudy looking pair of orange, green, brown and purple-spotted fuzzy slippers he'd ever seen. He didn't think that people could make anything that ugly until he saw them, and they amused him something fierce – perhaps only because his father hated them so much.

Winry wasn't quite so decorated, though she was just as dead to the world as Ed was. Her hair was wrapped atop her head in a white towel – still damp from the shower she'd taken at noon. She'd wrapped herself up tight in a robe, made hot chocolate and sat down in the corner of the couch to blissfully empty her head and vegetate. At some point she'd stuffed her feet in between the seat cushions for support as she snuggled up with the arm of the couch and buried herself in the corner long before Ed had sat down. Only a third of her drink had been tasted, the rest had gone cold.

Neither one of them heard the knock at the door. Or the second one. Or the third.

Every house had a bell, but it always seemed rude to use it. However, the party knocking at the door chose to use the bell and Ed cracked an eye open.

"Son of a bitch," he murmured. With only one eye open, he slid to the floor from the couch, dumping his feet to the floor. He gave a wary look to the opened and mostly finished bottle of red French wine, which was adorned with a label he couldn't exactly read properly, that had been forgotten on the centre table. Edward didn't have a clue about the time of day and he didn't particularly care. Couldn't people just leave him to sleep in peace? Barely awake, he dragged himself to the front door, half heartedly straightening his shirt as he walked, and removing the hair tie from his mangled head of hair. Looking like a dishevelled mess, Ed threw the door open, completely disinterested in the December chill in the air.

"What?" he demanded.

Albrecht Haushofer and Rudolf Hess stared back at him rather dumbstruck.

"What do you two want?" he asked through half opened eyes.

With a raised brow, Hess spoke first, "… Nice slippers, Edward."

Ed glanced down to his multi-coloured footwear, "Thanks."

"You should get your pants altered," Hess pulled his lower lip through his teeth, trying not to show a laugh, "your ankles are showing."

Still staring at his feet, Ed rolled his good ankle a little, eyeballing his white-socked foot that was stuffed into the fuzzy slippers, "Whatever."

The two men shared a number of uncertain glances before Albrecht finally spoke, "Um, well I hope your day is going well. Did you have a good trip to England?"

Ed smacked his lips, trying to remove the taste of sleep from his mouth, "You two stooges came all the way out to the house and woke me up just to ask how the trip was?"

"Something like that…" Albrecht replied cautiously, "uh, I heard you went to France after you'd been to England. How was that?"

"It was French," Ed replied flatly.

"Yes, of course," the young Haushofer gave a nervous glance to his companion.

The heavy weighted eyelids Ed fought against held up just high enough so that he could scan the two of them: the young Haushofer looked as sheepish as ever, and Hess came off like he was trying too hard to look average.

"Look, I have a spitting headache," Ed's hand came up into his fallen hair, "don't you two have better things to do?"

"Actually, if it's possible Edward, can I speak with Winry?" Albrecht gave the reason for their arrival, "is she around?"

Edward's face suddenly clouded over with suspicion, abruptly more awake than he was before, "Why?"

Like a young pup requesting the ball to be tossed, Albrecht looked to Edward and asked again, "If I could Edward, is Winry around?"

"She's sleeping on the couch in her robe, and probably isn't up for talking with you in your semi-coherent textbook English," Ed took a moment to glance over his shoulder to see if she'd stirred or not before readdressing the group with only his suspicious eyes, "Again… why?"

Albrecht took a glance to Hess before shrugging, "I had a question for her, that's all. Perhaps I'll stop by later after dinner! Go… do something about your headache. Sorry we bothered you."

Edward's face twisted into all sorts of pretzels, not awake enough to draw a conclusion to what was going, "Alright…"

With that, the duo backed away, each giving him some sort of 'good evening' well wish that Edward could have cared less about. He remained standing at the open door a few moments after the duo had vanished from sight. His eyes slowly falling shut, though squinting as his tired mind tried to connect the dots. Ed finally gave up on that, stepped back, and shut the door. Returning to the living room, Ed dragged his feet along the floor and back to the couch. Stopping before he sat down in his corner again, Ed's slit of vision slipped to Winry, now fully occupying the couch that she'd stretched out along.

"Move!" Ed barked.

"You left, couch is sacrificed to me," her words were lazy and muffled, caught up in the fabric of her robe and arm of the couch her head was nuzzled into.

Rolling his eyes, too exhausted to either be annoyed or unimpressed, he sat down on her feet. Winry squeaked and withdrew her legs, giving him a sharp kick to his right side with her bare foot in retaliation.

"Who was at the door?" Winry sat up a bit, pulling her feet under herself and adjusting the robe.

"Nobody important," Ed mumbled while trying to re-establish the strangely awkward, yet perfectly comfortable, position he'd been in before having to get up. He kicked his feet up onto the table again and slouched down. From the corner of his eye, he caught a disgusted look cutting through Winry's face.

"What?"

She gave him a pointedly revolted look, "You look like you crawled out of a barn. Go take a shower or something."

Ed rolled his eyes before closing them, grumbling something that didn't sound either English or German, but ultimately resulted in him completely ignoring the suggestion and attempting to go back to the afternoon nap.


Izumi's fingers rattled off the table top in the room she and Alphonse sat in. She played her rhythm as though she'd once been some masterful, one-handed piano player. The tune she played was aggressive, frustrated and angry; it came with no lyrics. Across from her, Alphonse sat, watching his teacher's free hand scratch through her scalp.

"Sensei…?" Al prodded, quite concerned with how dark his teacher's face grew.

"Something about that just doesn't translate right," both of the woman's hands became fists and came crashing to the table where they exploded open again, "the part where it's a baby that communicates with the Gate, okay, I buy that. An infant's connection to the world around it is weak, practically non-existent if it's young enough – far easier to get to the Gate that way. But the need for the baby to be a hermaphrodite just seems… strange."

Straightening up in his seat, Al stretched his arms out over the round table the pair occupied as Izumi continued her rant.

"The factors for a situation this complex for alchemy purposes should be fundamentally unadulterated. It doesn't make sense that you'd use such a bastardized ingredient like a ruined infant. The baby is called 'a hermaphrodite' but the qualification for that is that the baby contains properties of both sides of the Gate. What kind of properties? Is it the biological properties of the hermaphrodite child that sets Diana apart, or something else? It's not definitively specific, because the term 'properties' isn't qualified."

If anyone could successfully kill someone by glaring bullets, it would be Izumi, and she defaced the table with intangible shots from her eyes.

At least this table was theirs. It was theirs, it was private, and it contained some type of relative security. Through a tight connection Mustang had, the second floor of a two-story hotel, tucked away at the disinterested edge of Central City, had become their own. Inside, along with the military crew setting up their operations, Izumi and Al had set up for work. The sanctuary was nice, but the longer they seemed to be there, the less sense the mountain of information the teacher had gathered seemed to make. Which either meant that she didn't have all of the information, or the information was not entirely correct. She was generally leaning towards a huge gap of information, most likely deliberately withheld by Dante to get them scrambling again, but there were some disturbingly odd references going on that she wasn't entirely sure could be explained in the first place.

"You place an infant at the Gate, with a poor connection between its mind, body and soul, fused with properties from both sides of the Gate, and both worlds become available," she looked at some of their written material with gross disgust, "So, how do you steal an infant from the other side, bring it to this side, and then perform a human transmutation on it to fuse it with another infant… when the purpose of the child is to get to the other side of the Gate, because you don't have access?" she rolled her eyes to Al, "which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

"If the 'Diana' in the Prime Minister's home is the Diana in the reference, then what's Dante done to get a child from beyond the Gate to fuse with it?" Al threw some more fuel to the verbal puzzle.

Izumi's frown worsened, "She must be using a substitute of some kind… since she doesn't seem to actually have gotten beyond the Gate yet," the teacher sat back in her seat, throwing an arm over the back of the chair, "the theory doesn't mention anywhere if it's important if it needs to be a boy or a girl taken from beyond the Gate. I'd think that something this complex… it would be specified which side of the Gate is equated to which gender, since everything else is full of detail."

Folding his arms, Alphonse slouched down in the seat he occupied across from his teacher, "Dante did get Brigitte from beyond the Gate."

Izumi's face fell, "Yeah, and she doesn't seem to work in with any of this. It's like she was something else entirely that came from beyond the Gate," a scowl suddenly ripped into the teacher's face, "why the hell wouldn't Dante be fighting tooth and nail to get Brigitte back? She's the first concrete thing that's ever come through the Gate in any of our lifetimes."

"I don't think Dante was ever interested in Brigitte. Both Nina and Aisa didn't really fawn over her, more like they poked her with a stick to see what she'd do. I don't think Brigitte was what they wanted," Al raised an eyebrow at his own statement, passively wondering where she was at the moment – Lieutenant Ross was given the task of guardian for her again, "and Dante couldn't have found the picture of my brother in her bag, or she would have taken it."

"Interesting…" Izumi's voice trailed with a glowing thought that began to grow bright at the back of her mind, "she doesn't know for certain that Ed is even beyond the Gate. She's running on assumptions from the theory that Ed is alive and well, but we have the proof that those assumptions are fact."

Al's face twisted up with concern, "There's a lot of 'assuming' going on with this theory."

Izumi expelled a harsh sigh, "You know what's terrifying Al, she might want to believe the things in that theory so badly that in her mind it's already true. After four or five hundred years thinking about something, you're bound to start losing judgement on it – it's just so familiar to you, it feels like fact. That makes her more dangerous than we could possibly imagine."

Alphonse slumped down in his chair until his eyes were level with the table top. He projected his gaze into the collection of books and paperwork the pair had amassed, and looked at it as though he could burn it up with his eyes.

"Al…" Izumi's tone was cautious and questioning.

"I just wanted to find my brother," he mumbled, "I wanted to find my brother and now there's this crazy lady trying to get to the same place I want to get to. If she gets there first, or if I manage to do it and she finds out, we're all in trouble… and my brother won't matter anymore."

"Ed always has, and always will, matter, Alphonse Elric," with a grin, Izumi shook her head, "this 'crazy lady' would have come all the way out to Resembool for us if we hadn't stopped by first, it was just a matter of time," the teacher stood up and walked around the table, "and it's not an 'I' thing, it's a 'we' thing. Accessing the Gate is not just your responsibility."

Al cranked out a deliberately childish pout, holding his teacher in his eyes as she sat down next to him, "I know, I know. I'm just frustrated, that's all. This is a lot more complicated than I thought it was going to be. I barely know who Dante is and she has it out for me and everyone else. All I want to do is get my brother back."

"Well," Izumi pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. Lacing her fingers together and putting her elbows down on the table, the teacher put her chin down atop her hands and spoke straight ahead to her now vacant seat, "Up until about a year ago, I'd thought I'd known who she was, then I found out I didn't know that woman at all. I'd say I'd gone so far as to have idealized her at one point, before we fell out of our relationship. Now, none of us knows which one she is. So, you're not entirely lagging as far behind as you think."

"Alright," the youngest Elric pulled out a grin for his teacher's words, "pick-me-up time is over. I'm done sulking; you can stop with the 'cheer up Alphonse' thing. We have things to figure out."

With a mocking beam across her face, the teacher's hand came down into the fluffy mat of hair on the young man's head and roughly messed it up as she stood up again, "That's a good boy."

Al rolled his eyes, pushing away his teacher's hand and resetting his mangled hair, "I'm not a puppy, Sensei!"

Izumi hadn't finished reseating herself before a knock came to the door. Both occupants of the room looked over as Maria Ross pushed open the wooden door with a creak, "Sorry guys, are we interrupting?"

"Hi Brigitte," Al beamed, looking at who accompanied the lieutenant, and received a light wave in response.

"I think someone's bored," Maria patted her hand down on Brigitte's shoulder, deliberately addressing Izumi, "I'm wondering how tied up Al is, and if he wants to give a shot at entertaining her for the afternoon."

"Yes, I can!" his chirp was suddenly silenced by the blank expression his teacher buried him beneath, "… if it's alright for me to go?"

After pausing the room, Izumi eventually gave a careless shrug of her shoulders as she looked harmlessly over to Ms. Ross, "Sure, I'm sure his head needs something else to chew on for a while. He might explode if we keep on this much longer."

"Thank you!" Al chirped, coming out of his seat and making his way over to Brigitte. He grinned, took her by the hand and tugged her out of the room behind Maria.

The officer watched the two children disappear into the second floor of the hotel before turning her growing curiosity back to Izumi, "How's it going?"

Izumi scoffed at the question. She rolled her eyes and dropped a heavy, worn-out look over the lieutenant's head that didn't require any verbal response from the teacher beyond the 'ugh' she gave.


With a few final words from Hess, and the clap of his hands at the centre of the Thule Hall, the congregation was joyfully told to break for the Christmas holiday weekend. The receptions held before and after Christmas were always a little lighter than any other. Round table discussions were held about holiday plans, family members, gift ideas and which relative would be the most dreaded to show up. Hohenheim always took the moment to share with everyone how Karl Haushofer paled at the idea of his mother-in-law and her family showing up to ruin the season. The statement always drew a laugh because the senior Haushofer never denied the fact that he couldn't wait for the crotchety old woman to pass on. This year, as he did the prior year, he gave a warning to his son that if the words spoken in this hall were ever mentioned to his mother, the boy would find himself drowned at the bottom of the North Sea.

The only snag to the evening, as far as Hohenheim was concerned, was the late arrival of Adolf and the delighted introduction Hess gave him. Never missing an opportunity, the devilish man always took these moments to preach his position to all the ears he could gather, and everyone seemed to eat him up. Strangely enough, anytime he arrived, the members would always be instructed to never make mention of his presence in the hall, ever.

Even after the evening dismissal, the gathering lingered for quite some time, all of them amused and delighted by the cake someone's wife had prepared for the meeting. Christmas cake couldn't be had without drinks to wash it down, so a number of the men remained long after they normally would have.

"Professor!" a young man's voice called out.

In the middle of a rowdy conversation with any ear that would entertain his banter, Hohenheim's attention was diverted.

Coming up to his side, the young Albrecht Haushofer grinned ear to ear with a juvenile and foolish smile, "I have to thank you, Sir."

The sudden statement completely confused Hohenheim, "I'm sorry Son, what am I being thanked for?"

"For not objecting," his sheepish grin continued to glow.

Still confused, Hohenheim's eyes canvassed all four corners of his visual plane in thought before a few passing ideas seemed to connect, "Oh that!" he started to laugh, "Edward mumbled something to me in passing that you showed up after dinner last night and asked Winry to a Christmas Party?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I did," quite proud of himself for the accomplishment, the young man had no intention of denying that, "so thank you for not objecting. I'm glad to say all the English classes my father forced on me actually seemed beneficial for a change."

Grinning, Hohenheim patted the young man on the shoulder, "I am not that girl's father, so I don't have a veto in her life. So, if she's confident enough in herself to go out with you for a party, I don't see why she can't go out a bit," playfully, Hohenheim's expression darkened and his voice took on a deep undertone, "but let me warn you, if Winry comes home in any less of a condition than she left in, it won't be me you'll be dealing with."

"Yes, I've already been warned," Albrecht rolled his eyes, his words sticking with disgust, "I'm to be stripped naked and strung upside down by my ankles in a desert. I will have my fingers cut off so I may I slowly bleed to death or be picked apart by scavengers as I boil in the sun."

Hohenheim cleared his throat, quickly stripping the perturbed reaction from his eyes, "I see."

A voice from behind the group rose up, and the pair's attention fell to Adolf as he walked up, arms folded and brow raised, to join the group, "I find that an admirable quality of your son, Professor, that he's so conscientious of the foreign girl."

Hohenheim's expression remained stagnant, "Welcome to the man of the hour."

"Man of the month," Albrecht corrected, "Professor, you missed all the fun while you were off being a continental traveler."

"If I recall, Professor," the most powerful man in the room drew up his voice, "I did request you attend the election and you were unfortunately not in town for my ascension," his tone fell a little, almost toying and whimsical, "I haven't had a chance to tell you how disappointed I am that circumstances have kept you at a distance. You constantly seem out of reach."

Sighing, Hohenheim kept his composure calm and collected amidst the congregation, "Yes, Adolf, and I have told you, I do not involve myself in politics any longer. I teach young minds ways to expand, and that's all I'm interested in."

"Ah yes, and at that, I think we should have a discussion, Professor," Adolf's hand rose to Hohenheim's shoulder and the man turned his attention to the young Haushofer, "If you'll excuse us, Albrecht."

At Adolf's prompting, both he and Hohenheim turned over opposite shoulders and stepped away from the younger Haushofer without objection.

With the only exchange between them for a few moments being the echo of the soles of their shoes on the cement floor, Adolf's cold words rose up from between carefully placed footsteps, "I was under the impression that your interest in young minds was never for procurement, rather quite the opposite."

"What do you want?" Hohenheim's low voice was harsh and forthright.

Adolf responded, sounding bored and aloof, "Why did you return to Germany?"

Hohenheim's gaze narrowed, eyeballing the man of smaller stature, "Because someone tempted my son with a taste that I had no hope of washing from his mouth."

"Did you try using soap? Bleach perhaps?" he laughed at his own statement. A hint of curiosity and intrigue tingled in Adolf's voice, "I do believe, before his right arm was lost again, you'd sent your son searching for something particular," the walking pace slowed the further they moved from the general crowd, "a bottle of wine, wasn't it?"

"Yes, and you know as well as I do, that brand of wine doesn't exist. Isn't it odd that you would know that Trisha and I drank a brand wine that doesn't exist anywhere in Europe?" stopping, Hohenheim's arms pulled up and folded across his chest, "do you enjoy having that voice in your head telling you odd things, Adolf?"

Snorting, the man's grew a sneer into his face, "I haven't any voices in my head, Professor."

Chuckling and struggling to hide his distain in the darkness of the far reaches of the hall, Hohenheim cast his gaze over the man who strove to be king, "Indeed, you don't. You have a cancerous tumour growing in your mind, feeding you ideas, passing on thoughts in your sleep, while its voice remains dormant. It's smart: if it directly conversed with you, like it had with Reinert, you'd probably outcast it for fear of lunacy."

The frozen gazes the men held each other in were complimented by the winter chill that was so hard to chase from this occult gathering place.

Adolf shifted his posture, flattening his tone to near disregard, and diverting attention to the previous topic, "Yes, your wife and two children that you abandoned, like you abandoned the prior family you had. I've learnt a lot of things in the last while, Hohenheim – about things, places, and people," his attention lifted, sounding somewhat fascinated by his own words while his eyes sliced into the dwindling crowd mingling in the hall, "I've learnt about man and how man's will can be tempered, channelled and directed; how they are much like sheep. I have been shown that I have the potential to be prolific, and how I have a way with not only my actions, but my voice as well, to lead. I have been made aware of so much potential within myself and I have never before felt so empowered," with a fierce change in his tone, Adolf returned to addressing the ancient man before him, "I've also learnt a lot about you. Every day that passes by, you become more transparent to me and I can feel the hate bred from an unnamed envy grip my soul. I've come to despise you and everything around you for no reasons I could have ever come to know about on my own. Logically, I should find your motives and idiosyncrasies you do in this Germany commendable, but I do not. Right down to the most insignificant aspect of my being, I despise you."

His expression unchanged, Hohenheim responded promptly to the nerve-rattling statement, "If logic is telling you that something is wrong, perhaps you should listen to what you know in your heart is right."

The man laughed, much louder than he'd planned, giving the odd indication to the interested persons watching the engagement that the conversation was not as dark as it appeared, "Oh no, Hohenheim, I am not done using this tapped resource."

The old man snorted, accepting how futile this conversation would be, "It's using you, Adolf. Don't kid yourself on that fact."

"I can expel it at any point," the man's crass voice became low, but intensely shrill as it tore strips through the darkening corner, "it is here with me because I allow it to be!"

Hohenheim's voice never rose as he spoke with clear, melancholy truth to his words, "That's true; you can expel that sin if you chose, but envy for the world is a poison that will destroy you over time."

"Something you are acutely aware of," the tactless voice bit back, irritated by Hohenheim's disinterest in a verbal sparring match, "I certainly hope Winry enjoys the Christmas party I'm hosting tomorrow night."

There was poignant a moment of silence at Hohenheim's sudden recognition of what had just been said. His eyes shot towards the figure already walking away from him, drilling through the back of the man's skull who did not bother to look back at him, "Your what?"

Adolf raised a dismissive hand as he stepped back in to join the social gathering, "Have a Merry Christmas, Professor."


A debate was raging on in everyone's absence. All the adults had other things to do this evening and none of those things involved either Alphonse or Brigitte. So, the two children engaged in a fierce, mostly silent, debate. Which number was more important for this childish engagement: seven or eight? Alphonse narrowed an eye at his own questioning thought.

"Can I have six?" Brigitte asked.

Alphonse raised a finger to correct her, "Do you have a six."

Begrudgingly, the girl repeated, "Do you have a six?"

"No, go fish," Al grinned.

"Stupid boy!" souring her face to an extreme, Brigitte threw a stray card at him, "making me repeat myself when I didn't have to. I don't care if my English is bad. I don't even like English!"

"Sorry," completely understanding the reason behind the card being thrown, Alphonse laughed at her reaction before straightening himself out with the serious inquisition of his playing hand resuming, "… Do you have an eight?"

Brigitte's grin beamed with hints of deception, and she was delighted to say: "No, go fish."

Al narrowed an eye at her, the pair sitting at the center of the king sized bed in the bedroom, "Are you lying?"

She pursed her lips, slitting her eyes as she shuffled her focus between Alphonse and her cards, "I think you think I'm lying…" her eyes shifted hastily from left to right, trying to decide how to proceed. The moment her gaze snuck into the right corner, the girl's head swung and her eyes flew open wide at what she saw in the hotel room window. Dropping her cards, Brigitte began to slide herself to the other end of the bed.

Leaning in to look at the cards she'd dropped, Al picked up one she'd discarded, "You lied! You DO have an eight!"

Brigitte slapped her left hand down over the bed repeatedly as she spoke, "Al! Al! Al!" she continued with his name until he looked to her. The moment she had his attention, her finger swung to the window and her voice chirped, "What?"

Turning, Alphonse began to sit up straighter, his shoulders stiffening as he looked into the face staring in from their second floor window, "… W-wrath?"

The young homunculus clung to the window's edge, his wide eyes looking into the room wondrously, "Hi, can I play?"

"No," Al answered abruptly, sweeping the cards into a pile at the centre of the bed, "What are you doing here?"

Pulling himself into the room, the golem's rusted AutoMail clattered through the window's frame as he fell in and landed square on his backside. Entirely unfazed by his actions, Wrath's fascinated grin flew wide, as did his eyes, when he raised his head in awe at the hotel room, "Wow, nice room. Who sleeps in here!? You two or other people?"

Brigitte slid herself up onto her knees, sitting up taller so she could see the thing sitting on the floor. She would have assumed something with a metal arm and metal leg like that would frighten someone, but Alphonse didn't seem as frightened by this as she was, and she couldn't figure out why. It was strangely reassuring.

"Whaaaat?" she drew out, probably the most accurate explanation for her confusion at the moment.

Wrath giggled at her voice, "Your friend is funny!" pushing to his feet, he scampered to the other side of the bed, "I know a lot of people Al knows, but I don't know you!" he grinned for her, and gave an introduction, "My name's Wrath, what's your name?"

Brigitte beamed, having heard enough versions of Wrath's statement, she'd known almost exactly what had been said, "My name is Brigitte!"

Al paled, running a hand through his hair at the cordial introduction going on between the girl from beyond the Gate and the homunculus, "Uh, Wrath, what are you doing here?"

"I came here to see you!" Wrath climbed onto the bed, much to Al's disapproval, "Dante wants me to talk to you about things, but I'm hungry. Do you have food?"

"Dante what?" Alphonse's voice cracked as his eyes widened. Swiftly, he reached out to grab Brigitte's curious hand as she tried to reach out and poke the AutoMail at Wrath's shoulder – he pulled her away. His words were suddenly rushed and came out in a flurry, "tell me what Dante wants and I'll feed you anything I can find."

"Deal!" Sitting up and crossing his legs to sit perfect and proper, the young creature with a black mop of hair grinned with delight at the trade off, "Dante wants you to come and talk to her. Do you remember where the underground city is? You woke up there."

Swallowing hard, Al returned Brigitte's hand and placed it in her lap, sliding up beside her on the bed, separated from the homunculus by a deck of 52 cards, "I remember, a little. Why does she want to talk to me?"

The homunculus spat out information like the words had as little meaning to Alphonse as they did to him, "She wants to talk to you about finding your brother and things beyond the Gate. She said she misses having you around to talk to."

Alphonse moved to give a reply, but stopped himself. Something about how Wrath's statement had come out flared up within his minds eye. He'd never really talked with Aisa…

"Wrath," his words were far more eager than he'd ever expected the question would be, "is Dante shorter than me?"

Wrath narrowed a single eye in thought as he sized up the youngest Elric before him, "Yeah, a lot shorter. Longer hair too," he wound up a chunk of his messed up hair around his index fingers and batted his eyes as best he could, "she does them in braids sometimes, so people thinks she's cuter."

Uncertain if he was supposed to gawk in terror or delight, Al's eventual grin tried to swallow his face and his eyes would have been wider if his cheeks hadn't gotten in the way, "Wrath, I could kiss you!"

The creature made an alternate request, "I'd prefer red stones, please."

Slipping from the far side of the bed to the floor, Alphonse grabbed Brigitte by the hand again and pulled her towards the bedroom door with him, "You stay here and I'll get you an entire buffet!"

The boy's eyes widened with fascination at the prospect of a line-up of food.

Wagging a finger at the homunculus, Alphonse reached for the door handle with his free hand, "I need to get money from Sensei, so I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Oh!" the golem child's eyes suddenly widened, realizing something important he'd forgotten, "it's a secret!"

"What's a secret?" the tips of Al's fingers slipped from the handle as he turned back.

"Dante says that these things are a secret and the adults can't know," wiggling himself off the bed, the young creature twisted his face at the notion, but still dropping his words casually, in a matter-of-fact way, "so if you tell anyone, and if you don't come to visit, you'll ruin the secret, and as punishment Winry will die."

"WHAT?" Alphonse's hand lost the door entirely and his other hand lost Brigitte's grasp, "Dante really does have Winry?"

With a flash of delight, the homunculus's grin flew wide, "AH! You're upset! I get red stones now!"

Wrath bolted from his spot towards the window, Alphonse scrambling after him. Colliding with the creature's legs, Al screamed at him to stop as he wrapped his arms around Wrath's knees. The homunculus took the moment to squeal, joyfully and playfully, as though the entire escapade were only a game. With the might of Winry's mechanical talent, he gave Alphonse a swift kick to the face with the foot of his AutoMail leg. Thrust backwards, the young Elric lost his grip and fell against the side of the bed before hitting the floor. Dazed only for a moment, Al scrambled to his feet, nearly falling out the window as he threw himself half way into the frame, resting on his arms as he frantically looked out, but Wrath was gone.

"No…" Al looked around in every direction he could bend, but continued to see nothing. With a few deep breaths, he finally let go of the window and fell back inside, sliding down the wall beneath the window until he sat on the floor, "No… this just can't…" he mumbled to himself, looking over to Brigitte who continued to stand confused and frozen up next to the frame of the room door. His wide eyes looked at the displaced girl, who was now far more frightened about the events within the room than she had been at any point previously.

Alphonse's hands swept up and ran over his face for a moment before they jetted sharply up into his hair, clenching tightly as his jaw stiffened and arms tensed, "She just can't do that!"


To Be Continued…


Notes:

The expedition through France won't be covered LOL. Your imagination is free to do whatever you want with it!

Chapter 30: The Dual Tandem

Summary:

Winry goes on a date at a Christmas Party while Brigitte manages to divulge a single piece of information to rattle everyone.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Pretty, isn't she?" Tilly beamed and presented Winry to the room. Circling around her living and breathing dress-up doll, the German woman gushed, "You must have fed her well in England, I think she's blooming nicely like a girl her age ought to, I even needed to adjust her corset.  No one's stitching anything proper for girls now-a-days, makes it hard to find something that fits her nicely. For some reason, clothiers are under the impression that we're actually straight and flat as bean stalks."

Winry shifted awkwardly in place, adjusting the green, sleeveless, hip-frilled, calf-frillier dress at it's belt. She shot an uncomfortable look to Edward on the floor; his eye twitched as he put his chin and disapproving gaze down on the coffee table.

"God forbid we ever have any daughters," Hermann tipped his water glass in approval of Winry, "she's lovely."

Readjusting what Winry had just tampered with, and giving the girl's wound up hair a pat for good measure, Tilly ushered her prized creation over to the sofa and sat her down. The German woman continued to glow as she picked at the little flowered decorations she'd woven into Winry's hair and sat on the cushion next to her, "Christmas parties are always fun, everyone's dressed up so nicely! Who's she going with again?"

"Albrecht Haushofer," Ed replied flatly.

Hermann laughed at the dead response, "Ah! The little troll you don't like," jovially, he poked the taciturn Elric next to him, "And how come you aren't taking Winry? Are you still getting over something?"

"Huh? 'Still'?" Ed's brow rose at the question, losing the monotone disapproval he'd been using all day, "When Hoff asked me, I'd said I wasn't interested."

Shrugging, the elder of the two men took another drink from his glass, "You've sounded a little off since getting back, so I thought you'd been ill." Hermann paused a moment before calling on Mathilde for clarification, "Wife, does Edward sound off to you?"

The woman's reply was bitterly sweet, "He sounds off all the time, Husband."

"Oh, shut up, you," Ed snarled as the woman whipped a grin into her face.

Snapping her fingers, Tilly wiggled her way back to her feet and gave a sensual grin to the two men on the floor, "I think it's high time we taste tested some of that absolutely lovely French wine Edward came back with! I will be right back."

"I'm beginning to suspect that wine is all she came here for," Hermann clunked his head down into his hand.

Watching her fly away, Ed's chin returned to the table top, bitter and despondent.

"Stop doing that!" Winry snapped suddenly, emerging from her silence, "You're such an ass. Get over it!"

"He's a troll, Winry,"each syllable of the descriptive term precisely emphasized through Ed's sour face, "I'll put a week's pay down that Albrecht's hand'll go on an adventure the moment he sees an opening, and then I'm going to hear about it for the rest of my life!"

Winry's response was abrupt, "I'll punch him in the face if he does."

Ed paused for a moment to consider that, figuring it might actually be a true statement, before taking a more challenging tone with her, "You know, I didn't realize machine freaks mingled with the upper class."

"Oh shut up, you're a science nerd… an alchemy geek! At least I can functionally interact with society," Winry began to fray around the edges for the third time that day.

The wrinkle across Ed's nose worsened, "He kissed your hand. Normal, 'functioning' people don't say yes to a date just because their hand gets kissed."

With a deep and embarrassed sigh, having more or less accidentally agreed to go to the party with him when he'd done that, Winry ran her gaze up and traced it along the ridge of her eyebrows, "He and his family were really nice to me when they had to take care of me for that night where you had that… arm… thing…" her voice inadvertently trailed off, trying not to remember how Ed's mechanical arm had been unceremoniously taken off of him. She mentally shuddered at the thought. "I owe him tonight as a thank you, I guess. You keep telling me to be more lady-like, so this is me being proper and effeminate."

"Yeah, until he grabs your ass and sees you're crazy, because you put a hole in his skull with that wrench you stashed in your purse."

"YOU threatened to skin him alive when he asked me!"

"No, I said I'd feed his rotting corpse to the birds in the desert. That's different."

The argument was silenced when Hohenheim emerged from his adjacent study, sharply dressed in a black tuxedo, freshly polished shoes, and white bow-tie.

"WHAT?" Edward blurted, gawking at his father, "where the hell are you going?"

The father grinned before responding to his son, "I'm Winry's chaperone to the party tonight."

Choking out a laugh he hadn't expected to make, Ed's hand slapped down over his thigh, "HAH! That's priceless!" a sly grin crawled across his face as he looked to Winry and teased, "You and Albrecht are being chaperoned by my dad!"

"Yes," Winry glared back at him, unimpressed by the giddy response, "It's not like I have a dad to fuss over me. It's kind of… novel."

Ed rolled his eyes deviously. He put his elbow on the table and dropped his chin into the palm of his hand as he teased, "Uh-huh. Did he give you a curfew, too?"

There was a line Winry had drawn and Ed was walking it like a wobbly toddler. Since she kind of liked the lamp, and there wasn't anything else around in the room that she could clock him with, and the wrench was already in her purse, Winry opted for a different approach. Folding her arms, Winry used her tongue, "Ed, when was the last time you went out on a date?"

Ed's portion of the conversation came to an abrupt end. With his chin still in his hand, the grin Ed had worn shrivelled up and his eyes shot to the other side of the room as he remained unresponsive to the question.

Grinning hotly, Winry crossed one leg over the other and carefully enunciated her words as she recaptured Ed's attention, "Uh-huh, and the score is: Winry – 1; Ed – 0."

Hermann's fascinated eyes shifted between the two parties that were now glaring bullets at each other, "… I really should have paid more attention in English class."

"Oh God, this house…" shaking his head and giving a heavy clap of his hands, Hohenheim broke up the raging staring contest as he stepped into the path of the now silent war of words. He gave a serious look to his son, "Edward, you and I need to have a talk tomorrow, so don't make yourself dysfunctional with the wine."

"Whatever," Ed turned his attention to the corner of the room as his father offered a hand to help Winry to her feet.

With Winry focusing her disgusted gaze on one half of the room and Edward holding his miserable look to the other, Hohenheim escorted her from the room, passing Mathilde as she re-emerged with a bottle under her arm and an array of wine glasses woven through her fingers.

"Have fun, you two!" she called to the exiting pair.

Hermann's face twisted a bit as his wife placed her collection of wares down, "Good Lord, woman."

"It's all for a good evening," she grinned, sitting down. She redirected her attention to Edward as she sorted the arrangement, "Well, aren't you a never-ending bundle of joy, Mister Sunshine. What did I miss?"

"Nothing," grunting, Ed shifted around and graced the room with his full attention again as the woman began to distribute the glassware, "start pouring, Tilly."


Izumi wasn't used to hearing her name spoken in that voice, or with that odd accent. She would have considered it a figment of her imagination, if there weren't two hands holding tight over her arm, shaking the bed, trying to wake her.

Oh, if only she could mentally strangle people who woke her from her sleep.

Izumi turned over in bed, opening a tired eye in the direction of the intrusion. Brigitte looked back at her. It was always startling to see this girl and the look on her face. She had a foreign face that always looked lost in thought, confused and estranged, frightened and uncertain. Strangely enough, the girl had an undertone in her that was strong enough that she never seemed entirely devoured by those hauntings. But, this time the look the girl gave her in the middle of this Amestris night was different than all the others – she looked into Izumi's face with poignant determination and a tight strain of concern. Without hesitation, the teacher sat up.

"What's wrong?"

"Alphonse," was her answer. It would have been her answer no matter what the question had been.

There was a sinking feeling Izumi tried to keep afloat: the language barrier. They had practice working through it, but it was like a frustrating brainteaser without an answer key, especially when the information was something they really wanted from her. Izumi took a deep breath to calm her thoughts. Alphonse's name was the message, that much the woman could determine, but whether or not it was the answer to Izumi's question remained unknown.

"What's wrong with Alphonse?" asking the girl futile questions in a language she barely understood was becoming a bad habit, "show me."

In the dead of night, Izumi slipped from her bed. Brigitte backed up as the woman stood, and Izumi watched as she moved towards the door. The teacher followed cautiously, an air of concern floating around the child.

"Show me."

'Show me' was a word established in the charades they played. The party was never entirely sure if Brigitte actually understood the translation of the words, but girl from beyond the Gate had demonstrated that she understood that when the words 'show me' were spoken, that an example, a picture, an item, an explanation of some sort had to be presented. So, with the recognized prompt, the girl lead, taking Izumi's hand in hers, and pulling her down the dimmed hallway.

There were more than enough rooms on the floor for every person to have their own suite, but Alphonse had asked Izumi if he could room with Brigitte that night. He'd been all smiles and grins about the concept, but his motive was never entirely clear. He'd made some offhand statement about a game they were playing. Izumi dismissed the entire thing as inconsequential, since Al seemed rather aloof to his own request.

It was innocent enough. It was childish enough. It was Alphonse.

Standing in the doorway of the room the boy had requested, Izumi looked into a suite that was vacant. She looked around, not certain if she was even supposed to make anything out of the state of things she witnessed. Neither bed was made, so the room looked slept in, but no breathing body occupied the room. If Brigitte was with her, then where was Al? The bathroom? The teacher had considered doing a mental canvas of places within the building, but then why would Brigitte have brought the young Elric to her attention. Something wasn't right.

Brigitte suddenly ran deep into the room. Her hands came crashing down on the metallic window frame and she threw open the curtains, freeing a path for the moonlight to enter.

"Alphonse!" she pointed to the window.

Izumi's eyes looked at the girl a moment before she canvassed the room again. A sick concern hit her as she took in more of the scene. A kidnapping? Alphonse's hoody was gone. His bag was gone. At the point she realized his shoes were gone, her concern shifted. A hurried kidnapper wouldn't make someone put on their shoes and coat, something like that would have given an alchemist like Alphonse too much time to fight back… and then there was Brigitte, who was a witness to the scene.

"That stupid little…" Izumi's teeth clenched, her words addressing Brigitte without the expectation of reply, "did he leave through the window!?"

Brigitte's shoulders sagged with uncertainty, "Ma'am, I sure hope you're mad at him for sneaking outside in the middle of the night, because he startled me something fierce when I caught him," she sighed, somewhat defeated by the language barrier, "I told him 'no, no, no' and he just told me to 'shhh' and pushed me back to the bed," She prattled on, making motions in her story like a character actor, explaining her story in the only way she could. Then at least Izumi would know there was a story, and a reason, even if she couldn't understand what it was, "There was this boy earlier. He was the nakedest boy I've ever seen, I don't think I'd be allowed to look at my own husband that naked if I ever have one. Some of his limbs were machines. His hair was like an uncombed lion's mane. He jumped in and out of the window like a cat, it made Al so upset, and he'd been acting funny ever since."

Izumi boiled on high. What the hell would possess Al to go out on his own in the middle of the night? Did he plan this? Was this why he asked to room with Brigitte? Her thoughts bled into her words, speaking as if to curse, "This isn't just a 'game', Alphonse Elric. What the hell do you think you are doing?" her voice raged up like low thunder tumbling in from a distance, "where the hell do you think you are GOING!?" The raging teacher swung to Brigitte. The girl looked back, seemingly unfazed by the aura that flared around Izumi, "Why?"

That was another keyword. Who, what, when, where, why: they were all keywords. 'Why' was sometimes too difficult, and 'How' was too hard – too many details and too many words, but the five-Ws? Those had been simplified for Brigitte to understand.

But this request was tough, because although Brigitte understood what she was being asked, she didn't actually know why Alphonse had left. She couldn't answer the request.

Izumi sighed, reading the loss in the girl's face. Crouching down, Izumi invited Brigitte back over to the door. Taking the girls hands, Izumi calmed her own head and looked to the girl's clear blue eyes, "Tell me something. Anything. A word or something you remember. Al wouldn't run off without a reason," the teacher was more than certain about that, "he knows you can't tell me the reason, that's why he chose you tonight, because you're the best secret keeper we have. He's being very careful and when I find him I'm going to break his legs so he doesn't run off alone again, so I need your help," the woman's words were calm, calculated, oddly soothing, but deathly serious, "there's something he was afraid to tell me, or tell anyone. Something I think you might know. A where? A what? A who?"

"Wrath," Brigitte answered suddenly – she knew 'a who'; a strange, nearly-naked 'who' that hadn't been present before that had upset Alphonse's world. She wasn't certain if the name was of any use, but he'd caused the change in Al's behaviour. When Izumi's touch turned to ice and her body froze up like the Siberian tundra Brigitte had learnt about in school, the girl became very aware that the name meant something.

"Thank you," Izumi's posture, caught in a war between the flame of her rage and chill of her fears, rose up from the ground and stood firm on two legs. The woman whipped out a string of unintelligible curses, and the rage of frustration in her body threatened to melt even the toughest steel. She marched to the wall with the window Al had escaped through and, with the slap of her palms together, Izumi's hands crashed down on the wall. With a spark of the alchemy current, the teacher carved open a gaping hole into the streets below, "I know where he's going."

Brigitte's jaw fell open, her complexion draining to sheet white at the alchemy act she'd witnessed.

"Stay in the hotel, Brigitte. Don't follow me," that wasn't something Izumi realized she didn't need to concern herself with, the girl from beyond the Gate was too spellbound and frightened by what she'd seen to even think of leaving, "Go to Ms. Ross' room and sleep with her again, understand? Maria Ross."

Drenched in white panic, Brigitte backed away, watching as Izumi left through the hole in the wall. The girl's hands hastily grabbed at the bedroom door handle and pulled the room shut as she fled down the hall.


"This is Winry Rockbell," Albrecht beamed, introducing the blonde girl courtly draped over his right arm.

"Hello," Winry's pathetic German trembled even at the simplest of words. She could barely grasp salutations let alone full sentences; Ed had become her walking translator. The sound of the language scared her in the first place.

"Albrecht, where did you find such a beautiful thing?" the unknown woman gave a smile to Winry.

"She literally appeared one day, pretty like an angel," the boy, barely old enough to be called a man, tried not to grin as loudly as he would have liked, "she's a friend of a friend, I suppose. She does look lovely, doesn't she?"

Winry began to suspect that every conversation was going to go like this, since they all seemed to sound the same. The first ten, the next ten – did this guy, with his broken record introduction, know everybody? So many people packed this room full of woven greenery, candle lights, staged displays, strange ornaments, and bland food. Christmas made no sense. Music played from a few instrument players, the odd child singer would step up to make the audience swoon. The men and women all greeted her, kissed her hand, kissed her cheek, smiled at her, and asked to dance with her. Winry voluntarily gave up her right to say yes or no to dancing with anyone, delegating the responsibility to Albrecht who seemed to savour the role of allowing Winry permission to dance with anyone other than him.

She was a blonde-haired arm ornament – just as tacky as all the seasonal decorations.

Winry nursed one of the many 'somethings' that had been given to her to drink as she stood with her backside against the drink table

"Enjoying yourself?" Hohenheim asked, saddling up next to her in the sudden absence of Albrecht.

"I don't know," she answered honestly, "not like any date I ever imagined," she looked around, wondering what caught Albrecht's attention so abruptly that he actually stepped away from her, "it's like some aristocratic party in Central that you hear about on the last page of the newspaper."

"You know, you don't have to eat or drink everything handed to you," the elder man grinned, watching as she swished her drink around absently, clashing the ice cubes in the glass.

Winry tightened her lips, "I know, but I'm trying to be polite and courteous and proper and lady-like and delicate like a goddamn freakin' flower," she let go a disgusted sigh over herself, twisting her face as Albrecht came back into view, "I feel ridiculous, I think I'm wilting."

Hohenheim laughed at the assessment.

"Winry," Albrecht exclaimed, guiding her hands quickly back to his right arm, "this song is very good. Please dance to it."

His English was so heavily enunciated that Winry's right eye wanted to twitch every time he spoke, "Sure."

Winry passed a fleeting glance back at Hohenheim as she was led into the crowded dance floor. In a gallant motion, Albrecht swung her arm high, spinning Winry around to the music once, then twice, and then a third time for good measure. His fingers released her raised arm and, as Winry came around, her hands landed in the possession of someone else entirely.

"Hi," Winry blinked absently at the unknown figure.

"Good evening," this man's English was passable.

"Winry, please to introduce yourself to Adolf Hitler," Albrecht's voice was bouncy, like a child worshipping an older sibling, "he is a very good friend."

"A pleasure," he swept up Winry's right hand and kissed it, "may we dance, Miss Rockbell?" asked the man with stiff, dark hair and strong, unrelenting eyes.

"Okay," she gave in, figuring that Albrecht had actually arranged this particular dance, unlike the others where the requestor had to coax Winry away. With her right hand softly placed in this man's left palm, and her other hand resting on his shoulder, Winry moved to step in time with the body carrying an intriguing aura. Eyes seemed to change with each passing step and the gravity of the room shifted. How fascinating, Winry observed; the world was rotating around her.

No, that was wrong. She had to correct herself – it was rotating around him.

"You do not have proper hands for a woman, Miss Rockbell," were the words that came from the man she danced with, "they're too strong, not delicate enough, lack fingernails and polish. You have the hands of a working man."

Winry wasn't certain if that was meant to be a compliment or an insult, "I like to work with my hands. I'm the best mechanic you'll ever meet."

"A woman?" he laughed and shook his head, "You are too kind on the eyes for hands like this," the language from this man flowed better, but carried a far heavier accent than Albrecht's – Winry somewhat preferred that. It felt far less difficult to communicate with. "And you're nineteen? Twenty years old?"

She gave an un-lady-like snort to the suggestion, "No, I'm seventeen."

"Fascinating.  Albrecht usually courts women a little older than him," his thoughts drifted through topics, "and you're the one who's been taking care of Edward Elric?"

"No, he takes care of me, actually. I'm just his, uh, prosthetics repairman… woman."

"Since he found you in the Hall, isn't that so?" the man's words continued to run without ever having felt like there'd been a beginning to the conversation – they'd hopped right into the middle of some kind of correspondence. Winry nodded to answer the question as the man took her through a few sharp steps to the music, "And what does Edward think of the array on the floor there?" he mused, spinning Miss Rockbell at the centre of the universe, "he is an alchemist in study, like his father, I understand."

Her hand came back to his shoulder, his hand to her side, and Winry lost the sound of the music in the room. It was still playing, right?

"He's impressed by it," she answered as a tantalizing string fell free in her thoughts, "do you know where it came from?"

"I made it," was the casual answer. Again, Winry spun; her lips curiously spoke 'did you?' as her dress flared out at her knees. The man she danced with qualified his statement as he took her back into a proper hold, "with help of course, I had to do my research after all. It was a combined effort between myself and colleagues; a rather hush-hush project. I've let others take credit for it. Would you like to know how I came up with such a thing?"

"I would, yes," Winry smiled, intrigued by the sudden offer, "If it's in a book or a diagram somewhere, I'd love to get a copy – to give to Ed for a birthday gift. It would make his year."

"Is his birthday soon?" he asked curiously.

Winry's smile continued to hold, stagnant and unchanging, holding as firm as the stoic smile that covered this man's face like a black veil, "Yes, in a few weeks."

The earth shook as the man with skin a tough as leather, hair as dark as night, and eyes as strong as steel opened his mouth to speak again. But words did not escape his lips. The world shuddered so hard that the earth may have cracked. No one other than Winry and he could feel the earth tremble like it did beneath two heavy feet at the moment Hohenheim's hand came down onto Winry's shoulder.

"May I cut in?" Hohenheim's words were chosen to be German.

"Of course," Adolf stepped back, his melancholy smile never waning as he began to move away.

Hohenheim offered a proper hand to Winry, "May I finish this dance, young lady?"

"Uh…" it was the dullest, most confused sound she'd made in weeks, "okay."

Taken up by Edward's father, Winry watched the force pulling at the centre of the universe walk away from them without any further acknowledgement, salutation, or show of interest.

"Winry…" Hohenheim's words trailed off, refusing to cast a glance over his shoulder in Adolf's wake, "would you do me one kind favour for the remainder of the evening? Try your best to be delicate like a flower and become a corsage on Albrecht's arm, please?"

Winry winced at the strange request, drawing up an odd mental picture in her head, but felt oddly intimidated into obliging him.


She hadn't meant to wake Maria up, but Brigitte kind of hoped it would happen. She wanted the company. The barely teenaged girl didn't know why it was more reassuring to see the worried expression on Ms. Ross' face than her sleeping one. Regardless of the why's, her conscious presence was welcomed.

With her knees drawn up, Brigitte sat on the unoccupied side of the double bed, with the pillow wrapped in her arms.

Maria, for the last half-hour, could not figure out what had the girl so bent out of shape. The worst part for the officer was that Brigitte just kept talking. The girl wouldn't eat the food she'd dug out, or drink the boxed beverages and bottled water offered, but she was more than content to keep running on in foreign tongue. Ross had considered waking someone to help her, but if it was just a nightmare that was worrying the girl, it seemed a little excessive to have a crowd up in the middle of the night. Brigitte didn't appear to be hiding from anything, she hadn't appeared to try and warn Maria of anything, or try and show her anything, her words didn't sound like she was disturbed in any way; Brigitte just seemed to be sulking on the bed.

For her part, the girl from beyond the Gate knew that Maria didn't understand her words, and Brigitte didn't particularly care that there was this huge barrier in their way. She was going to be heard whether it was understood or not.

"Can I just go home?" Brigitte asked the rhetorical question again.

Maria frowned at the hurt in the girl's voice, "Honey, I've tried, I really have, but I don't understand what you want from me. I'm sorry."

"Is there some reason you're keeping me away from my parents?" the German words continued.

Maria looked around, tired from the few hours of sleep and lack of progress on this problem, "Maybe, if you drew a picture for me…" she looked around for the pad of paper and colouring pencils.

Brigitte shook her head, "I don't understand why I'm here. I don't think I'm a prisoner, because you buy me things and feed me really good food. I thought I was going to be a slave, but I don't do anything; I just follow everybody around. Everyone tries to find out about what home is like, and about Edward Elric," her head continued to shake, bobbing around atop the pillow, "and then there's people here who do magic and sorcery with their hands when they clap them; that little girl did it once and Izumi did it just now. Are you all sorcerers? Are the British training sorcerers now for the next time you try to conquer someone?"

The lieutenant began emptying a backpack onto a small work table, "Where are they?"

"I thought making science through written circles was weird enough to think about, but to see hand magic! I want to go home," she absently pulled her knees tighter into her chest as he words ran.

Her sigh cut through the middle of the night, and Maria gave up trying to find where the coloured pencils and paper had gone. She looked across the room to the bed again, eyeing the girl balling herself up tighter, "… Brigitte…?"

"I'd run away if I knew where to go," she sniffed to clear her head, "I really would. But that's scarier than staying here."

"Honey, don't start crying," Maria pleaded helplessly, walking back to the bed, "I don't understand what's wrong, and I wouldn't know where to begin to make it better."

"Why can't you just send me home?" unintentional anger began to rise into the lost German girl. She didn't want to be angry; she wanted to be rational, alert, negotiable, and mature – so far in her life that strategy had gotten her out of a few predicaments. But, she also wanted to cry. It was the conflict that made her angry and frustrated. Brigitte wished she could turn her mind off, "It's so hot here when the sun is up, I keep thinking I'm going to melt. And everything's so bright and blinding and colourful... it hurts my eyes to look at things outdoors! I'd imagine this is what the equator might look like with its burning sunshine all the time."

Finding herself somewhat desperate, Maria walked around the bed to the side Brigitte occupied. She had intended to slide herself onto the mattress, but stopped when her foot kicked something. The officer looked down, "There're the pencils!"

Brigitte watched as the colourful array of pencil crayons were tossed up from the floor, along with a pad of paper. When Maria stood up again with mildly triumphant smile, Brigitte could only frown back at her, "If you can just send me home, I'll never go anyplace without permission again, I promise. I'll close my eyes and sleep the whole time you take me. I won't tell anyone about this place and you can keep your sorcery secrets. No one would believe me anyways."

Sitting down next to Brigitte on the bed, Maria handed her the case of coloured pencils and placed the pad of lined paper in her lap, "Alright hon, I need you to draw something to show me what's wrong."

With wrinkles creasing her face, the girl pushed her collection of writing tools away, "I don't want to play charades anymore. Take me home."

"Oh, that's not good," Maria's expression fell, watching as Brigitte folded her arms stubbornly. Collecting the pencils and paper, Maria opened the pencil case and pulled out a regular lead pencil. "Maybe, I'll draw something for you and you can add to it."

Peeking from the corners of her eyes, Brigitte watched as the officer drew the shapes of a man and a woman holding hands; the girl likened them to the images on bathroom signs. Rather than have the paper and pencil forced into her lap, Maria offered them to Brigitte instead. Stiffening her arms defiantly, she looked at the offering with annoyance before snatching them away from Maria, "Fine."

Two smaller girls, like bathroom signs with curly hair, were added to the picture, and names were printed above. A simple house frame was drawn around them all.

Maria had seen this picture before, "This is your family, isn't it?" Her fingers traced over the people, "you, your sister, mom and dad."

Brigitte nodded.

Pausing with a thought, the officer took the pencil and paper back from the girl and placed them down on the bed sheets as her voice softened, "I'm sure you miss them. I doubt you have any idea what's happened, and I could tell you about it, but you wouldn't understand me if I tried," she gave a laugh at her own statement, "I don't think I even understand it."

Sinking back into the pillows and headboard of the hotel bed, Brigitte watched quietly as Maria continued to talk.

"But, I don't think they're why you came in here. You were suddenly upset by something," the officer could clearly recall the initial look of shock on the girl's face. She reached a hand out and swept the girl's short hair behind her ear, "you're thinking of your family now, and that's what people do when something's wrong – they want their family. But how come you were upset? How do I ask you to tell me what frightened you before you came to see me?"

Continuing to be unresponsive, Brigitte held her focus in the bedding she sat on.

"Come on hon, work with me," Maria coaxed, her words still soft, "a word or something you can pass along. I know you know 'Whats' and 'Wheres' and 'Whos'…"

Brigitte's attention perked at the words given to her again; those prompts. She did know an answer to at least one of the prompts, but the word had made a strong woman's blood run cold and a boy's behaviour change. She didn't understand why. But, she did know that the mention of 'who' had caused sorcery. Was this woman a sorceress too? She'd been with Maria little longer than she'd known Izumi, and Ms. Ross didn't seem anything like the person Ms. Curtis was. Still, she hesitated.

"Come on…" Maria read Brigitte's recognition of something in her words, and repeated herself, "work with the prompts we used at the cabin."

Brigitte continued to mull the word that upset a world she didn't understand. So far, everyone's reaction to the nearly-naked boy, his presence, and his name, had been different. What would Maria's be? She seemed to be the softest of all the adults…

"Wrath."

Brigitte voluntarily gave up the frightening word again, her eyes suddenly fixated on Maria to see her reaction to the name of the half-mechanical boy with wiry black hair.

Unlike the chilling fire in Izumi, Maria's eyes began to flicker with a deep, serious concern that flashed around the room. Her mouth wrenched open as her upper body began to stiffen. Again, it was in no way a positive response. Who the heck was that boy? He'd seemed pretty nice, all things considered.

"Oh shit…" Maria pulled to her feet.

"Don't you dare make things happen with magic, I'll run away if you do!" Brigitte's words were threatening, but she wasn't sure how much substance the statement truly held.

Reaching back to the bed, Maria claimed the hands of the girl from beyond the Gate, "Stay on the bed. I have to go get some people. Okay? Stay."

Like an obedient puppy, Brigitte sat and watched as the woman walked away and reached into her bag. From within, a hand gun was produced that lifted the girl's attention. Brigitte wasn't entirely certain if a gun was a safer reaction than magically making walls vanish, but at least it wasn't something unreal. Fascinated by the reaction, she watched as the officer slipped out of the room without creating a single sound. A wink was given back to Brigitte with a silencing finger to the officer's lips as the door shut behind her.


There was a chair in the corner of the house. It was a fat chair that rocked, and had a footrest that popped out when the wooden handle on the side was pulled. This chair was tucked away in a nook of the house by the back door. No one ever sat in it. It had a frailly thin, fairly tall table situated over the right shoulder. A very dusty and rarely used candle lamp sat on the meagre table, unusually lit with a tiny, flickering flame.

Tonight, Ed sat in the chair, the heels of his feet dug into the inner-edge of the footrest that he'd extended from the front of the plush rocker. The Elric sat snug in a woollen sweater and washed out black pants that he'd worn lazily in the house all day long. His long hair showing no sign of a crimp; he hadn't tied it back all day. He was not seated properly in any way, the underarm of his left side pushed into the arm of the chair, while the entire weight of his head rested in the palm of that left hand.

Winry walked into the room and she stood at the furthest point from his view. She didn't see him there. Without a word, his eyes followed her as she walked. She was looking for something, and not finding it.

"Winry," Ed called.

"Oh! There you are," her face scrunched up, "what are you doing over there?"

"We're talking," this was Hohenheim's voice, his figure masked by the low lighting.

Ed watched her startle at the unexpected sound of his father's voice; the man sat on a stool he'd brought over to this ignored corner of the house.

"What's up?" Winry asked, curiously looking at the two men who seemed colder than ice.

"We were talking about Adolf," Hohenheim spoke slowly, waiting for Winry to recognize the name.

After a moment to think, a light went on in her eyes, "That guy I danced with last night?"

The fingertips of Ed's left hand dug into his face, his voice deep and harsh, "Are you kidding me?"

"Edward…" his father's voice was warning.

"You didn't say she DANCED with him!" the son's rage snapped back.

"I hadn't gotten there yet…"

Winry looked between the two men, kneeling down to the floor and resting her shoulder up against the footrest of Ed's chair, "I'm missing something, aren't I?"

Ed smacked his lips in disgust, drawing in a tight breath through his teeth, "Envy."

"Envy is in that man's head," Hohenheim qualified for his son.

From the corner of his eye, Ed watched as Winry mulled around the answer. Adolf Hitler meant as little to her as any passing man on the street. His significance, his ties, his connections, his place in society did not connect for her. But Envy? Ed knew that name meant something to her.

"… Is that why you came with me?" she asked the elder Elric hesitantly.

"Yes."

"And he knows who you are, Hohenheim," the son's words were rancid and bitter, "he knows who you are, who I am, and who Winry is. You put Winry in danger."

The angry son did not have the ability to easily get a rise out of his father, and Hohenheim's words remained unwavering, "She was not in any danger. He was simply toying with us, to see what we'd do. If I withdrew Winry after she'd agreed to attend, what explanation would I have given to the Haushofers on such short notice?"

Ed's eyes narrowed, "That she was sick."

Hohenheim shook his head, "He was looking to get a rise out of me by doing that, and nothing else. I won't give him any more fuel than is absolutely necessary. Now, he's getting a rise out of you. That's exactly what he wants."

Edward burned in his chair, hot under his collar and wanting so badly to lash out and do something. He wasn't entirely sure what just yet, but strangling his father seemed like a good starting point, "I don't give a rat's ass about what he wants or what the hell you were thinking. Don't you dare let him near her again."

Winry peeked an eye over her shoulder to Ed's unknown German.

Hohenheim's eyes lowered in thought, taking a glance to his fuming child balled up in a chair that served no purpose in the house other than cradling his anger, "I'll be leaving the Thule Society in the new year."

A wave washed through the room and Edward's brow rose.

"Everyone there is too close to him, and we need to keep a distance," Hohenheim's gaze slipped between the figure on the floor and the one in the chair, "After Christmas, when we have our next meeting, I want you two to come by the hall afterwards," with his hands to his knees, the old father slowly stood up, "we'll take measurements, diagram the layout, take down everything that there is to know about that structure and find out if there's not something we can take from it to get you two home."

It wasn't until then that Winry realized something, something that had never occurred to her before, and it came out in her voice before she'd had time to think it through, "You're not coming home with us?"

The old man laughed lightly, shaking his head, "No, Winry, I'm not. I accepted a long time ago that this would be where I finish off my days."

Ed snorted, watching his old man leave the room as the weak candlelight flickered through his golden eyes.

"That's not right…" Winry's voice filled the void Hohenheim had left behind, "I'd always thought he was coming with us. Al would like that." She peeked over her shoulder as Ed cleared his throat. He gave a heavy sigh as his hand gripped over his face. The time that elapsed between her final words and when Winry chose to speak again had felt like a walk along a path littered with shattered glass.

"I'm fine, Ed. Nothing happened to me."

His fingers scratched over his skin as his hand fought around the frame of his face, "Not the point," Ed pushed his bangs back into the rest of his hair, "Dad knew… he knew, Winry, and he still let you go to that party," a horrid taste procured in the flowing information, "Envy found his way into one of the most influential rising powers, even I can see that. And this man is just… he's a boar. We have to back away from him," his hand returned to his face again, only over his mouth, allowing frustration to rage in his eyes, "Fuck, I hate this…"

Winry shifted, sliding her knees under herself, and folding her arms across the footrest. She put her chin down into the wrap of her arms, "We're still going to be able to get home, right? I mean, just because your dad's not a member, that doesn't mean that we'll never be able to use the hall again if we need it?"

"If we find anything useful once we go over the hall's layout information, we can always sneak in," a bitter snap echoed in Ed's voice as he laughed at a thought, "I sure hope that hall has some useful information, cause recreating any of it would be an absolute bitch. I don't want to stay here that long."

"Me neither…"

A formidable aura rose up in the room that wrapped around Ed's frustrations and Winry's concern – it polluted the air. It was a little thick and a bit too dirty.

With a warm puff of air from her lips, Winry tried to blow it away, "The party sucked, by the way."

A far less abrasive Edward appeared for this conversation, "I told you: machine freaks and upper class are not a good mix."

"I need a mechanic or repairman to go out on a date with me," Winry pouted, plunking her chin back down on the footrest, "much better boyfriend material."

Ed's face twisted at the choice, "Oh god, that'd be awful."

"No, it wouldn't," she perked with protested, "We'd obviously have very similar tastes."

"Yeah right," Ed rolled his eyes, his voice picking up, "you'd destroy him. His work would never be up to your standards, you'd nag him to death over every nit picky thing, because I guarantee you you're not going to find a guy as anal about workmanship detail as you… and if you DID, your ego would be so hurt that you wouldn't be going out with him in the first place."

Edward very quickly found the bottom side of Winry's house slipper slapped in his face.


"WHERE THE HELL DID THEY GO?" Mustang fired his voice like a cannon shot, and he flung his words around to every officer in earshot as he kept his one eye fixated on the gaping hole in the wall of the room where early morning sunlight showered in through, "Why would they leave in the middle of the night!?"

Stepping past her superior into the room, Riza gave an inquisitive glance to the coloured sketches Lt. Ross had gotten Brigitte to draw up earlier, "… Intriguing…"

"What is?" the most senior officer snarled.

Riza glanced over the drawing before looking beyond her fiery superior officer to Brigitte, who hid behind Lt. Ross and Lt. Havoc. "Brigitte?" she asked for the girl's attention, waiting until she was certain she had it before proceeding, "Is this Wrath?"

"What the hell is Wrath doing here?" Mustang barked.

"Please be quiet, Sir, you're frightening the child," Hawkeye chomped down on her commanding officer before readdressing the girl with the drawing in hand, "Wrath?"

Slowly, as Brigitte had done with Maria, she gave a nod to the name.

"Why would Wrath show up!?" Mustang again snapped his question to all the listening ears, "and why the hell would they both take off and not tell anyone?"

The two lieutenants standing at the doorway exchanged glances before Maria offered a suggestion, "Maybe they didn't have time?"

Again, Mustang ripped out a string of curses, spinning towards the gaping hole and slamming his hands down on the sides of makeshift exit, "Why are these goddamn Elrics so impossible to keep track of."

The three additional officers in the room exchanged a collection of uncomfortable and concerned glances before Hawkeye addressed Mustang again, "Sir, we did make an arrangement that made our intentions separate from Izumi and Alphonse's. If they've chosen to go off for some reason, I'm assuming they are free to do so."

"Yes, they are," the officer's shoulders stiffened as his hands gripped tighter on the displaced concrete wall.

"So, what's the problem?" Havoc asked.

Mustang pushed away from the wall abruptly, a definite drop in his tone becoming prevalent, "Delegating the responsibility of finding FullMetal to those two was difficult enough, but it was the right thing to do. I'm not delusional enough to think that I stood a chance against knowledge I barely understood. But, the Elric Brothers are still something I take as a responsibility, so having the only Elric here vanish with mention of a homunculus, with a woman who doesn't want him to be my responsibility – that rubs me the wrong way," his only eye twitched a moment, watching as Brigitte's attention become distracted and she wandered off down the hall, "because I don't know what the motive is or where they're going."

Riza gave a curious suggestion, "I'd think that if they were intentionally running off without informing any of us, there wouldn't be this huge, gaping hole in the wall."

Mustang slipped another glance to the disfigured wall before turning back to look at the two lieutenants, "If any word comes around in regards to their whereabouts, inform me immediately."

"Of course, Sir," was the collective response.

Looking over his shoulder, Havoc did a double take realizing that Brigitte was no longer there, "Hey, where'd the kid go?"

"Down the hall," Mustang waved his hand dismissively.

Sticking his head out the door, Havoc peered into the hall. Upon spying Brigitte, the body language of the officer's voice was not one of discovery or realization, it was surprise and confusion, "Huh?"

Everyone's attention drew to Havoc as he stepped out of the room, taking a surprised step backwards when a very proper young woman shook his hand, "Good morning, Lieutenant. I thought we were the only early risers on this side of town."

All eyes trained in on the unfamiliar face with an unknown voice. The group stiffened with caution – this floor was secure, no one but people authorized by Mustang made their way up the stairs this far.

"Who are you?" Mustang demand abruptly.

"We haven't been introduced. My name is Roze Thomas," the young woman with smooth, darkened skin introduced herself, looking into the room, "Russell and Fletcher Tringham brought me to see you at my request."

Mustang and Hawkeye's expressions eased as Russell poked his head into the room, "Mornin' folks! We hear the ankle biter has been causing you problems, so we looked you up. Roze won't do as she's told and go west until she's had her two cens worth."

Calmly, Roze stepped into the room, eyeballing the gaping hole Izumi had left before turning her words to the lead officer in the room, "You're Brigadier General Roy Mustang, right? I need to talk to you about Dante…"

The woman's careful and collected words ensnared Mustang's attention, "Roze Thomas, you said?" he watched her confirm the statement with a nod, "I've heard your name before. You're from Lior."

"Yes," Roze responded, still grossly displeased by her oncoming statement, "Ed is responsible for exposing Cornello to us, and saving me from Dante."

"Saving you from Dante?" Havoc's words were sudden and unbound like everyone else's thoughts.

Roze nodded.

At the very pit of his stomach, Mustang really, really wished Izumi would just happen to come back, "Very interesting." His single eye narrowed at the woman standing strong on two legs before him, "I won't humour you by pretending to understand I know what kind of monster Dante is, or what kind of knowledge she possesses."

"You don't have to know. No one does. I certainly don't," the woman from Lior laughed at that idea before stiffening her words, "but Dante seems to think that if she frightens us where we're most vulnerable, we become too concerned about ourselves, our lives, and all those important things around us to stand up, step forward, and make things change," the woman's hands swept over her dress, looking back at the two Tringham brothers in the doorway, "after I met with Gracia, I went to see if I could find out with my own eyes what was going on. Thanks to Dante, I can navigate the Empty City like the back of my hand, and I think I've seen enough."

"… What on earth is 'The Empty City'?" Mustang asked, all tone lost in his words.

The woman shook her head to Mustang's question, "Not something we should talk about now." Roze sighed, again looking around at the people whose attention she'd garnered, "but, what we should talk about is Dante, because she is walking around in the body of Nina Tucker, and from what the boys have told me, you don't know that yet."

The moment the young woman's words escaped her tongue, the morning fog lifted from the air, and everyone took their next breath. Eyes of the military exchanged glances before returning to focus intently on the woman from the decimated city of Lior.

 


To Be Continued…


Notes:

Yay, my 30th chapter!

Izumi could have gone through the window, but why go through the window when you can rage-make your own exit?

Winry's party dress is different than the one that was historically on FFN. I believe I've changed most of her outfits through the fic from what sat dormant on there for a decade. The clothing references I used back then were mistakenly from the late 20's (which is quite different). I have 1921 catalogue bits now and Winry's at my whimsy :>

Chapter 31: Pieces of Family

Summary:

Hohenheim prepares his household for Christmas while Al follows Wrath to meet with Dante.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

There was an abundance of awkward silence in the room that Hohenheim walked around in, and he feigned ignorance to the silence deliberately. The old man moved from the corner of the room to the coffee and sofa tables that were covered with numerous paper and glass things, some of which sparkled or glittered. His smile grew a little more every time he stole a glance of Winry standing at the back of the couch. He would keep this moment cherished with wild amusement, growing better still when she finally spoke.

"Um," Winry glanced around hesitantly, "there's a pine tree in the living room."

"It's a fir tree, actually. And yes, there is," was his matter-of-fact answer, as though nothing were out of place or wrong about a Christmas tree.

"Same difference," Winry moved her balance from left foot to right foot, then back again, as her fingers kneaded the back of the couch, "Why is there a pine tree in the living room? It's going to turn brown and die," she eyeballed the clean cut at its base.

"It'll only be here for a week, and then I'll chop it up for firewood," Hohenheim thought that this conversation was funny, and he tried not to laugh. It was just as funny as when Edward had seen this tradition – the boy hadn't said much, but the clearly perplexed look on his son's face had been absolutely priceless.

Sweeping her hair over one shoulder, Winry rubbed her hands together uneasily before running her fingers through the ends of her hair, "And you're making it pretty… now that it's met this untimely demise?"

Hohenheim would laugh at that. Straightening up, he grinned over to her, "It's for Christmas. Most households will have one. There were trees decorated at the party, remember?"

"Yeah, but I thought they were decorated for the party…" she replied in defence, recalling the party from a few days prior. Her eyes darted around the room, trying to see if there were other things she might be missing, "this holiday isn't making any sense. Why put a holiday this close to new years anyways?"

"It's a religious thing, Winry, let's leave it at that," collecting a worn box full of painted glass bulbs, Hohenheim wrapped a few wire hooks around his pinky finger, took a spool of thread into his hand, and moved back to the tree.

When the front door opened, all attention was refocused to the end of the hall behind Winry. Dropping an oversized paper bag to the floor with a thud, Ed entered without a word or greeting, and shut the door behind himself.

Hohenheim's brow rose a little with curiosity, "What's in the bag, Edward?"

Without taking off his coat, but stepping out of his boots, Ed snagged up the bag again and marched into the living room. He put his empty shoulder against a wall and replied flatly, "Laundry."

Interesting, Hohenheim thought before speaking further, "That's quite a bit of laundry. Are you doing laundry in brown paper bags now? Doesn't that get the bag soggy?"

"Shut up," he hissed at his father. Ed lifted the bag by its handles and shook it, "This is the laundry I took to the tailors."

The fingers on Winry's left hand danced at her chin, "Does that mean your pants fit now? Or should you dare pulling them down lower, so your ankles aren't an embarrassment?"

"You can shut that noise hole too," Ed pointed a daring finger at the giggling girl, "at least it was cheaper than buying new pants. I really hadn't planned on spending that much money before the new year."

Hohenheim tipped his head in thought, pulling a hum and a haw into his voice, "Did you have any money left for Christmas gifts?"

"I don't buy people Christmas gifts," Ed dropped his statement like a weighty brick.

Winry's gaze darted between the two men, "You buy gifts for people on this holiday?"

"Yes, you do."

"No, you don't."

Hohenheim turned to Winry, "I buy Christmas gifts for people and Edward chooses not to participate."

"Aw shit," Ed's upper body sagged as he stepped away from the wall, "you bought gifts, didn't you? I told you not to."

Winry's expression sagged as well, "I don't have any money to buy gifts…"

Grinning, Hohenheim passed a comforting gaze Winry's way, "It's a 'it's the thought that counts' kind of gift exchange. I expect nothing from either of you. But, I did think it would be nice to do something more traditional, since Winry's never seen the holiday before."

Ed's expression soured as he started grumbling, "If you start singing Christmas Carols, I'll kill you."

"You can sing?" her expression widened with a childish delight at the man fussing over the tree, "can I hear?"

"NO," Ed announced to any creature that might be living in the cracks of the house.

Laughing, Hohenheim kept his attention squarely on the decorating task at hand as an amusing thought struck him, "Edward, take Winry out to see some carolers. They should be out this evening."

"Why me?" he stiffened at the order given, "I don't do this bullshit holiday crap."

"Well, I'm decorating the tree, you're still wearing your coat, and I think Winry would enjoy herself."

Winry shuffled her way into Ed's line of sight, flashing a pair of wide, shimmering eyes at him, "I'd like to see what carolers are, Ed."

"They sing holiday songs in a language you don't understand," Edward began to whine when Winry wouldn't leave him be, like he was suddenly suffering through excruciating agony, "Why do I have to do this! I don't want to see any carolers."

"Pleeeease?" Winry took on a similar whine to her tone. She tugged on his empty right coat sleeve.

"No, just… no. Son of a bitch… DAD!" the young man's voice cried out in protest as the tugging and waving of his armless coat sleeve continued, a bit more eagerly than before, accompanied by a pleading whine that dragged on and on… and on…

"FINE! Shut up, we'll go!" Ed relented.

"Go put something warm on Winry, you're going to be outside," Hohenheim instructed with the wave of his hand, much to the chagrin of his son.

Letting go of Edward's sleeve, she giggled and quickly vanished from the room, her footsteps thudding up the stairwell of the house.

"Why the hell did you volunteer me for this?" Ed's whine subsided to more of an angry bark, "you know I don't like this garbage."

"I know I know," Hohenheim acknowledged, setting a few ornaments back down on the table, "but, let Winry come to her own conclusions. You can't force your opinions on her all the time and it is one of the more pleasant times of year. There's something that can be said for that."

"UGH," Ed groaned. Throwing his head back, he dragged himself back down the hallway.


A light drizzle began to run from the grey sky overhead, and Alphonse lifted the hood of his jacket over his head. Pulling the strings, he adjusted the knapsack he wore and continued to walk in time with Wrath who appeared unaware of the rain's presence. Al figured Winry would end up being the death of this homunculus if she ever saw the state of the AutoMail, and how Wrath was completely indifferent to how the elements affected it. At least her workmanship was excellent and the AutoMail still functioned well enough.

Al concluded that Wrath had actually been waiting for him outside of town, like some sort of guide dog following it's master's instructions, because there would have been no way he would have caught up otherwise. Wrath seemed genuinely happy to have the company, though he'd occasionally pipe up about how he was looking forward to his treat of red stones. Al passively wondered if there was any way to prevent that. But, his focus at the moment wasn't that; it was Winry and his brother – two things Dante had a ton of information on. Again and again, the young Elric tried to convince himself of Mustang's words: killing Winry wouldn't fit with Dante's style. Why would she tease everyone so much just to anger him with her death? If she wanted to meet with Alphonse Elric, and wanted to talk about something, fine, he'd do it. He was tired of ulterior motives, political agendas, fear mongering, and general caution. They weren't getting him anywhere; in fact, they seemed to be setting him back. He'd accepted during this walk that his actions had been selfish, rash, and poorly thought out, but maybe that would help change things up. If he behaved a little more like his brash older brother, then maybe things would fall in to place. Ed seemed to have an infinite amount of luck with that sometimes.

But, in the meantime, Alphonse had Wrath to talk to, and the homunculus seemed to have no problem answering any question given to him. He easily answered questions about Dante, questions about Tucker, and questions about Nina. As the walk continued, Al thought up a new line of questioning.

"Wrath?" his thoughts drifted in and out of the wooded area they wandered through, "Who's Aisa?"

The young creature stopped dead in its tracks. It wasn't at all the reaction Al had thought he would get, and he could have sworn Wrath shivered, "Aisa's gross…"

"Gross?" the young Elric filed the description in the mental folder of 'not what I was expecting'. "Gross like…?" he took a few steps ahead, trying to keep Wrath moving.

"Gross like bad leftovers in a stew pot," was Wrath's conclusion as he began walking again, hopping over a fallen tree trunk along the way.

"Yum…" Al shook his head to dispose of the strange imagery. He slid his hands into his pockets, "is she a homunculus like you?"

"No, I'm real," Wrath answered, quite affirmatively, "but that, she's… um… leftovers."

At least the answer wasn't 'yes', Al concluded, because that would have meant someone else had tried human transmutation, and he didn't want to get into that realm again. But, then what did that make Aisa? Leftovers? Human, hopefully, "So, why does Dante like her so much if she's so… stew…ish… stew-y?"

"'Cause she's useful," Wrath sounded almost hurt, as though her mention demeaned his own existence, "She looks after what's left of the Philosopher's Stone."

"Interesting," Alphonse mumbled his thought aloud. He'd always assumed that Dante either had the stone on her, or stashed it somewhere. "How much is left?"

"I dunno, I can't see how much is there."

Al looked down at his feet as he trudged through a mix of grass and mud, fallen leaves, and broken tree branches along the unmarked path the pair took. The longer they walked in the drizzle, the louder the boys' feet squished into the earth.

"How come you can't see how much stone is left? Dante won't show it to you?" Al couldn't get his mind off the idea.

"It's still in Gluttony's stomach," the half-mechanical creature shrugged.

Stopping, Al reached out and sharply grabbed Wrath at his good arm, "Gluttony? He's still alive?" What a terrifying prospect. Roze had told Alphonse about all the homunculi as best she could, and Gluttony seemed to be the least desirable one he wanted to meet. He was gross.

"Oh no, Gluttony's not alive anymore," again, Wrath dumbfounded the Elric beneath the weeping grey sky with a casual response in a profound exchange of words, "but the stone is still in his stomach."

"I'm so confused," Al's helpless thoughts fell onto his lips once more. He wasn't sure which one was less desirable, Gluttony alive with the Philosopher's Stone in his stomach, or Dante keeping Gluttony's corpse around because the Philosopher's Stone was in it. Al wondered if that stunk. He shuddered and hoped she'd mummified him or something. Rolling the thoughts off his shoulders, the hooded Elric found another question to pose, "How did Dante get the Philosopher's Stone? I thought I had it all."

"Gluttony ate some," Wrath toddled along side Alphonse again, much happier to converse when the topic wasn't Aisa, "so there was some in his stomach when Dante took him apart, and that's how she got it out."

Al's brow rose, "… took him apart?" Lovely, that meant he wasn't a corpse and he was in pieces. That was a bit more disgusting than the thought of keeping around a homunculus corpse. "You know what… I think I've had enough details on that," the young Elric concluded, "and now Aisa looks after it… the, uh, dismembered stomach parts with the Philosopher's Stone?" That certainly qualified as gross.

"Yup."

There was that tone in Wrath's voice again at the mention of Aisa. Perhaps it was the fact Aisa was in charge of Gluttony's remains that set the creature at odds with her.

"Aisa makes the red stones, so I have to be nice to her or she won't give me any," Wrath continued to walk, scraping his bare feet into the muddy mix of woodland soil, "don't tell anyone I called her gross, okay?"

An unforeseen shot of adrenaline widened the young Elric's eyes, "How does she make red stones?"

"I don't know," the golem shrugged, "she just does, and Dante gets them from her."

"Okay…" again the razor's edge of Dante began to threaten Alphonse, and he found his pace slowing suddenly, "Dante just gets creepier the more you talk about her. No wonder my dad left her."

Wrath suddenly shivered, shaking his body of a disturbing memory, "When Dante killed your dad, that baby screamed so loud, I thought my head would explode."

The verbal bomb affixed Alphonse's feet to the muddy soil, "Dante did what?"

The purple eyes of the homunculus child returned to the Elric's vision, "Dante killed Hohenheim. She broke the bonds between his mind, body, and soul, and shoved him at the Gate. He died; the Gate killed him."

Al's mind stumbled. Dante killed his dad? When? But… that didn't make sense. His dad was on the other side of the Gate… somehow. Brigitte knew his dad; she'd written his name and described him. Alphonse folded his arms as he thought – something wasn't right. Dante had broken the bonds that held his father's existence together. That action took his father to the Gate. But, instead of killing him, did that action send him beyond the Gate to Brigitte? How else would he have gotten there if that wasn't it? Al's eyes shifted with his thoughts.

Dante didn't know that.

Dante had no idea that his father was beyond the Gate; she thought he was dead. She thought going beyond the Gate was by sacrificing yourself to the Gate like his brother had done. The youngest Elric's eyes widened at the realization. So, if two great alchemists were on the other side of the Gate, and they had all this incredible information at their disposal, but neither one of them came home, it was because… their bonds had been broken?

Al's brow began to stitch together. No bonds meant no alchemy. Could that be it?

Like a string of dominoes falling freely, a weight released from Alphonse's chest and a coherent thought formed in his mind's eye clear as day. That was it. It made sense. That was one of the keys that was missing. The bonds had to be broken to cross the Gate. If his dad had bonds, then he would perform alchemy and come home – Alphonse wanted to believe that with all his heart. If his brother was on the other side and had his bonds, he would definitely perform alchemy and come home – Alphonse knew that with all his heart. But, if their bonds were broken, both of them would be stuck beyond the Gate, because alchemy was needed to get to the Gate.

That was the problem then. Alchemy wasn't possible for his father or brother because their bonds were broken.

"… That's the problem, then…"

"What is?" Wrath asked, confused by the expression on his travel companion.

"Nothing," Alphonse's responded quickly, before calming his actions and words, "nothing at all, I was just thinking."


Sometimes, waking up was like getting a flashlight shone in your face, Edward concluded. Sleep was a black pit of nothing, not a place where dreams and aspirations could be cultivated, explored, or nurtured. It ended up serving the function of 'an escape' from reality. Although dreams were intended to be an escape, the blank hours of sleep ultimately served the same purpose – you escaped from everything. So, when you rose from the black pit of nothing, it was like falling into polluted light, especially when it was someone unwillingly waking you.

After the ump-teenth whisper of his name, Ed cracked an eye open in the early morning hours. He couldn't find the energy to make a disgruntled face in response to the far too delighted expression Winry wore.

"What do you want?" he shut his eyes again, pulling his sheets up tight around his neck.

"It's Christmas morning," she bubbled.

Taking an annoyed glance around the room, Ed buried his face in his pillow, "I hate my dad so much right now."

"Get up you miserable lump," Winry snatched the pillow out from under his head.

"It's Sunday, and early on a Sunday. Go away," Ed pulled his covers up over his head and curled up, "get out of my room. I don't barge into your room when you're sleeping."

"I'd beat you senseless if you did!" wielding the pillow like a weapon for a few strikes over his head and shoulders, Winry eventually dropped it on his head and marched to the door, "I'm supposed to tell you to get downstairs in the next few minutes, or your dad will come up and fetch you."

The body beneath the white sheets deflated as her footsteps faded, and a grumble incoherently rose up in its place. A few deep breaths later, Ed decided he'd better haul himself out of bed rather than wait for his father to take pleasure in doing so. Sitting up and sliding over to the side of the bed, Ed put his left leg on, patted down his untied hair, and began to drag himself lazily towards the door. He paused in the entry way, listening for the sounds of people on the lower floor. Hearing both his father and Winry chatter away down below, Ed turned back into his room and poked his head in the closet. Rather than taking a robe or a change of shirt, he grabbed a round hat box from a brown paper bag and abruptly left his room.

By the time Ed had made his way downstairs, the box was gone from his possession, and he stomped his way into the room with the tree dressed in tacky ornaments and flickering candles. Ed grumbled as he sat down on the sofa.

"Could you at least pretend like you care?" Winry folded her arms, sitting opposite to him. Ed continued to grumble incoherently, dumping his head to the side of the seat. Choosing to ignore him, Winry wiggled herself up straight and gave her attention to Ed's father, "So, how does this work?"

Hohenheim gave a shrug, amused at how different her reaction was compared to his son, "Kind of like a birthday. I give you a gift, you open your gift, we eat breakfast, have a relaxing afternoon, and then I cook a magnificent dinner." The father gave himself a nod for the day's master plan, before re-involving his son into the event. A thin, rectangular box was produced and handed to him, "Edward, you get to open your gift first."

"Swell," he slurred, eyeballing Winry as she gave him a warning glance for his behaviour. Taking the box, Ed put it down in his lap. How the hell was he supposed to do this with one hand? A scowl crawled through him as he turned the box over, slipping a finger into an open slit in the wrapping. Winry reached out and held the end of the box while Ed ripped it free of the paper. Carelessly dumping the waste to the floor, he returned the box to his lap and flipped up the lid. A sudden change in expression hit him that surprised Winry and seemed to thoroughly satisfy his father.

Ed pulled out a deep red, long-sleeved dress shirt. His eyes slit suspiciously, "… People don't make stuff in this colour." Crap, why did his dad have to go and find him something in a colour that he liked? At least dress shirt fabrics were kinda… no, this one actually felt like quality fabric. The stitching was excellent and the buttoning was professional. He spoke his next absent thought aloud with the curious twist of an eyebrow, "This is a really nice shirt…"

"I'm glad you like it," his father nodded, "And Winry," Hohenheim switched attention to her before Ed had the opportunity to draw his thoughts out further. Reaching behind himself, the father produced a long, thin, cylindrical object, bound with a red ribbon and curled bow, "I hope this suffices."

Fascinated with what Winry could only describe as a 'scroll', she took the object from Hohenheim and slid the bow off. With her hands careful at the edge, Winry began to unroll the sheet. Both Ed and his father watched her intrigued reaction begin to explode.

"… Oh… my… god…" Winry gaped, unraveling it further, discovering there was more than one sheet wrapped up in this bundle, "what is this?"

"It's the blueprints for a Bristol Tourer T28 biplane," Hohenheim's smile brimmed.

Edward gawked at his father, not sure if he was reacting at what his dad had found for Winry, or because the old man had sounded excessively smug about it.

"Oh my god…" Winry's wide eyes raced around the sheet, silent for a moment as she frantically went through papers, "Oh my god… this is the single most awesome schematic I have ever seen in my entire life," she gripped one of the curling sheets tight in her hands at both ends, "it's a thousand times better than anything I've found in Germany," with sharp snaps of her wrists, Winry dropped the sheets to her knees, "WHERE did you find this?"

"I picked it up when I was out visiting with Charles when we were still in England," Hohenheim's eyes drifted up as he recalled the memory, "I chatted things up with an executive and wound up with that. Since the war ended, England has done a fair bit more with air plane technology than Germany has."

Darting to her feet, Winry scrambled around the table, schematic in hand, and tried to hug the life out of the old father, "This is so awesome, you have no idea! Thank you thank you thank you!"

"I'm glad you like it," he beamed, watching in astonishment as the girl suddenly flew away from him, and blew out of the room.

Ed hopped up to his knees on the seat as she ran by, "Where are you going?"

"My room!" she yelled back, her feet thundering up the stairs, "This needs studying! Don't you dare think for one second I can't make a sexy mechanical beast like this roar," her voice vanished into the upper floor.

Both Hohenheim and Edward looked to the ceiling, hearing the girl trample the hallway floor and clatter into her room.

"Good job," Ed nodded, sitting back down properly, "now we'll never see her again."

Hohenheim laughed before looking at the ceiling again as the noise from above went quiet.

"And now she's seizing up on the ground from the overload," Ed stretched his arm and pushed to his feet, "Or studying. I'm going to go lay back down."

"Alright," his father gave a wave to him, dismissing him from the room, "have a good nap."

Ed snatched his boxed shirt up and dragged himself to the upper floor. At the top of the staircase, he paused, listening for signs of life in the upper floor locked in silence. There was nothing. He thought for a moment to see if Winry was either studying or seizing up on the floor, but he decided that an intrusion into the joyous world of mechanics would definitely prevent him from sleeping. Ed returned to his room, and dumped himself back in bed without bothering to detach the fake leg. He threw the sheets over his head and welcomed the blissful sanctuary of sleep back into his room. The peace and quiet of the dark void entered his mind, but the dampened sound of feet wrapped in stockings swept everything away.

"Get out of my room, Winry," Ed grumbled.

"Where did you get this?" she asked quietly, sitting down on the side of his bed.

Without any visual acknowledgement of the item she questioned, he answered flatly, "Nowhere. I asked the tailor's wife if she could make it when I took my pants in. She does a craft thing once in a while for carnivals and fairs."

"… Why?" her words quieter still, "I thought you didn't get people Christmas gifts."

Ed grumbled into his pillow and pushed his sheets away. Begrudgingly, he swung his legs out over the side of the bed, and stood up again. Without another word to Winry, Ed went to his dresser and pulled open the top drawer. Tossing a few things aside, links of a silver chain brushed together as he produced the replica of his silver pocket watch from the drawer, "I haven't shown you this, have I?"

"Ed…" Winry's attention became entranced by the object.

Walking back over to the bed, he placed the watch carefully down in her hands, "Dad gave it to me for my second Christmas here. He, um…" Ed sat down on the bed next to her, "said it was good to have a reminder of home."

With a pinch of the button at the watch's side, the lid flipped open. The second hand ticked away stiffly. On the surface, it was the same watch, but Winry was certain it did not have the same ticking sound that the original had. Edward watched as she ran her thumb through the empty lid, where no date had been re-written. With the snap of her hand, the watch closed again, and Winry turned it over to examine the back.

"Dad had it custom made in London," Ed reached out and took the watch back from her, "so, I have this, and you can have that."

From her lap, Winry picked up the raggedy doll that had been left in a hat box on her bed. Pale burlap had been sewn together and decorated with lazy brown yarn for hair and solid black buttons for eyes. It smiled happily at anyone who looked its way. Winry's fingers ran along the bottom hem of the pink fabric dress the doll wore and eyed the matching bow in its hair. There were subtle differences in it, because the original was impossible to recreate, but for what it was meant to be, it was just like the one she had on her dresser at home.

"She's cute, thank you."

Ed frazzled a bit at the shaky tone of her voice, "Don't start crying on me, that poor doll will be 0 for 2 if you do. She's too happy for you to be crying," he rumbled a disgruntled noise through his chest, "and Dad'll kill me if you cried on Christmas Day."

"I don't see any tears, do you!" Winry protested, her words defiant. She turned the doll over in her hands again. She laughed a little for no explainable reason, placing the doll back down in her lap. She gave a sigh before wrapping a smile around her face, "You should come see these blueprints on my floor, they are awesome."

"No…" Ed's expression pinched, his eyes shifting to the side, "I think I should go back to bed."

"No, I think after making me put up with weeks and weeks of your alchemy prattle, you can come look at these blueprints with me," she held Edward dangerously at the end of her pointed stare, "they . ARE . awesome ."

There was really no escape from this and Ed knew it. He wished he could throw a tantrum like a five-year-old; how come nobody ever let him sleep through Christmas Day?


Alphonse restlessly buried his cheek into his knapsack. It was lumpy and hard, with scattered soft points that didn't seem to make up for the fact it was lumpy and hard. The bag was a lousy pillow to sleep on.

Al's dreams were always something fleeting: his childhood, his future, his family as a whole, his family as himself with his brother and Winry. He'd dreamt once that he and his father were scientists in arms. He'd dreamt up what his whole family would have looked like in five or ten year's time. It was always family – the family he'd lost, like some unhealthy obsession with impossible things. Occasionally, after he woke up, he wondered how he'd manage to dream up such an amicable personality for his father, since all he had to go by were pictures, people's descriptions, and his brother's bitter hatred. All his dreams were impossible. He'd wake up, and they would be gone again. His dreams didn't leave him feeling particularly miserable, since he hardly remembered them the next morning, but he knew they'd happened.

Within this contrived dream, within a house that no longer stood, with a family that no longer existed around him, an additional voice fell down the stairwell. The voice made mention about good timing, and a pair of eyes looked over to him… to everyone. Powerful eyes on such a recognizable, familiar face cast over him.

At first, the feeling was warm, but like a raging matador, a shadow grew over him – thick and dark. It hid the light behind fear. What a terrifying sensation. Al shivered, and woke up with a start.

"Alphonse Elric…" heavy words drew out.

The boy's eyes shot wide, alarm bells raging in his ears, not having to turn over to know who spoke.

"What the hell do you think you are DOING?" Izumi's words thundered down over him in the middle of the night. Reaching down for a fist full of the front of the boy's shirt, she lurched him off the ground and slammed him against the trunk of the tree he'd rested beneath, "I'm going to break your kneecaps right here and now, and haul your ass back to Central."

Waking up had never been so easy. Alphonse stared back at her, and opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him.

"I don't want to hear it!" the raging teacher put a little more pressure into the hand she used to hold him where he hung, flipping her eyes to Wrath momentarily as the creature awoke, "you ran off with Wrath, to do who knows what, someplace that I'm pretty sure we know, without telling anyone. There's not a whole lot you can say right now that is going to justify this."

"But Dante said she'd hurt Winry!" Al squeaked in protest, "I can't let her do that!"

The woman's face boiled red, "WITHOUT ASKING FO—"

Alphonse was dropped to his feet as Izumi's hand snapped to her mouth. The violent lurch of her insides turned her away. Mentally pinned against the tree still, the young Elric watched his teacher bend over and try to recover herself. This always made him shiver, because of the red stain it left in her hand. When he'd been training with her, she hadn't told them why; but once the truth was lost in the memories of armoured Alphonse, she'd told him 'again' for the first time. He was almost certain it hurt her more to talk about it, than it hurt each time the blood came to her mouth. He actually hadn't seen her react in some time, but whether or not she was hiding it from him, or it had simply improved, wasn't something Al knew for certain.

As he waited, Alphonse couldn't explain why he wasn't sorry for taking off. He was sorry he hadn't been able to include her, but he wasn't sorry for what he'd done. Strangely, he felt guilty for being happy she'd found out and came after him. His mind seemed to be turning into a bundle of knots with his actions.

"Sensei…" he started, watching his teacher gather herself, "Dante said if I told anyone, she'd kill Winry," Al held himself firm where he stood, "and I might have also lost a way to help my brother too. I don't want that."

"And it didn't occur to you that you were being played?" the teacher cleared her throat, standing up tall.

"Yes," Al's shoulder remained a companion to the tree trunk, watching his teacher turn to him again, "it did."

Izumi shook her head, looking up through the canopy of tree branches as she folded her arms. The stars were not out tonight, just the clouds, "And you thought it was a good idea to run away with Wrath? Without anyone else at all?"

"It wasn't a good idea," Al protested, fight rising in his voice, "it was a really stupid idea, but Dante wanted to see me, and only me, or she'd hurt Winry and maybe make things worse for getting my brother if I didn't act, so I made a choice," the boy's words rose with each statement he continued to make, "Winry has nothing to do with any of this. She's a country girl who makes AutoMail. Dante has no right to involve her like this. My brother is beyond the Gate, so she can't physically hurt him, but she can hurt Winry. She can make her an example. That's not fair, Sensei. I don't want that to be my fault because I was scared."

The teacher's shoulders sagged with the release of air from her lungs. One of her hands began to run though her tied hair.

"If Dante wants to see me, for whatever reason, then I'd rather she hold her conversations directly with me, than use Winry as bait."

"Alphonse," Izumi's words had lost their sharpened edge. With a disgruntled sigh, she brushed her hands over her thighs before she crouched down in front of the youngest Elric, "if… if Dante even has Winry—"

"Who else would?" Al fought back insistently.

Izumi rolled her eyes at the interruption and grabbed Al by his wrists. Her words stiffened, "If Dante has Winry, one of two things is going to happen: she'll bait you and keep you both, or she'll bait you and kill Winry to show her power."

Al's fists clenched, "I'll find a way to make her let Winry go. I'll force her to, or I'll save Winry, or something," he stiffened his arms and shoulders when his teacher's grip tightened, "no one's helping her and someone has to. Then, I'll find a way beyond the Gate and help my brother too."

"No, you won't, Al. No matter how much you want it, how good your intentions are, and how much you think you can make it happen, it won't happen that way," The brash behaviour akin to his brother was causing Al to sacrifice his own grounded, solid strengths.

His experiences, his life lessons, all the things that had taught him how cruel the world was since he and his brother had attempted to transmute their mother had been taken from him. No matter how things had gone since they'd left Resembool, it no way made up for life experience lost. The understanding of harsh reality from the perspective of someone locked in the body of a hollow suit of armour no longer existed. Alphonse Elric's view of the world was still riddled with innocence and abundant childish hope – things that fade away only as time ages you and you begin see the world.

"It won't work that way. No matter how good your intentions are, a madman won't play by your rules no matter how you arrange it," Izumi sighed, not sure how else she could emphasize it without beating it into him, "You're a smart kid, but your brother acts without thinking, you don't. Don't make me break your legs to teach you that, because as much as you might deserve it, I don't want to do that to you right now."

"What else am I supposed to do, Sensei? You want me to go back?" the boy's protest pleaded with her while his eyes ran around in dismay, "I can't just risk this…"

Izumi looked down to the earth below her feet in thought. What a disgusting ultimatum Dante had trapped a child in. She ground her teeth together, solidifying her grip at Al's wrists, "You ask for my help, and we'll go see what Dante wants."

Al looked back at her, processing the answer, "What happens if… with Winry…"

"WRATH!" Izumi roared, her eyes suddenly narrow. She startled Al with her voice. Her gaze turned to the homunculus who'd sat quietly through the entire ordeal, "Did Dante tell you where to find us?"

"No…" the creature twisted his face, "she didn't know where you were. And you were hard to find!" Wrath chirped at the pair like the difficulties he'd had finding them was their fault, "she thought you might be dead, but sent me to look for you anyways."

A grumble managed its way through Izumi and she roughed a hand through Alphonse's hair, "Then she doesn't know where we are. She can't spy on us if she doesn't know where to look. You were a messenger sent out to lure evidence back if we were still kicking," her hand smoothed out the mess she'd made of Al's hair, "Does Dante have Winry?"

"I dunno," he tilted his head like a lost animal, "I haven't seen her."

That was an insufficient answer. Izumi frowned, "What has she said about Winry?"

The creature continued to seem slightly detached from the present, humming to himself as he thought over an answer, "Nothing, just that she had to talk to Alphonse about her," Wrath dug his toes into the softened dirt at his feet, "but, she didn't invite you. You're not welcome."

Izumi's eyebrows peaked, unimpressed by the homunculus' statement, "Well, that's too bad, isn't it? That woman's going to have to entertain me too."

"Sensei," a sudden jolt hit Alphonse at the mention of 'woman', and he drew out information passed along by Wrath earlier, "Dante is using Nina now."

The teacher's raised eyebrows fell at the statement, "Figures…" she curled her upper lip in disgust.


For a fleeting moment, Ed considered folding his arms and frowning, but he was painfully aware that the right arm he needed was laying on the tabletop before him. What a wreck this thing was to look at. Why hadn't he thrown it out? He'd been so proud of it when they'd finished it, and damn did it hurt when it had been attached. Hurt a hell of a lot more coming off. The points on his body where the screws had once held it on had left scars, and seemed a little tender to the touch sometimes – he wondered if he could even attach a second one. A passing thought told him that he could always just get along without it. He hadn't had a right arm at all in England when he'd lived there, and he'd pretty much figured out how to manage with only the one arm. Was it worth the headache, he asked himself, or were there better things to focus on?

A loss of focus struck to remind Ed of a reoccurring headache that reminded him how he'd wound up in the situation where he'd eventually lost that arm. He'd been able to detach himself from the memory because he'd gone to England so quickly afterwards. Now he'd returned, and here this thing was. He stared at the metallic remains resulting from a perplexing moment months ago, after he'd walked away from Hess, when a voice spoke his name, and a large hand took hold of his right shoulder. Before he could even turn around or make a sound, a strong, muscular second hand with a damp cloth took hold of his face making him unable to…

"Edward?" Hohenheim put a hand down over his unmoving son's right shoulder space.

The frozen place Ed had become lost in shattered when he jumped and lurched away from his father, crashing into the table that his arm rattled around on. He spun around sharply, eyes flown wide, only to catch himself and stop entirely as his father slowly pulled his hand back with a very concerned look to his eye.

"Hi," Edward spoke abruptly, frantically untangling himself from the moment.

"Hi…" Hohenheim replied cautiously, "is everything alright?"

"What the hell are you doing sneaking up to someone in their own room?" swiftly, Ed moved away from the table to the dresser and chair hidden beneath shirts and ties, "don't you ever knock?"

The father's expression wrinkled, knowing he had knocked on the open doorframe and Ed had been unresponsive. He chose to not make an issue out of it, "The shirt fits well?"

Ed blinked down to the red shirt he wore, "Yeah, its good. Thanks."

Hohenheim grinned, sliding his hands into his pockets, "Red is a good colour for you."

"Always has been," smirking, Ed looked into the mirror propped up atop the dresser, "Winry and I were talking about taking measurements of the Thule hall on Thursday after the meeting. Map the whole area; get the best measurements that we can of the room, the height of the ceiling, distances from the edge of the circle to the walls. There might be something important in the numbers that enclose the circle in the room. Maybe an adjustment to the layout of the structure will have an effect on how the circle behaves."

"Sounds like a good idea," Hohenheim nodded, sounding oddly detached from Edward's conversation. He walked over to the mess of shirts and ties laid out over the back of the wooden chair and began to finger through the pile.

"I was thinking that if the stone room was smaller, and you encase things a little tighter, you might be able to use some of the bounce-back energy that goes to the sigil when someone's at the Gate to force a weak connection – just enough to send something like a message in a bottle back home," Ed tilted his head at himself in the mirror, pulling his chin up to eye his jaw line as he spoke, "then they'd at least know we're here and trying."

Continually nodding his approval, Hohenheim took a few items from the back of the chair and draped them over his left arm. Looking ahead, he distantly addressed Ed's reflection in the mirror, "That's a good idea."

Watching his father stand behind him in the mirror with moderate interest imprinted on his face, Ed's thought-filled expression slowly clouded over, "… What?"

"What-what?" his father replied.

The bridge of Ed's nose wrinkled, "You've got that annoying face on."

"Oh," Hohenheim grinned, "you mean my father face?"

Ed's right eye twitched, "Yeah, take it off."

Hohenheim found himself unable to withhold the chuckle he gave to Ed. Standing behind his left shoulder, he placed a strong right hand down over the back of his son's neck as he motioned to the clothing strung over his arm, "Edward, did you really shrink the laundry?"

"Oh for the love of…" Ed's voice burst as he spun to face the old man, "can't you people just let that die! It's not like I shrank your clothes, and I didn't even shrink them that much! I had the hem let out on my pants and they're fine now! And I can roll up my shirt sleeve, it's not like anyone's noticing that when I'm missing one arm."

"Calm down," the father's words were bemused and jovial. Taking a black tie from the collection hung over his arm, Hohenheim slipped the loop over his sons head. He watched, amused, as Ed's eyes held him in contempt, but didn't stop him. Slipping the ring of the tie under the younger man's red collar, Hohenheim did up the top button on Edward's shirt and slipped the knot of the tie up tight to his neck. Standing a step back, Hohenheim looked his son over with an inquisitive stare, careful not to focus on how the harsh appearance was now filling with confusion. Taking a hand and putting it to Ed's shoulder, the father spun him around to face the mirror again.

Ed's expression floated in a flood of confusion, his mouth open a crack as he curiously examined his reflection in the mirror, "… What?"

"Your pants didn't shrink," Hohenheim's hand patted down firmly, high at the centre of Edward's back, "you grew."

Ed's jaw fell ajar, "WHAT?"

The father laughed at the reaction.

Spinning around, Ed's absolutely baffled reaction filled the bedroom, "You can't be serious? I'm going to be twenty-two in a couple of weeks. Men don't get growth spurts when they're nearly twenty-two."

"And boys don't get their first growth spurt when they're seventeen either," Hohenheim's amused reaction carried on, trailing along behind him like a talon drifting in the wind, "I'm assuming you didn't grow very much from the time you first encountered the Gate until you crossed it. Perhaps what you'd done locked you down for some reason, and now that you're here you have years of catching up to do."

Somewhat unsuccessful at his attempt to reset his gaping response, Ed turned back to his reflection in the mirror. He narrowed an eye at himself; there had been fleeting moments at home when he'd gotten a little taller, always wishing he'd grow further, but never noticing anything substantial for height change before crossing the Gate, "… that makes sense, you could be right."

Hohenheim's brow lifted like a weightless feather; he took his dangling amusement and turned to leave the room. And though he'd had every intention of leaving at that point, his attention became entirely enraptured by the sudden explosion that took over Edward.

"AW SHIT!" Ed's left hand slapped to his mouth, eyes cautiously growing wide as though he'd forgotten something dreadfully important. His hand slipped up into his hair, lifting the overgrown bangs from his face, "she was right, it is my fault."

"Pardon?" the father's expression fell blank.

Ed tapped the toes of his constructed left leg against the floor, "I kept asking Winry to fix it cause I was limping. I kept telling her she'd done something wrong and she kept saying it was my fault somehow."

"You've seemed to be walking alright recently," Hohenheim tried to recall if he'd seen Ed with a limp – clearly recalling how hard it was to keep him on two even legs when he had been seventeen and eighteen, "did you put a sock in the socket?"

The son's eyes cut across the room sharply and became buried in a corner. Ed's jaw tightened, "She's going to kill me."

With a hand to his forehead and a laugh in his voice, Hohenheim turned and left the room.


The morning sunlight vanished when Wrath, Izumi and Alphonse sank below the soil, and emerged at a vantage point high above the Empty City. Alphonse held his lower lip in his teeth as he looked over the crime lost in the earth. Roze had told them what she knew of this place and what its purpose had been. Dante had been so arrogant with Roze, and as she tried to destroy the life of the survivor from Lior, she had preened and gloated about so many of her life's accomplishments. She had outright told the young woman, still somewhat coherent at that point, what had happened to the city. It was one of the tactics Dante used to manipulate Roze into submission, and she had never lost a host candidate before. The ancient monster had no fear of the things she divulged, since they would be lost as Roze's existence crumbled.

But Roze still stood with Ed when all was said and done; Dante had ran.

It was Ed who was responsible for the two fine legs Roze had to tremble within the city, overpowered by the glow of a transmutation that exchanged one life for another. It had lit the entire city beneath the earth brighter than the sun could have on the best of days. Roze said Ed had sent her on ahead, but she ran back, her baby tucked in her arms, and pounded on the doors of the building that Ed had locked. When she finally managed to get in, it was Alphonse she'd found unconscious on the floor, and Ed was nowhere to be seen. Roze hadn't known that the boy who remained was Al until she'd woken him and he spoke.

From his perspective, Alphonse's existence transitioned smoothly between the terrifying feeling of a transmutation gone wrong, and the profound sense of 'wrong' he'd felt as he woke up on that floor. He was never quite able to shake that feeling.

As Al looked out into this cityscape once again, it was as though all the wrongs he'd felt for so long had become embodied in the Empty City.

"This whole city died for the first Philosopher's Stone," Alphonse Elric's words rolled out smoothly, "it was the first victim of our world's greatest sins." He began to chew on his lower lip.

"It's a graveyard without bones," Izumi's bitter words added, "without evidence, without life, without proof of anything having existed. It's an abomination."

"Dante liked the city," Wrath commented, "but it was Hohenheim who buried it."

Alphonse's lower lip slid from his teeth, he stepped away from the vantage point, and began the decent into the nameless graveyard without another word. Izumi followed. Her harsh eyes held Wrath, a golem of rage drained of its fuel, in contempt as he followed behind her. The decent was made silently.

Although she had gone to see, and then seal, the Empty City after Roze and Al had escaped, she had not ventured down to the 'street level'. Izumi did not want to be here. To her, this place represented everything that the Gate had terrified her with. Everything.

Walking silently down a cobblestone path that lay buried in nearly five hundred years of dust, the tracks that had been made by the few visitors in the last year had remained untouched. There was no wind to blow them away and no caretaker to smooth things over; they were imprints in history. There was a set of unmarred boot tracks that no one needed to be told belonged to Edward Elric.

"Where do we find Dante?" Izumi finally cut the silence, half expecting her voice to echo within the vacant city.

"In the ballroom," it was Al answered, "that's where I woke up."

"I don't see any children's footprints," the teacher's eyes carried along the path they walked, "there must be another entrance." Her attention shifted to Wrath; he'd gone silent since they'd descended, "Is there another entrance, Wrath?"

The young homunculus continued to walk as though he'd never been addressed.

Al looked to Wrath as well, glancing up to his teacher as a scowl began to set in, "Wrath, there's more than just that entrance to the city, right?"

"Uh-huh," he responded half heartedly, not looking at Al as he spoke.

"Do you know where they are?" Al pushed for an answer.

"Some of them."

Izumi and Al exchanged a concerned look, wordlessly acknowledging that the change in Wrath's disposition was due to this world that Dante coveted. They kept walking.

Al's eyes flickered up to the earth hanging above their heads, his gaze tracing the outline of the rooftops of the Empty City, creating a skyline in his mind. His pace slowed. Alphonse looked around the hollowed earth that entombed a heinous crime, eyes and ears searching a ghost town for signs of life beyond their own.

Quiet words moved through the young Elric's lips, "No one even knew if the stone was real back then. I can't imagine being so greedy and selfish that you'd sacrifice thousands of people's lives to obtain something that you couldn't even confirm existed. It goes against everything you're taught as an alchemist. I can't imagine being so…" he struggled to find the word he wanted, but nothing sufficed, and Alphonse settled on another, "… so inhuman."

"But your dad and Dante did create it here," Wrath emphasized.

Every link made between this atrocity and his father stabbed through Alphonse at his core. It enraged him. It was obvious that it had been his father who'd done these things; he knew it had been his father, but his mother wouldn't have loved someone like this. He'd changed. This person and that person had changed, and referring to them as the same person felt beyond wrong.

Al's free hand clenched, "What would they need it for in the first place? To prolong their lives? Is that what they wanted? Why would they want to do that?" he couldn't fathom the motivation, "There are other myths in alchemy better than the Philosopher's Stone that can be used to prolong your life."

"Enough Al," Izumi tried to stop the questions, and she took his hand.

"You tried to transmute your mom, didn't you?" Wrath asked in return, as though the question were no more important than asking what was for dinner.

The young Elric felt his hand squeezed by his teacher as he gave a confession of sin, "I did, yes."

Wrath's footsteps stopped, "And you tried to transmute me, right?"

Though she stopped, Izumi did not respond, her body stiff as she looked over the broken homunculus, feeling Alphonse squeeze her hand in return.

Wrath appeared to take her silence as a 'yes', and behaved indifferent to the entire concept, "Dante and Hohenheim tried to resurrect their son, that's why they needed the Philosopher's Stone."

"Their son?" Al repeated, looking up at Izumi, whose eyes could have killed the homunculus where he stood. Frantically, Al looked back to Wrath, before returning his attention to his teacher, "did you know this?"

"Yes," the look in the woman's eyes continued to be deadly. She wished she had the power to silence Wrath or make his words untrue. The more Al, or anyone, learnt about his father's history, the more Al's sense of his own family would rot away, and both brothers had a profound sense of family, "Roze told me. But, we didn't know if it was true or not." She wanted it not to be.

"It was just a son," spoken like it was just words. Wrath gave an affirmative nod to his own statement, looking up to the rooftops of the empty city around them, "some kind of illness killed him, I think."

Al spat out a morbid curious question that Izumi wished he had not asked, and did not want to know, "What was his name?"

Within the stale air of a forgotten point in time, there was a long, sufferable moment of pause before Wrath responded, "I don't know."

Al was far less hesitant to voice his words than Wrath or Izumi seemed to be. His tongue ran from him with reckless abandon, "If my dad and Dante mastered alchemy to bring back someone, and they had the Philosopher's Stone, then they succeeded?"

"No, Alphonse Elric, your information is incorrect."

The little voice with big words called out from down the dusty, abandoned street. With a quick flash of movement, Izumi had a hold of Al by his upper arm, forcefully positioning him behind her. Al peered out from around his teacher, unable to fight away from her hold. In the silence of their existence, the soft clap of dress shoes echoed in the thick layer of time that hid the true face of this forgotten world.

Dante narrowed her childish eyes at the people ahead of her, "Oh, you ignorant woman, calm down," she shook Nina's head as she walked, words dripping with apathy as her pigtails fanning out over her shoulder, "I didn't think Alphonse would be able to get here without you, so I'm quite prepared to see this. But, did you at least try, Al?"

He didn't answer. Al glanced to the hand at his arm that tightened the closer she moved. There was something unusually terrifying about how his teacher stood between him and this tiny girl; Izumi was fiercely defiant and uncharacteristically frightened.

Dante's approach stopped, her sweet smile falling to Wrath who seemed to shy away like a beaten child. Her attention returned to her guests once Wrath's response satisfied her.

"No," she again answered the prior question, "Alphonse Elric, Envy was born before the Philosopher's Stone was."

 


To Be Continued…


Notes:

I'd like to think, that when left to his own devices, without the threat of public display, embarrassment, or humiliation, Ed is capable of being very sweet. And I keep making reference to Ed's birthday being soon… FMA1 always lead me to believe Ed was an early/mid January baby (based on dates/seasons they'd used and a bunch of sleuthing I put into it once upon a time LOL). The Feb 3rd date didn't become universally accepted fanon until well after the first 40 chapters of this fic were written.

Chapter 32: Envy

Chapter Text

Beneath the ceiling of an artificially lit world buried beneath the earth, Izumi looked harshly at the ancient devil pompously wearing a stolen child's face, concealing and cradling sin after deadly sin.

"Your sin is Envy?" she asked.

"His sin was Envy," Dante replied hotly.

Even with the firm hold his teacher kept on him, Alphonse's voice could still be heard from behind her, "Where's Winry, Dante? Where are you keeping her? I want to know she's safe."

Dante gave a simple shrug of her shoulders, lacing her fingers neatly at her stomach, "Winry's safety is up to you."

"Where is Winry?" Izumi repeated Al's question with a harder edge to her voice.

Annoyance flashed through the eyes that Dante used, and she rolled a frown into her face. Dante allowed seconds to thunder by without acknowledgement of the question, as though she existed beyond the progression of time, before she looked to Wrath again and told him simply, "You may go ask Aisa about your red stones now."

"Yay!" an abundance of childish energy returned to the homunculus as he bounded away.

"Wrath, no!" Al called out. Izumi's grip held firm on the youngest Elric; Al couldn't have followed if he'd tried.

"You've got your retriever well trained," Izumi's eyes slipped back to the child figure, "he seems to fetch pretty well, but does he roll over, heel, and beg, too?"

"You can't tease a dog forever, Izumi, it will eventually bite back," Dante gave a shrug to her statement, disinterest plaguing her tongue, "I throw it a bone once in a while to keep it loyal."

The bridge of Izumi's nose creased with disgust.

Dante's childish voice picked up suddenly, and it was the only thing that had the ability to hold any kind of echo in the underground graveyard, "So, what do you two think of Edward Elric beyond the Gate?"

Both Izumi and Al looked to Dante with a similar carriage of distain. The child's voice had been so happy, so amused, and so delighted to talk about the topic. It teased and insulted them with every syllable. Izumi brow wove together, her lips opening to speak, but Al's voice drew out before hers.

"How do you expect us to get my brother from beyond the Gate if you keep causing problems for us?"

Dante's childish hands fluttered around at her stomach, the pads of her fingers finally drawing together at her chest, "I don't expect you to accomplish that at all, so 'causing you problems' isn't something I care about," her eyes pinched happily with a cheeky grin, before her expression widened again. Dante continued to play her juvenile appearance like a professional artiste, "but, what I do care about is that all of your actions up until this point have shown me you're certain of the same things I am, and that is very important."

"What?" the word was spoken in chorus by Al and Izumi.

A little giggle rose up; a tantalizing giggle that raised the hairs on the arms of people who listened, but ultimately ended with a snort as Dante swept Nina's hair over her shoulders, "You're both so ignorant. Since you're so eagerly set on dealing with me and finding Edward Elric, then you've done nothing but confirm what I was speculating. He is, without a doubt, beyond the Gate," the petite body gave a careless wave of her hands to the two of them, tipping her head playfully to the side, "now, if by some chance you actually found out some way to complete that impossible task and fetch Edward, then you'd save me some additional effort."

A quick exchange of glances was made between Izumi and Alphonse.

"Save you some effort with what?" Izumi's heavy question rumbled through the chests of her listeners, "other than actually accessing what's beyond the Gate, how does getting Ed benefit you in any way?"

The demon child just smiled for her former student, and she began to approach. A dark shadow cast into her complexion, highlighting the edges of her smile as it blackened everything else. The light of this world was hers to control, as was the darkness, and the earth that contained them, "You are no longer welcome in this conversation, Izumi."

Dante clapped her hands.

Both alchemists were thrown apart when the ground at their feet heaved upwards between them. A terrifying realization unexpectedly gripped both Izumi and Alphonse for the only moment needed for Dante to split them – her hands hadn't touched the earth that moved when she'd clapped them. Izumi didn't have time to lurch away with Alphonse in her grasp.

"I am not down here today to talk to you, Izumi Curtis," the girl's voice rose, projecting through the streets like a theatre actor with the throw of her hands, gleefully and bitterly childish.

"Al, run!"

Alphonse's breath escaped him as he scrambled on his feet. He couldn't handclap like the other two; that left him with a huge handicap and astoundingly defenseless. From over his shoulder, the collision of tiny flesh palms crashed again. For Alphonse, there was a sudden, terrifying realization that the ground beneath him had neither heaved nor rolled, but had completely vanished. He fell without a chance to scream. The sensation of free-falling through the dark earth overwhelmed his mind – unable to see the width of the cavity he fell through, or how far he would fall. A sick feeling in Al's stomach lurched into his chest, and it remained there when he suddenly hit his back on solid ground, coming to an abrupt halt. Alphonse couldn't explain how he hadn't felt the full impact of hitting the bottom, and that was almost more terrifying than the fall itself.

The place he silently rested in had no light, was cold, and smelt like a dusty mantle had been blown clean. Where was he?

A confusing sound came from the depths of nothing: a baby cried.

A child's handclap was heard again, and Al cringed. When the lanterns of a squarely built corridor lit with flames, Al's eyes exploded wide to swallow the light. Flying up onto his knees, and with a sharp turn over his shoulder, Al came nose to nose with a monster's childish face.

"I am down here today to talk to you, Alphonse Elric," Dante smiled. She turned away happily and walked a few steps down the hall, picking up the baby she called Diana, who lay bundled on the floor.

Al cautiously looked up to the solid cement ceiling he assumed he'd fallen through. His eyes glanced around a tunnel that stretched into more darkness. Was this one of the other entrances? Where did it go? Where did it start from? Al sat back on his knees. The sinking feeling weighing in his stomach was a huge, dead weight. Alphonse startled when Dante was within his personal space again, and he tried to lean away, but she handed him baby Diana. He wouldn't have taken her, except that he was certain Dante would have just let the infant drop if he hadn't.

Dante stood up as straight as she could, lacing her fingers together at her stomach again, casting a sweet smile over the youngest Elric, "Alphonse, why do you believe your brother is beyond the Gate?"

Adjusting the baby he now held, whose cry was a murmur, Al looked up at the petite figure towering over him, "I won't tell you."

"That's fine, you don't have to," she shook her head, more than happy to accept his refusal, "but, by coming here, and everyone's actions to this point, you have shown me that he is in that magnificent society beyond the Gate. Thank you for confirming that for me," Dante's smile grew as a look of horror moved through the youngest Elric.

Al balked on his thoughts, "You didn't know he was beyond the Gate?"

"No, I was simply outsourcing a test for your father's theory," Dante shrugged carelessly, "if the results were negative, you wouldn't be here. There's no recorded instance of someone from this side of the Gate actually arriving on the other side, so the method for it is unknown. And since it's apparently possible to take people from beyond the Gate, like our lovely Brigitte, I will thank you for your assistance in my trials by helping you bring your brother home." She bounced her woven fingers against her stomach gleefully.

"What?" Alphonse's heart raced in his ears and throat; he nearly forgot to breathe, "How are you going to help me?"

Dante giggled at the flustered Elric, "I'm not entirely sure just yet how we're going to accomplish that, I have a few ideas, but you are going to find a way to get your brother home," she spoke the words to him like it was absolute fact he could not dispute, "you've been doing great so far Alphonse, don't stop here."

Through the obstacle course of his poor breathing and pounding heart, Alphonse's thoughts could not find the answer to why on earth Dante was standing before him offering to help bring his brother home, "Why do you want to bring my brother home? I thought you wanted to bridge the gap with the Gate."

"I do," Dante nodded in the poorly lit hallway, "but, that's why I like the charm of your brother; he's so much like your father. He's curious. He seeks knowledge. He will have already sought out things, learnt things that I want, created things unimaginable, and drowned himself in knowledge," Dante tipped her head from side to side playfully in thought, "And yet, for some reason I can't explain, I am having a bitch of a time accessing what's beyond the Gate, and if everything I have said up until now is true – which it seems to be – I cannot explain why he hasn't so much as contacted us," her sweet voice rose, "it means I'm missing something important."

Alphonse bit his lower lip, swallowing his own secrets.

Dante's tiny hands slapped over her knees as she bent in to be nose to nose again with the youngest Elric, "So, when you bring him back for me, I will extract every piece of information in his mind. I will have him tell me every little detail of every thing he's learnt beyond the Gate. I will find out what I am doing wrong, and I will find out what I need to do long before I fully introduce myself to the world beyond the Gate."

Alphonse's jaw slowly began to fall open in disbelief of what he'd just heard, "That's insane, I won't help you do that," he blurted in absolute refusal of Dante's proposal, "you want my brother to come home so you can dissect his mind?"

"Not dissect his mind, extract information from it," Dante corrected, without a rise to her voice. Her smile held firm, and she lifted three fingers for Alphonse to see, "Mind. Body. Soul. I can move souls. I can create bodies. But, the mind? That one is tricky to play with, but I've been practicing," again, using her childish exterior, Dante pushed out her lower lip and tightened her brow with an excessive pout, "Alphonse, I'm not going to jump head first into a stubborn and unknown world without knowing exactly what I'm dealing with. Did you think I was that arrogant? Did I live this long to only be that arrogant?" the foolish expression vanished and Dante gave a careless sigh to the situation, "everyone's so busy worrying about what's going on in Central, with me, what I'm doing, and how I'm going to ruin everything…" she gave an excited swing of her hips, "Edward Elric's little brother, Hohenheim's youngest son, came to see me of his own volition, because he's the only one who doesn't care about what I've done there. He only wants his brother back, and here's your big chance to get him, Alphonse Elric."

Rising to his feet, the baby wrapped in his arms, Alphonse took a step back, away into the darkness from this demonic child, "I want my brother back, but I'll do that myself. I won't help you."

"Yes, you will," Dante continued to speak in absolutes.

Al's words rose with ferocity, "I will NOT help you!"

A twitch of disinterest towards the protest flickered in her eyes, and Dante clapped her hands.

Alphonse caught the glow of the transmutation circle on the baby's stomach for a moment, before he found himself with an overwhelming urge to scream. He could not for some reason. A sensation hit him like two sledgehammers rammed into his head through his ears, and Alphonse lost his grip on baby Diana. He tried to reach his hands to his head, but couldn't seem to connect. A hundred thousand fragments of knowledge appeared all at once, all unique, and all completely indistinguishable. He couldn't turn away from the blinding sensation; every terrifying snippet of possible knowledge flashed in his face relentlessly, long enough to know they were there, but never long enough to truly understand what they were. The rush was numbing. It made him feel sick. He couldn't make it stop on his own, he couldn't even struggle against the sensation – a gaping hole had been blown open to his mind and he became nothing more than a flesh container overwhelmed with floodwaters. Alphonse fell out of the high when he was released from the ride, and his senses were abruptly returned to him. When the motion settled enough that Alphonse was coherently aware of his own existence again, he dropped to his knees, his hands finally finding his head. He curled over his legs, putting his forehead to a white, sensation-less surface.

Dante looked over to the young Elric who'd been forced to the ground. She watched him, amused by his reaction, before turning around in the white abyss of endless space and looked up at the Gate doors that had swung wide open.

She smiled, putting her hands down on her hips triumphantly, "Yes, you will."


There were things to do today; people to meet, coffee or tea to be had, conversations to carry on, and a meeting to attend. Hohenheim straightened his tie while looking in the mirror. He thought he might stop by the university, just to drop things off, since he would have some work to get started on for Monday. With the firm jerk of his arms to straighten his sleeves, he left his bedroom. The upstairs hall was lined with a few doors – one that belonged to Edward, which was closed, and the other that belonged to Winry, which was left open. Hohenheim poked his head into her room to see if she was in, noting nothing and no one beyond a wicker basket of laundry in the corner, the blueprints she'd tacked to the wall, an unmade bed, and a pink doll stuck in a crack between her pillow and the headboard of her bed. Hohenheim raised his brow curiously; he hadn't noticed the doll at all before. He walked in and pulled it from the crevice where it was trapped. It was obviously new, no wear on it to note. Turning it over in his hand, he looked for a maker's insignia or stitched tag, and found nothing to identify it at all. He shook his head, put it down on her pillow, and left the room again.

Coming down to the main floor, Hohenheim found Winry at the kitchen table with a cup of soup in hand, bundled up in a sweater, long skirt, heavy socks, and… Hohenheim's shoulders fell… the gaudy French slippers were on her feet.

Rolling his eyes, he entered the kitchen, getting a good morning greeting before he could give one to her first. He'd thought about asking Winry if she'd consider throwing the slippers out, but since they were on her feet, that probably wouldn't happen. Hohenheim placed a few items in the draining board at the sink away in a cupboard, before walking back out into the hall again. Although he had every intention of going to the door and heading out, he turned back to the kitchen with a nagging thought, "Winry, where did the doll on your bed come from?"

"Hm?" she looked up from the soup, "Ed got it for me."

"Did he?" the father lifted his brow. He withheld the 'why' question and substituted it with a statement, "a little pink doll isn't something I see you with."

Winry giggled, putting her cup down on the table, "I have a doll just like it at home. Ed and Al made it for me when I was little," she tapped her spoon on the side of the cup, "it was their first transmutation."

The father looked off in thought, "A doll for you?"

"Mmhmm," she dipped her spoon back into the soup to stir it again.

Hohenheim thought the statement over for a moment, wondering how old the boys may have been. Young enough to innocently make a pink doll for a little girl their first project, he assumed. He didn't ask her anything further about it. Although he was curious, for some reason he just couldn't bring himself to ask about that point in time. So, back to the day at hand: people to meet, places to go, and a Thule meeting to attend after all that – the last of the year. Hohenheim left the kitchen space again and turned to the front door, eyeing the collection of shoes on the mat.

His thoughts drifted away again.

What a nice thing for his boys to have done – to have made a doll for the Rockbell's little girl…

"Edward!" Hohenheim's voice bellowed into the house suddenly, as he reached for his boots, "Edward, come out here!"

Ed's voice burst through the house with far more edge to it than his father's had, "Why the hell are you barking orders at me? I'm not your goddamn servant boy. I don't jump at your call!"

"I'm not giving orders," the father's voice boomed back, "just come here."

The upper floor thundered with Ed's footsteps, as did the stairs he pounded on. Hohenheim chuckled as Ed's warpath came to a stop at the junction where the entry hall met the kitchen.

"What is it?" he addressed his father before suddenly turning his attention squarely on Winry at the corner of his eye, "those are mine!"

Winry stretched her legs out under the table, "The floor was cold, and I couldn't find my slippers."

"So, you took mine?" Ed's eye twitched at her.

"Yes," Winry stuck her nose in the air and sipped her coup of soup.

With a subdued laugh at the exchange, Hohenheim reached into the closet for his coat, "Edward, take Winry out for dinner tonight."

"What! She's a slipper thief. No," Ed protested, narrowing an eye, "And that sounds like an order."

"It's a suggestion," his father gave a shake of his coat as he took it from the hanger.

Ed wrinkled his nose. Glaring back he dropped his tone as deep as he could go in mockery of his father, "'Take Winry out for dinner tonight.'" Ed rolled his eyes, piping up a childishly annoyed voice as his father dressed in his coat, "There weren't any suggestive words in that statement. It's an order."

"Ed, you should take me out to dinner," Winry grinned smugly.

Scoffing at the request, Ed's face twisted with continued protest, "What! You two think I just have money floating around to take people out to dinner with? I don't go back to work for another week, and my pay cheque takes three weeks from that!"

A grin came over Hohenheim as he buttoned the front of the coat, "There's money in the cookie jar."

"Say what?" Ed's expression fell blank.

"Money in the cookie jar?" Winry looked over to the brown, porcelain, bear-shaped jar on a high shelf near the window.

Hohenheim nodded, opening the front door, "Help yourself and go somewhere nice on me, alright? And I'll see you at the hall at ten, don't forget. Have a good day you two." And he was gone before anyone had anything further to say about any of it.

Ed's bewildered expression panned from the door to the kitchen, "What?"

Winry laughed, eyeballing the porcelain jar that was supposed to hold cookies, "who puts money in a cookie jar?"

Ed shook his head, his tone confused by his own statement, "My dad does."

Still giggling, Winry stood up and walked across the kitchen. Stretching up on her tip toes to reach the jar on the shelf, her fingers snagged the bear-jar by its feet. She took it from the shelf, and cradled the heavy container against her chest, "Take me somewhere that doesn't require me to be dressed like a token arm accessory."

Ed choked on his laugh, entering the kitchen, "You voluntarily went along with that."

Winry's hand clamped down on the bear's head, the lid to the jar, and she popped it off. Peering over her shoulder, Ed looked into the jar, his eyes widening at the contents within.

"Okay," Winry's free hand came up to scratch in her hair, "So, it wasn't the porcelain that made the jar heavy…"

Ed gawked at the jar nearly full of coins and wound bills, "Holy shit Dad… I knew we'd talked about taking some money out of the bank when the economy fell… but," his face twisted, "a cookie jar?"

A subtle little poke began to repeatedly harass Ed's left shoulder, and Winry eventually had his attention, "I can do token arm dressing for food. Good food. Not cardboard food." She bounced a little where she stood as Ed's eyes shifted up to the corners of the ceiling in thought.


"The Empty City contained the other life, where Dante and Hohenheim once lived," Roze explained to a candlelit room full of men and women with blue collars buttoned to their ears.

With the sharp tug of his military jacket, Mustang's glance moved from Havoc to Riza, from Fuery to Falman, from Breda to Armstrong, over Ross and Broche, before cautiously leading all attention to Roze.

"It's where the first failed human transmutation took place," the woman from Lior held a somber voice for this late time of night, "and where the first Philosopher's Stone was created."

The room packed with military blues went as silent as the dead that Roze would discuss while she spoke.

"When Dante tries to crush your soul…" the young woman smoothed her hand over her knees, shifting, and finding the youngest Tringham's hand on her shoulder, "she gives up a little bit of herself in the process," Roze laughed at her thoughts lightly, "she fondled me like I was some dress she was going to put on, and told me stories that only the devil could write. She'd tell them to me while she'd subjugate my soul," she took a heavy swallow of air, running her fingers over her ears to tuck her hair away, "a frightened soul is the easiest kind to overwhelm, and while she was doing it, I just knew the stories were true. I was this close to becoming her, I could feel her open doors into my soul and look in to examine what was left for strengths… and because it was a door opened, I could look back at her. She didn't mind. It worked to her advantage, because it frightened me more. Dante'd never lost a candidate before."

A shiver blew through the room at the bitter touch of the young woman's words. The collection of Amestris officers continued to invite their own silence into the tale.

"The first people to ever have attempted human transmutation were Dante and Hohenheim," Roze watched the eyes in the room flicker between each other, "they prided themselves on being the best there was, and the best there ever would be. And they were. No one could compare to them," a seed of empathy escaped in Roze's breath, "when their only son died, they tried to revive him through alchemy and red stones."

Roze allowed a pause to facilitate the reactions in the military ensemble. From the corner of her eyes that drifted in the room, she caught Havoc take his cigarette from his lips and Fuery's hands come over his mouth.

"Their human transmutation, the first human transmutation, failed; like it always fails without the Philosopher's Stone."

The young woman felt as though she were conveying a bastardized fairytale, ripe with inflammatory indignities, "They'd been so greedy; envious of all the perfect lives of mothers, fathers, and sons. They'd been pumped with pride for a skill that they believed put them above the laws of alchemy," she laughed at her own conveyance of the situation – no one on their own was above the laws of alchemy, "these sins made them arrogant, and ultimately could not bring back his life, destroying it instead."

The eyes of the military continued to watch with fascination and interest, strangely lacking fear, like the pages of Roze's sick fairytale could not possibly be true. It was strangely hard to fathom it was. A few bodies shifted in the deluge of the night. No one left the room, no one lost focus, and all eyes remained on the survivour of Lior.

"When the transmutation process failed, that was when they sought the Philosopher's Stone, but their envy had already been born, and it looked at them every day," Roze's eyes slipped away to the floorboards, her own mention of Envy brought a bloody mental image back to her head. She forced it down with a rise in her voice, "it made them vengeful; filled them with rage, contempt, and wrath against the world order," the woman's hands again smoothed over her knees, as though it had developed into something of a nervous habit; Izumi had actually pointed it out when she'd spent those months talking with her. "Dante and Hohenheim couldn't undo the disaster they'd created, but perhaps anything was possible with the Philosopher's Stone – they could turn their abomination into a man again with the Philosopher's Stone. Right the wrongs; correct the slothful neglect."

Frozen in place, enthralled by the sensation of a wild campfire story beneath a roof, every colour of every eye was devoted to Roze's words. Glances were no longer shared, because no one could possibly share anything more than the only young woman to have escaped from Dante could.

"That is how the Empty City ceased to exist," Roze exhaled a heavy breath, "it was there where a man and a woman's greed and gluttony devoured the life of an entire city, extinguishing the lives of friends and neighbours, and allowed the populous to become the fear, grief, and blood of the first Philosopher's Stone."

Although his location was unknown, Roze was thankful that Alphonse was not present, "That is also where Hohenheim died the first time."

A few heavy brows twitched at her words, and the only exchange of glances occurred between two former State Alchemists – Mustang and Armstrong.

Roze continued, "Driven by the lust that remained for her lover, Dante used some fraction of the stone to steal the life of another man and replace it with her husband's. His dying soul was transplanted into this body and his life was renewed," her head shook a little, "the process Dante and Hohenheim used to change bodies was found in panic, by accident; a lousy twist of fate."

It was Mustang's, not Roze's, heavy sigh that the room heard. The young woman with a pinkish highlight to her thick, dark hair, watched the officer mull her words over before returning his focus to her.

"With the power of the stone, the city that ceased to exist was buried," her words were directly handed to the man leading the upheaval of Dante's imperfect society, "sins were hidden within the earth, and erased from memory over time. But that abomination of envy?" Roze's hands slipped up through her hair, pulling her strands back as though she'd intended to tie it, but swept it over one shoulder instead, "what Dante and Hohenheim learnt, in that first life, was that once a human transmutation has failed, the homunculus golem that remained meant that the original human life was unsalvageable. That person's existence was not only desecrated, it was ruined. Nothing can be recovered, and all you're left with is the dirty shadow of existence."

The morose fairytale continued to weigh down on society in a way no one had ever understood, because it had never been recognized before. The cost of failure of human transmutation had no measure to the chance of success. Eyes began to wander around in their own thoughts.

A lifted voice, unfitting for the weight of sin, held strong in Roze's words, "Dante chose to embrace her sins, but Hohenheim chose to walk away from them."

"Where is Envy?" Mustang asked heavily.

"I don't know," Roze shook her head for the officer, "I haven't seen Envy since Al brought Ed back. He just vanished."


Of the sixteen lanterns that had been set up around the Thule hall for light in the post-sunset hours, Hohenheim extinguished half of them. The meeting had broken at seven thirty, everyone had dispersed by eight, and Hohenheim made sure to linger until he would have been the last to go; he was a master of mulling about and appearing to be productive. This time, it had been easy to mingle and remain behind. At the start of the meeting he'd delivered his prepared excuse, and told the congregation he'd be giving them his leave. What a profound reaction that seemed to have – it surprised him a little. No one wanted to see him go.

The first man to leave the evening session had been Rudolf Hess, the last had been Karl Haushofer, and Hohenheim requested that Karl leave him be to have a few 'private moments' with to pay his respects to Shamballa. Even now Hohenheim laughed at how ridiculous that sounded, and how convinced everyone was of such impossible things. He hadn't believed in any god in hundreds of years. This entire world had the wool pulled over its eyes as far as he was concerned. He stood at the centre of the revolting transmutation circle etched into the floor, and tried to see what he could make of this area before Edward and Winry showed up.

"You're leaving them too?"

Hohenheim's eye twitched at the unwelcome voice he hadn't heard enter, "Hello Envy."

"Envy?" Adolf rolled his eyes, leaning over a waist high stone block near the far entrance of the room, "you're still going on about that? You can address me as Adolf."

"Only when it's convenient for you," Hohenheim drawled, slipping his hands into his pockets and eyeing the man partially hidden in the shadows of dim lighting. The old man walked towards someone sinful.

"Did you enjoy Christmas with your half metal boy and his pet girl?" Adolf folded his arms, pushing his chin to the side as he watched Hohenheim approach, "did everyone enjoy the season?"

The old Elric's brow tumbled, "What do you want?"

Adolf's voice rose above, like he'd been insulted, "To know how your Christmas went!"

"It went fine," Hohenheim answered, "now, why are you here and what do you want?"

"I was curious. You see, when my sources of information told me that everyone had left the Thule Hall but you, I got a little curious. What in the world could Hohenheim be doing post-meeting, all by himself? I came to have a look-see," the man who controlled the spin of the universe announced, "you appear to be admiring my art. Thank you."

Adolf, in his normal state, was far more composed, refined, eloquent, and freezing cold in demeanor than this. All Hohenheim heard in the voice was Envy. With power laced into his words, Hohenheim raised his voice, "You're going to kick that voice out at some point, aren't you Adolf? You're too proud for this kind of nonsense. This country is something you want to take on your own, right? What this is makes you weak and decrepit."

Envy rolled his rented eyes in response, "I feel very earthbound today," he straightened up, fixing the shirt he wore, "you have him pegged, I won't get to stick around much longer now. He's one pissed off fucker that someone else is making his arms move. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. Greedy greedy greedy," the face Envy wore grinned, "It'll be interesting to see what he does from afar later, it should be fascinating. There are lots of other people out there I can keep company."

"Get out of here," Hohenheim ordered without a moment to pause or think between when the demon's words finished and his began.

A pointed finger ripped out at the old Elric father, "I will rip your throat out with my bare hands and feed it to the dogs if you speak to me like that again," Envy gave a pompous bounce of his brow as he found a new topic with the flick of his wrist, "Does that bastard child of yours know what you and I know? About why you've been standing in that circle looking so forlorn."

"Yes, Edward knows what this can do," the eldest person in the room replied.

Envy mulled the answer over, humming his slow thoughts with amusement, "I'm assuming you didn't tell him, that he sort of figured it out on his own after a bit of help," he waved his hands around, wishing for impossible inhuman strength, "because god forbid you let anything happen to that precious little whelp of a son you dote on."

Hohenheim's words grew colder than the winter chill in the stone, "Envy…"

Envy twisted Adolf's face in thought, "I can't call him 'little' or crack short jokes now, can I? That bastard child of yours grew up. He needs a new nickname," he gave a wag of his finger to the old man, "I bet you didn't tell him everything. You want to be his sweet old daddy; too busy trying to keep his fragile hopes alive. You don't have the balls to ruin his half metal life again."

The laugh Hohenheim rattled in his chest shook the air. With a toss of his brow and stiff jaw, he looked back upon his sin, "If you tell Edward there is nothing he can do on this side of the Gate to get back to the Gate doors, he's not going to believe you. Because you are you."

"And if you tell him the same thing, because you are you, he won't believe you either," Envy rolled his jaw, grinding the thought up in his teeth, "because he would think you are simply trying to be fatherly and protect him with discouragement. You've let it go on so long, now you've set him up to fail. You're such a shitty father, why did you even bother?" a malicious shot of amusement crashed through Envy's borrowed eyes as he watched the solid figure of a man once known as Father simmer in his own rage, "The only way someone on this side has any contact with the other side, is if someone back there figures out how to trigger it. So, you and I, we get to watch the HalfMetal Alchemist run himself in circles, dragging that pet girl along with him, looking for an answer that doesn't exist. I find that rather comical."

"I don't," Hohenheim's words shook the cement walls.

"Guess who's to blame for that? You should have told him to give it up right from the day he got here." Envy scoffed at him; shaking his head, he looked to the domed ceiling, "Or maybe…maybe you were kind of hoping that shit child of yours would find something you hadn't – because I'll give the Half Metal kid this: he's smart. Maybe he can find a way to get all of us home again, something you and I managed to miss." The clap of Adolf's polished shoes echoed with the footsteps Envy began to take as he walked a wide circle around the rim of the hall, kicking his feet forward playfully and childishly with each step, gleefully holding Hohenheim in the fringes of his vision, "But then again, this world is the perfect out for you – you have to die here. I guarantee you, if you were to go home, your instincts would kick in when your body is on its last legs, and you would FIND a way to transfer your soul again." The heel of his right shoe scraped on the cement as Envy slowly stopped, "I remember a time, years and years ago, when you tried to let yourself die, and you failed miserably with that."

Like the tidal wave before fronting a rising storm, Hohenheim marched forwards, fists clenched, with rage in his eyes, "I've had quiet enough of you for tonight."

Before the torrential wave could get close, Envy threw his borrowed head back, huffed a sigh into the air, and suddenly had Hohenheim stopped at gunpoint, "Down, doggie."

Hohenheim narrowed an eye, "A firearm? How degrading for you."

"I know," Envy's eyes widened, playfully horrified with himself, "but like I said, I'm feeling a little earthbound. I'd love to run my fist through your chest like I did your son," the delightedly wishful look on Envy's face faded suddenly, "and you know what, for some reason that stupid little fucker is still alive. Do you know how much that pisses me off?" Cold, dark eyes looked Hohenheim over slowly, "I want to shred you with my bare hands and decorate this hall with your insides, but I don't have the strength for all of that anymore. I think if I reached over and tried to rip out your ribs with these dull fingers, just so I could paint the walls red with your spongy heart, I wouldn't get too far with that. Poor Adolf would find the trigger and kick me out." A scowl began to crop into Adolf's face, creasing his nose and streaking his brow, "I can feel him churning at the thought." Envy's brow popped up playfully again, waggling the gun in his hand with amusement, "So, what is it they say here? When in Rome?"

"What do you want from me, Envy?" Hohenheim boomed, "this has gone on far too long."

Envy threw the voice he used around the room, "Don't be a senile old bastard! I want to spill your blood on this floor, and I know you're not stupid enough to think you're getting out of here before I pull this trigger," the crass voice tried so hard to shred the cement walls that encased this moment, "and then I'll let this world have its way with that only son of yours, because I will have had my way with you. I will watch him suffer until his death."

Hohenheim blinked; unmoving, unwavering, "I have two sons. Both Edward and Alphonse are my sons."

The darkness of the room's aura thickened, "You don't seem to think the younger one is very important to you. You don't even acknowledge he exists."

"Because, the alternative was to speak of Alphonse as though he were dead. Edward and I would have none of that," the Elric father spoke of a years-old decision, standing strong and without fear of his raging sin threatening to quake the earth, "but, a child needs no other reason to be important to his or her parents than simply being their child. Both of them are important to me, even if I'm the poorest parent to show it."

A sick, dark look flooded out from the hate of envy, blackening the hall and casting away any illusion of moonlight as the demon's voice entered again, "And they somehow corrected the first family you fucked up?"

"No, nothing could ever correct that mistake."

The stain glass window decorations high above could have shattered into a thousand pieces, the glass could have crashed to the cement flooring like heavy rain, and the cold winter air could have flooded in until flesh froze to death, and neither occupant of this cement hall would have noticed.

"… Mistake?" Adolf's voice repeated the answer like Envy hadn't heard the words properly.

Hohenheim paused, thinking over his statement, "Until we reached a certain point, I had a wonderful relationship with Dante; that was not a mistake. And my first son's life was not a mistake, his death was not a mistake, but everything I did for my family after he died was a mistake," spoken with cold, cruel, unequivocal truth, "that makes you a mistake, Envy. You are a mistake. I told you this the last time we spoke."

A wordless, unreadable exchange took place between a father that no longer was and his punishment that haunted him in every life he lived.

"And I told you last time we spoke, I would kill you," bold, heavy words were spoken. Envy brought up the strong arm of the man who someday would try to conquer all, and cocked the handgun, "and I will watch to see how the HalfMetal Alchemist fairs against the repercussions of his old man's sins."

Hohenheim stood square to the figure staring him down, his feet firmly planted to the earth, head bowed just enough that he could use his own eyes to see clearly over the rims of his glasses, "I do believe, jealousy is at the heart of all envy."

His sin laughed at him, "Yes, it is."


"Welcome to the Gate, Alphonse Elric," a little girl's voice cried out, all too joyous about the event.

Al was almost certain he was one sudden movement away from being violently sick to his stomach. He picked his head up slowly, and looked out into a white expanse of nothingness.

"The trip isn't always so pleasant the first time around, and you're here for your first time in a completely different way than anyone else has first experienced the Gate. Diana has escorted you, and you've sacrificed nothing. It's probably a little different feeling for you," Dante mulled the thought over, trying to recall a very old sensation, "but I've been here, and your father has been here, your teacher has been here, your brother has been here, and in a manner of speaking, your mother has been here as well."

If she kept talking, Al was certain he was going to be sick. Slowly he sat back on his knees and cautiously peered over his shoulder. His hands shook like the nerves in his body had been shocked, and he gripped onto his hooded jacket to calm his body down.

Dante turned away from the black, gaping mouth of the Gate. With her hands on her hips, she continued to hold her grin wide for her captive Elric to see, "And now you are here! It's a family affair, more or less."

Alphonse moved from his knees to his backside, sitting on a white surface that gave off no sensation; neither warm nor cold, smooth nor coarse – just simply a surface he sat on. He looked up to the yawning hole of the Gate, unable to escape the intangible crush that seemed to weigh on him from it. His eyes caught Diana, held high in the grasp of stone arms above the Gate. Her cry was faint. The sensations that overwhelmed Al at his arrival slowly began to fade. Finding that the tremble of his hands had lessened, and hints of strength were returning to his body, Al pushed to his feet.

"So, this is what you will do, Alphonse Elric: you will find a way to extract your brother from beyond the Gate, while I try to sweep up these lose ends falling away around the country," she gave a dismissive wave of her hands before skipping a few steps towards him, "I'm a talented woman, but if I can delegate at least one or two things, I'd function so much better."

"I won't help you," Al told her again, "I won't bring my brother back if I know you're going to torture him into giving you information."

"I won't torture him," Dante rolled her eyes at the thought, quite insistent about her methods, "I'm only going to extract information, and as long as everyone is cooperative, it won't hurt, and I won't leave his mind in any kind of vegetative state."

Al's blood rose, boiling into his ears.

Turning from the young Elric, Dante smiled to herself as she re-approached the Gate. She looked up to Diana, cradled high in the arms of stone corpses that lined the frame of the Gate; the infant was silent. Her eyes lowered into the black abyss again, a 'thing' that had embodied her frustrations. With another step towards the Gate, Dante's right foot came down to the floor, and her step made an odd squish as she shifted her weight to the leg.

Dante stopped abruptly, blinking down to her feet.

Alphonse looked to her as well, finding the sound odd and out of place – there were no sounds here beyond their voices.

Staring down, Dante curiously looked at a thick crimson liquid pooling around her feet, slowly leaking out from the base of the Gate. It was such a potent, dark red at the door's baseline seam, that it looked nearly as black as the Gate's abyss. Bending over, Dante swept the tip of her index finger through the liquid, and brought a sample back up to eye level.

Alphonse watched an obvious change in Dante's posture, while the substance continued to slowly spread out along the surface.

"Blood?" Dante's brow rose.

"Blood?" Al repeated in alarm. It was impossible for Dante to make her voice low enough that he couldn't hear in a space without any other sound.

Dante took another step, this one backwards, and yet again the sloshing sound came out as her feet moved around. Her eyes shifted between the Gate and the run of thick blood coating the indistinguishable white floor. Alphonse had no idea what to expect from the Gate, but he honestly didn't believe this was something that should be there at all, if Dante's reaction was any indication.

"What the hell is going on?" Dante couldn't shield the concern in her voice, and she sharply turned to her company, "are you causing this?"

Al's eyes flew wide at the accusation, stepping away from Dante and the spill, "How am I causing anything?"

Dante brushed her finger off on her skirt, looking up at the massive expanse of the Gate, "Maybe bringing you here had an effect on it, since you've been in the Gate's possession before?" Dante stepped up to the Gate despite what was at her feet, her thoughts audible as she walked up and placed her fingers in the black tar of the opened door, "but, I've never seen this before. Something must be present that wasn't present before."

Dante turned away from the monumental problem, and began to approach Alphonse. She opened her mouth to speak again, but was silenced by a rumble; a rumble at the core of existence. Alphonse felt the vibration too, and grabbed the front of his shirt, again stepping away. Dante's attention swung back over her shoulder to the void of the Gate, and she quickly began to move away from the structure, "Again?"

"Again?" Alphonse shrieked, his voice pitching as the rumble grew stronger, "again what?"

"The Gate rumbled like this when Brigitte came through… but it seized with power for her and didn't bleed. What the hell is this?" she continued to back away as the rumble grew stronger still, like standing in the path of a thundering freight train that bore down on them.

"We should leave, Dante!" Al yelled at her, but both figures suddenly found themselves frozen, like deer caught in headlights, and something passed through the Gate. Al flinched when it struck, raising his arms and curling away in defence. A wave of energy passed through him, touching every fiber of his being; it felt similar to the sensation he would get when he was acutely aware of his existence each time he'd perform a transmutation. Except… he hadn't attempted alchemy. No one had. The sensation passed almost instantly, vanishing like it had never happened, and the world at the Gate went silent again. In retrospect, the thundering locomotive that had bore down on them passed by like nothing more intimidating than a light summer breeze. It had faintly tickled.

Baby Diana began to howl.

Alphonse straightened up and looked to the Gate. The blood was gone. Everything was cleaned to white again. The doors were still open, the world beyond dark as pitch, and high above, Diana screamed like only an unsettled infant could. There was no way Alphonse could get up there to reach her and calm her.

"Dante…" Al's call of her name cautiously escaped him, yet he received no response; he could only hear the shrill scream of Diana's cry.

"Dante?"

Al's eyes shifted around. The old alchemist no longer stood where she'd once been. His eyes shot around, seeing nothing but white endlessness and the dark monstrosity of the Gate. He threw his head around to every angle imaginable, above himself and below his feet as well. There was nothing. No one. She was gone. Alphonse looked at the Gate, realizing that he was the only one standing there, and he had no idea how to get away from it.

 


 

Thursday, December 29, 1921. 10:08PM

 

One street light at the end of the block was all that lit the sidewalk, weakly showing the way to the Thule Hall entrance. Ed looked over his shoulder at Winry, and she let out a white puff of her breath into the chilled air.

"I think I ate way too much," Winry wrapped her arms around her stomach, "I think I actually feel full and that's not normal."

"Told you it was a good place," Ed fiddled with the keys in his left pocket, "one of the best restaurants in town."

"Still tasted like cardboard," Winry paused before smirking, watching as Ed rolled his eyes at her, "but it was really good cardboard, so it gets an A+ for cardboard."

"I'm glad it met your approval," he drawled out, looking ahead to the church doors. A restless thought for the monumental task of the Thule hall diagram lay ahead. Winry's hand startled Ed a bit as it landed on his shoulder. He looked at her as she grinned with an infusion of confidence.

"Come on. I'd actually like to get some sleep tonight," she was the one with the note pad, pen, and measuring tape in her purse, "I need to help get my men some alchemy numbers to chew on for the next few months."

Ed's brow rose, following Winry as she walked ahead, "Your men? Since when are Dad and I 'your men'?"

She shrugged playfully, putting a grin over her shoulder before stepping up to the church doors.

The only thing that Ed's light hearted words and Winry's casual playing did for the evening was serve as a damper for how they did not care for the building they were entering. The church at street level was a little guise above the location where the actual gatherings took place. It was a religious cavern of nightmares – a place where Edward watched his sense of humanity rot away, and where Winry had spent days of terror without dignity. Neither wanted to be here, but both had decided it was right. Their fears were told to shiver in a corner, because there was something excruciatingly important in the bowels of this world. After entering, Ed turned back and locked the doors behind them.

"Oh!" Winry tried to talk over the unease as she looked up to the ceiling that locked out the Munich evening, "so, for some reason, I got a crazy idea yesterday while I was looking at the airplane schematics, about what to do about getting you a right arm again."

Ed snorted, shaking his head as he walked into the building, cutting a path down the centre isle, "If you are going to fuse me to an airplane in any way, shape, or form, the answer is no."

"Idiot," Winry wrinkled her nose, stalling in her thoughts at the center of the building, "It was just some inspiration that hit me while I was looking at things. We've been busy and we haven't really discussed it. I think I should work on something to get you properly fixed up, until we get home again."

"If you want to make it, go for it," Ed stopped and looked back to Winry, watching as she slowly pulled herself along, her eyes capturing the interior of the building surrounding them. "Hey, you don't have to come down if you don't want to," he drew out his words carefully, knowing that this place might unsettle her more than it did him, "you can stay up here or I can walk you back home. I'm not going to force you to go back down there. Dad and I can take care of things ourselves if you don't want to be here."

Winry shook her head quickly, "No way in hell I'm staying up here all by myself," she scampered down the centre isle to meet up with him, "and it'll take too long to get home. Besides, I got all dressed up for dinner, and I should see what your dad thinks of my efforts. I don't need Mathilde to dress me up all the time to look like I can fit in here."

"She'll be heartbroken," Ed rolled his eyes at her.

"I even got all my hair to stay up on my head, and then somehow got my winter hat on. Good job, team me," Winry patted herself on the back as she patted the collection of twirled hair strands pinned to her head.

"You're insane," Ed gave her a twisted look, "Why are you being so fussy about how you look? You've never been fussy about how you look; it's weird. It's like you're a girl or something."

"You are such an ass," she hissed before straightening herself out and trying to stand a little taller, "you told me I had to be this fussy, so start giving me points for trying to pull off these frumpy dresses everyone wears."

Ed looked as though he wanted to laugh, but didn't, he just rolled his eyes once more and held up his left hand, "You get five points."

Winry looked back at him with mock horror, "Only five?"

"Yeah, only five."

Ed reached out for a door at the side, stage left of everything, and slipped a key into the lock of the Thule hall door. He gave it a sharp twist with his wrist, and swung it open. Edward took a few steps inside the door before he reemerged with a lantern in his hand. Winry sifted through her purse to find a match to light it, and she struck it firmly over the frame of the door, soon giving life to the container in Ed's hand.

Since the first day Edward could remember, the cement and cobblestone stairwell to the Thule hall smelt like what he thought being trapped in a water-well shaft would smell like. The hall itself was more or less dry, but the stairwell seemed to suck up all the moisture between the church above and hall below. It was bitterly cold in the winter. The fact it had no lighting only added to the effect. Ed made the abrupt conclusion years ago that he never wanted to get trapped in a well.

At the bottom of the stairwell was something like a small rotunda, before it ballooned into the hall. Without taking more than a few steps, both Edward and Winry came to a silent stop at the bottom of the stairs, looking out into the Thule hall. The entire room was sunken in darkness – even the clouds had decided to swallow the moonlight from the glass overhead.

"Dad?" Ed called into the stone room's echo.

A precautionary hand came up to Ed's empty shoulder, and Winry made sure that the one place darkness was not, was between the two of them, "Um…" her eyes shifted hesitantly, her voice locked below the echo of the room, "there's no one down here…"

Ed lowered his brow at the scene, scoffing indignantly as he walked forwards, "He's supposed to be here." He swung the lantern forwards, throwing the light ahead. Ed held the light high while his feet came to stand at the point where the rough cobblestone and cement bricks yawned widely into the open core of the hall. With calculated effort, the hall slowly accepted the light Edward offered.

The heart of this world was poisoned, as far as Ed had ever been concerned. He'd been dropped off in England in 1916, at the height of the Great War, and watched as portions of the world tried to destroy itself. Men had moments when Ed thought they liked the taste of blood better than the taste of wine. Of all the people in the world he'd encountered with a taste for man's blood, the members of the Thule Society were the neatest and tidiest villains he'd ever met. They were moderately wealthy, moderately powerful, and all people of 'proper' statute. They were an elite group of hand-picked people who had a narrow view on what mankind should be. They had an order about their business that nobody tampered with.

Contrary to Thule behaviour, a body's shadow lay on their centerpiece, illuminated poorly by the lantern held high by a flesh hand. A body that, under any other circumstance would not, and should not, be there. Dead bodies were discarded by means Edward did not know. They were showcases, but were never meant to be left to rot. This body was on display though, laid out on its stomach, arms out, and face down. It was a heavy body beneath a black trench coat, dressed in a fine pair of shoes that Edward Elric knew had been purchased in London years ago.

"Dad?"

There was no answer, just the echo of his childish voice in the dome.

Edward did not react to the sudden grip of Winry's hand at his chest, or to the frantic voice that said something to him that he couldn't hear. His eyes swallowed the poisonous world shrouded in darkness; drank it down like water. It spread through his body with the pumping of his blood, numbing to the tips of the fingers, causing the lantern to crash on the floor.

 


To Be Continued...


Chapter 33: Der gute Kamerad

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Friday, December 30, 1921. 12:08AM

 

There was a verbal explosion when Haushofer and Hess arrived. Everyone had heard them coming from up above. An officer, one of many, all who seemed none too comfortable about the location where they were, looked over when the two men had came in. The lanterns provided the only light, the moon was hidden behind the clouds above, and Hess slammed his lantern down at the side of the hall. Like a raging bull, Hess stormed around amongst the uniformed men, his voice crashing. The elder Haushofer stood a little calmer, stiff with his emotions but no less unnerved. When the professor spoke, his voice only came up where he felt it was appropriate. A young man in uniform approached Haushofer and spoke with him. After a surge of sudden anger ripped through the older man's disposition, Haushofer tore a clipboard out of the officer's hands. He looked at the clipboard, read it a few times, not caring how long it took to do so. The officer stood silent next to him, waiting for his documents to be returned to him.

Hess's voice, tangled in an uproar, vanished for a few moments and he walked back to Haushofer. With a hand to the older man's shoulder, Hess passed on a verbal piece of information, and had his companion turn over his shoulder. There was a problem back against the wall. Hess began to walk towards it, his rage sullied – now composed and silent, stopping and crouching down in front of the side wall.

Edward sat on the floor, back pressed up against the wall; he gave a passing acknowledgement of Hess with a disinterested look. His colourless expression was unreadable. His posture was sloppy, he sat lazily, like he'd fallen on his backside there, or someone had dropped him like a raggedy toy. Winry sat next to him, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her right hand had captured Ed's left and pinned it between them.

Where Ed was nothing more than a white sheet, Winry had taken possession of all the flesh colour between the two of them. Her face was flushed, her eyes bloodshot, and Hess thought she looked a little sick. A couple of the ties of hair that she'd pinned up on her head had fallen out.

Hess asked Edward a menial question, and another, and again; useless questions where the answer was obvious, but someone feels the need to ask anyways. The more questions Hess asked, the more concerned he grew, because the majority of replies were given in English. He had to ask Edward to repeat nearly every one of his answers, suspecting that Ed was unaware of what he was doing.

Hess sat down on the floor at Ed's empty right shoulder, brushing his hands off over the knees of his pants before looking out into the hall. He came to the conclusion that perhaps none of them should be sitting at this vantage point. There was a body in this line of sight with a white blanket over it. Hess turned to Ed again with something to say, but stopped and watched Winry stare at him. He wasn't certain which one of the two was harder to focus on, Ed because there was absolutely nothing to see on him, or Winry because there was so much. Every breath she took trembled, in contrast to Edward who was clam and docile. She stared at Hess where he sat. Hess almost considered getting up and rejoining Haushofer. Under any other circumstance, he would have laughed in amusement at how the look in someone's eye, a girl's eyes, had the audacity to so poignantly instruct him to leave.

Haushofer knelt down near Ed's partially outstretched legs, and picked up where the menial questions had left off.

Hess eyed the fingers of two hands woven together and pinned between the two bodies. The furrow in his brow tightened, eyeing how the knuckles on Ed's hand were strained as white as his complexion. Hess wondered if Winry's hand was hurting from his grip.

 


 

Friday, December 30, 1921. 3:17AM

 

The rumble of a car engine went silent, and the click of a door handle snapped open, then the whole thing slammed shut again without much time in between. A tired looking man glanced around at the lingering gathering of people and officers outside this religious facility.

"Are you Hermann Oberth?" a voice called.

"Yes," Hermann answered.

A man with a strong, right arm and thick, brown hair reached out to shake Oberth's hand, "Rudolf Hess." He introduced himself.

Under any other circumstance, there were honestly a million other things Oberth would have wanted to talk to Hess about, the man's name was prominent and familiar, but he couldn't entertain those thoughts, "What in God's name happened here?" he took the firm handshake Hess gave him and proceeded to march towards the open doors of a shoddy, street level church, "what kind of accident? Are Edward and Winry alright?"

"They're inside," Hess stopped the man's movements with a firm hand to his shoulder. His words neither paused for thought nor consideration of remorse; he spoke with fact, "Hohenheim was killed earlier tonight."

Hermann blinked back at Hess, not certain if he'd heard it right, "What?"

"Down in the hall."

"I'm sorry, what?" Hermann repeated, sweeping his winter hat off his head, "Professor Hohenheim?" it was an absurd statement to attempt to confirm someone with a unique name like that, but he did anyways, "What?" his head shook in disbelief, "How? Are you serious?"

"Yes," Hess gave a nod of confirmation, "they took his body away about an hour ago."

"What?" the facts were not sinking in, "By whom? When?"

Hess looked to his watch, running the times through his head. The night was a blur; a little hard for anyone to compose, "Before midnight sometime, I can't recall exactly."

Hermann fluttered the beginning syllables of a few words that he chose not to use, before running his hands over his face, exhaling heavily, "How did he die?"

The question brought an uncomfortable pause to Hess that Oberth had not wanted to see, "Gunshot wound, they think," he cleared his throat, "but there were other injuries though, so his body will be examined."

Unable to force himself to process the outstanding and bewildering information, Hermann's wide eyes drilled around the landscape, "This is Hohenheim Elric, who on earth would even…"

Hess shook his head, "I have no idea."

With another weighted exhale, not certain if the knowledge was honestly setting in, Herman slipped his hat back on, "Who found him?"

There was that unsettling shift again that Hess had, and his eyes moved to the lit entrance ahead, "Edward and Winry did."

"Oh God," Hermann's hands came back to scrape over his face, "they found him like that?"

"Yes," there was an abundance of deep concern that Hess tried to hide in his voice, "Can you take care of them tonight? I don't think they should head home on their own, or at all, for now. I'd ask Karl, but Hohenheim was a good friend, I don't think burdening him with Edward and Winry is particularly fair to him at the moment."

"Absolutely," Oberth gave his response without hesitation.

"Edward has said that Winry's tired and she wants to go. I won't disagree with him, but I suspect the statement applies to both of them," Hess gave a momentary glance to the entrance, "so give them a good bed tonight if you can."

Again, a heavy sigh moved out of Hermann's lungs, creating a momentary white cloud in the chilly air. He turned away from the man he'd conversed with, and returned to approaching the building, "Are they up here or down in the hall?"

"Up here," Hess called, "just inside the doors, in the pews on your left."

 


 

Friday December 30, 1921. 8:35PM

 

Edward couldn't account for Winry, since he hadn't seen her in some time. He had slept for twelve hours, waking up sometime between five and six late that afternoon. He'd since laid on his back on the Oberth's couch for hours, just staring up at the white ceiling – it was in the way of his line of sight and nothing more. He wanted to go back to sleep. That wasn't forthcoming.

Without thought to his actions, Ed stood up. He was stiff, and he stretched a little to try and work that out. The decision was reached that he wanted a shower. He didn't ask if anyone else in the Oberth house wanted to use it or needed the hot water for other things, he just grabbed some towels from the linen closet and gave himself a shower. The faux left leg was discarded in the corner of the room and he took the shower sitting down; he didn't feel like standing on one leg for it. The longer the shower went, the more the tub faucet became an object like the ceiling, and item in the way of his line of sight. Unlike the ceiling, Ed continued to be distracted from it, the soap intermittently slipped from his hand. After the fourth time he'd fumbled it, Ed snatched it back from the drain, and threw it so hard against the tile wall that the ivory bar cracked. It fell back down to the drain catch in two pieces. Sometime later, he took them out, put them in the soap dish, and turned off the shower.

The hot water had been running cold.

He stood in the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and another that wrapped his hair. He'd put the other leg back on, but he wasn't standing, the wall held him up. Once in a while he'd get a thought that involved putting his pants back on and leaving the room, but he always managed to lose the thought. No particular thought stuck around long enough for Ed to remember to act on it. The towel on his head kept sliding, so he re-tied it. Eventually, he threw the towel from around his waist up around his neck and put his pants back on. His hand firmly gripped the door handle, giving the knob a fierce wrench to comply, before finally leaving the room.

Ed returned to the couch where he'd spent the last many hours. The towel shifted on his head again when he sat, and he looked to Hermann who'd taken a seat in the room.

"How're you doing?"

Ed's brow wrinkled a bit, "When Winry's up, have her look at the doorknob upstairs. I think it's buggered."

Hermann nodded, accepting the non-response from Ed, "Did you sleep well?"

"I slept fine," he looked to the couch where he had indeed slept fine, "how's Winry doing?"

"She's alright. Sleeping last I checked."

Ed sighed, again adjusting the stubbornly uncooperative towel on his head.

Hermann's gaze shifted in the room, excessively passive with his forthcoming words, "Do you know what happened to her wrist, though?"

"Her wrist?" Ed looked at the man, "what's wrong with her wrist?"

The man of the house shook his head like the question lacked concern, "I wrapped her wrist this morning when she was up, it seemed to be bothering her. She wasn't very interested in letting me handle it, and Mathilde and I couldn't get enough of a conversation going with Winry to find out more. The languages caused a bit of a problem."

"Oh," Ed paused for a few moments before he shook his head, "I don't know, sorry."

"That's fine," Hermann dismissed the question, watching as Ed again fussed over the towel on his head.

Ed snorted in frustration with the towel that was refusing to sit properly on his head. A heavy seam slashed through his brow for a moment. Ed ripped the towel off his head and threw it harshly to the corner of the couch. He looked at it for a moment, and then looked back to Hermann who stared at him. The two men sat without a word between them for several minutes.

Hermann drew to his feet, "I'll get Tilly to grab you something to eat."

"I'm not hungry, Hermann."

"You haven't had anything to eat since dinner last night, let Tilly get you something."

Ed sighed.

 


 

Saturday, December 31, 1921. 09:29AM

 

Ed stood silently in the entryway of his father's house. The curtains were still pulled from the days before when he'd shut them for the evening. Everything was dark, daylight occasionally filtering in around the window dressings. Ed had been standing at the front door for far too long without the threat of motion. His hand still gripped the doorknob, unable to move through the house and cut a path in the air to start this day. Eventually, Edward's hand fumbled with the doorknob on the front door; he latched it shut to keep the cool air from pooling at his feet. The sealing of the door had made a horrible, hollow sound through the house. Ed hadn't been home in a few days, and the house smelt a little stale and a bit stuffy.

Ed slid out of his boots, stepping out of his right boot, but not managing a clean escape for his left foot. He shook his foot free, and the boot thumped to the mat. He finally cut his path through the core of the silent house, like he was the ghost. He drifted through the living room to get to his father's study. The Christmas tree was still up. Ed eyed it, not sure what to do about it, before deciding there was nothing to do about the tree right now, and he entered the study. The study door was never locked and rarely sealed, so Ed easily made his way in. He didn't busy himself with anything else in the room – he went straight for the filing cabinet. Grabbing the desk chair, Ed swung it over to the cabinet and sat down, pulling out the lowest drawer. He leafed through papers tucked away in folders, extracting sheets of interest and placing them on the desk. A black, wool sweater was still thrown over the back of the chair Ed sat on; his dad always kept a sweater there in the winter. Ed eventually took it off the chair and laid it down on the desk. There was no longer a point in having his father's sweater over the back of the chair.

A collection of papers soon gathered on the desk. Abruptly, Ed left the room like an ordered soldier, making his way through the preserved house to the entry hall closet. Ed took his briefcase from the closet, tucked it under his arm when his hand wouldn't catch the handle properly, and returned to the study. He dumped the briefcase on his father's desk, snapped the latches open with two emphatic clicks, and began stuffing papers inside of it. At the end of the self-appointed order, the latches snapped shut, sealing Hohenheim's records within his son's briefcase louder than any action Ed had taken so far that day. He left his father's study, leaving the door open like it would normally be found.

Ed dropped the briefcase at the bottom of the stairs with an echo and went up to the second floor. The sound of his feet in the stairwell was deafening in the empty house. From the hallway linen closet, Ed extracted a fairly large, but unremarkable fabric shoulder bag from a collection of random things. Edward paused, indecisive on where to go next, before picking the easy option and going to his room, struggling with the door knob as he entered. Ed pulled out drawers to his dresser and opened his closet with a clatter as he began rummaging through his belonging. He grabbed changes of clothes without concern for what he was wearing; it didn't matter to him. With the easy task swiftly completed, Ed took a deep breath and went to Winry's room next. He returned to being a soldier ordered to a task, and Ed repeated the motion of gathering clothes. He forcefully shut out the conflict that existed between consciously thinking about what Winry may or may not want to wear, and the idea he was rummaging through a young woman's wardrobe. Ed left Winry's room once he was satisfied with what he'd collected, fumbling with the doorknob as he shut her door behind himself. The final task directed Ed to the washroom where he collected a handful of toiletries. They were wrapped in a hand towel, and added it to the collection of things in the bag.

Ed looked down the hall as he finished, to the open door of his father's empty bedroom. The room was bright, and the only room with curtains open to let in any light. He dropping the fabric bag in the middle of the floor with a thump and soldiered his way into his father's bedroom. The goal had been to walk straight to the curtains and shut them, but his feet stopped just past the doorway. Ed rarely went into his father's room for any reason; all the man ever did was sleep and dress in this room. Hohenheim lived in his study. Edward instructed his legs to move so he could shut the curtains, and with two swift swings of his arm, he shut the light out. Ed turned around to look at the empty bedroom: bed made, clothes folded, and things put away. Anything that wasn't 'away' was piled carefully where his dad had last left it. The closet door had been left open, like his father had meant to come back for something, but left the house without returning for it. Ed abruptly closed the closet as he made his way out of the room; whatever his dad had forgotten wasn't going to be remembered. Ed clumsily shut the door to his father's room, making too much noise as he did so.

Ed snatched up the bag from the floor, but stopped before taking his first step down the stairs. He turned over his shoulder and pulled himself back to Winry's room. He fumbled with her door handle as he reopened it. Ed stood and looked through Winry's room; to her dresser, to the corners of her room, to her window, and finally to her unmade bed. Nothing he saw interested him. He moved to her bed lifted away the mess of sheets she'd piled on the mattress, his eyes looking around and finding nothing he wanted. Dropping the sheets, Ed moved her pillow aside and uncovered what he'd been looking for. Ed picked up the Christmas doll from beneath her pillow. Maybe Winry would want this: a trinket from home, always made as a gift, created with the knowledge two little boys had gained after they'd gone through their father's books without permission. Ed silently tucked that away in the bag. He left the room without trying to grab the door.

Returning downstairs, there was little else Ed could take with him from this house right now, except for something from the bear jar in the kitchen. Edward shut out the rest of the house and created a tunnel that lead him to the jar on the kitchen counter. He popped the head off the porcelain bear and fished out some of its contents. Coins clattered to the floor when he tried to stuff the handful into an inside pocket of his coat. Ed crouched down and began the task of slowly picking up the fallen pieces. The task became tiresome, and he only retrieved coins that had some kind of significant value; he stuffed those away, and left the rest where they lay. He'd pick them up later. Ed returned the head to the jar, and considered returning the jar to the shelf where it had once sat. He concluded two steady hands were needed for the task. Ed swiftly ended his encounter with the kitchen, and returned to the hall.

With the bag of clothing and random bits still over his shoulder, Ed snatched up his briefcase from the floor, returned his feet to his boots, and moved to the front door. A pause came before he'd actually reached for this doorknob. The son's face twitched. Ed stood facing the front door for a few, long moments before turning and looking back into the house.

The house still looked the same as it had a few days ago. It looked the same as it would when he'd come home in the middle of the day because something had been forgotten. The same as it would when he'd get home from work. The same as it would when he'd come downstairs and his dad was nowhere to be found, because he was in his study grading papers.

Except, that the house now smelt stale because there was nobody around to stir the air.

Ed finally left the house, telling himself he could walk away from this.

 


 

Saturday, December 31, 1921. 11:15AM

 

Winry was quiet, sitting silent and cross-legged on her borrowed bed. She'd stalled there and never recovered. She had no idea how long she'd been there, daydreaming of nothing. She wished she could get out, but seemed unable to break the button that paused her life. Someone thankfully had the audacity to break it for her when her door swung open. Surprised, she looked up at Edward, who'd left unannounced an hour or so before.

"Where did you go?"

"Here," Ed tossed the half-full shoulder bag to her, "change of clothes."

"Thanks…?" she eyeballed the fabric lump suddenly in her arms.

"I'll be downstairs for a bit, there's somebody here I'm supposed to talk to," Ed's tone held perfect and flat.

Winry fought against the weight of her frown, "What's it about?"

"I don't know," a monotone response came out as he spoke, "funeral things. I went home and grabbed papers from the study, they can pick out what they want from it."

It sounded suspiciously like he'd known what documents to fetch, but Winry didn't want to press, "Do you want me to come down with you?"

"No," Ed turned away to leave, "it'll be in German anyways, you won't understand it."

"That's okay. I can still come, if you want," she made sure the offer was known.

Ed shook his head, "No, it's fine."

Again, Winry didn't push, "Okay."

Edward was nearly gone, his hand to the doorknob pulling it shut again, before he stopped, and put his voice back in the room, "Is your wrist alright?"

Winry's lower lip caught in her teeth and she looked down at it sheepishly, "It's fine, just a little sore; I slept on it funny I think. Hermann overreacted; I couldn't tell him he was being silly."

"Alright," Ed pulled the door shut.

Staring at the sealed frame, Winry coaxed herself out of the stall she'd been stuck in, and she dumped the contents of the bag Edward had given her onto the sheets. She crawled off the bed to examine the findings. A decision was reached on what to wear: a skirt and sweater on the top of the pile. Winry stood in front of the little round mirror atop the table in the room, fixed her hair with the brush from the bag, and decided to brave the house.

By the time she stood in the hall, the house was angry. It wasn't red, flaming anger, but it was an angry element within the muffled sound of Edward's German voice that heated the house. Winry slipped down the stairs without a sound. None of the unknown voices he conversed with were raised, in fact, everything was quite calm, but Ed had a skill of projecting anger and annoyance into his voice, similar to how his father projected power. The more she listened to the conversation from the house hallway, the more she was certain the tone he had was unnerving the people with him. She stood outside the room of conversation, listening to the verbal exchanges in a language she'd given up trying to understand. Eventually, things went silent.

Ed suddenly emerged from the room and made a sharp turn for the front door – Winry startled at his exit, but she was out of his line of sight, and he hadn't noticed her. When Hermann appeared, a bundle of papers in hand, Edward's voice began to rise like rage in a volcano, and he spun around to address him. The volcano quelled when Ed caught Winry in his sights beyond Hermann's shoulder. The man of the house turned to her as well. She stared back at them, her eyes asked nothing of Hermann, but she requested to know from Ed what he was doing as he took his coat into his arms.

No answer was given. Ed threw the coat over his shoulders, slammed his feet into his boots, and left.

Winry didn't look at Hermann, she just took herself back up to her room. Her feet made no sound to her ears as she climbed the stairs. The door to the spare room made no sound either when it was closed. With a heaving motion, Winry swept the clothes she'd dumped on the bed to the floor, at which point everything stopped. She stared at the pile of clothes – her doll's head peeked out at her from within the mess. Winry reached down and pulled the poor thing out. She stood in the middle of this spare room and stared at it in her hands, slowly losing track of time. Eventually, Winry laid herself down on the bed, the doll still tucked away in her hands, and curled up into the pillow.

 


 

6:03PM

 

Ed watched from the corner of his eye as Hermann sat down on the coffee table and took Winry's right arm from her. She protested, standing up to leave the room. Hermann caught her and sat her back down again. He unwrapped her wrist while her eyes looked deep into her lap. Ed watched Hermann turn her wrist over, moving it for her a little. Winry winced, though she tried very hard not to. The man of the house said something to her in a quiet voice that Ed did not register, and Winry couldn't understand, as he re-wrapped everything. She sunk into the seat cushion when he was finished, her hand resting in her lap, her eyes cast away elsewhere.

Hermann began to talk about arrangements for Hohenheim – the papers from earlier – and Ed's ears slowly turned him out. He gave some generic and useless answers to questions before shutting Hermann out entirely. The man persisted, and Ed got up and briskly went upstairs without regard to anyone. At the top of the staircase, he looked around; there was nothing upstairs for him, since all his things were in that room downstairs. He stood at the door of the spare room Winry had, and wondered why he'd even bothered to approach the room, or if it made any sense for him to go in.

It didn't. He turned around to go back downstairs, but stopped suddenly. Winry stood behind him.

She smiled sheepishly, "We can switch if you like?"

"No, it's fine, it's your room," Ed moved to walk past her, but she grabbed him at his upper arm to stop him.

"What're the papers all about?"

"Things that can be dealt with on Monday."

Winry looked up at him curiously, "Why Monday?"

"Because it's Saturday," his answers were sharp and quick, "it's the weekend. It's New Years Eve. It can get done on Monday. Business gets done on Monday."

She paused a moment before deciding to voice her next statement, "I'm getting the impression it should be done sooner than that, are you sure you want to leave it until Monday?"

Edward's voice tore out at her, ripping his arm from her grasp, "I said I'll do it on Monday, so it's going to get done on fucking Monday, not before and not after."

There was nothing to see but the cold wall in Ed's eyes, and Winry let him storm past her, turning to follow him and stand at the top of the stairs. Ed got to the bottom and took a few steps away. He paused a moment and seemed to debate his options on where he wanted to go in the house. His conclusion was nowhere, and he turned for the front door again.

"Where are you going?" Winry scrambled down the stairs, alarm in her voice and her heart suddenly racing. He'd left twice already that day: once for an hour, once for three hours.

"Out," he announced once his shoes were on and his hand was in the closet for his coat.

Winry looked around frantically before grabbing her boots, "I'm coming."

"No, you're not," Ed snapped, stopping to glare at her.

"Yes, I am," she had her boots on faster than she'd ever managed before.

Again Ed's voice flared up at her, "Fuck Winry! I'm going for a walk, and you're not invited. STAY home."

"Too bad, you can suck it up," she snarled back at him, snatching her coat from the closet, "you can either walk with me or I can follow you, either way I'm coming. Deal with it."

There was a raw and corrupted flash in Ed's eyes. For a moment, and only for a brief moment, Ed considered slapping her – a reaction common to this world that had poisoned him with suggestion over time. The intent must have been written clearly on his face, because the indignant look he got back from Winry dared him to try. What a disgusting, rotted feeling that left him with. His shoulders fell and Edward told Winry she could come with him.

 


 

8:55PM

 

Two foreign people walked like a blizzard through a city that bubbled warm with life. The dark look in Ed's gold eyes tightened as he gazed around at the people mulling about this excited part of town. This country did not have any reason to be joyous, Ed concluded. There was nothing joyous in Germany right now. The country had lost the war and the consequences were ruining them on a daily scale; the whole of the country was wrought in pain, waiting to be taken advantage of. The people swam in the false hope of a new year to simply feel the joy of something again. January 1, 1922 was a good enough reason as any to celebrate nothing.

At least, it put to bed the disaster that was 1921.

Ed looked to Winry who walked along in her own little world, bundled in her winter wears. She hadn't said a thing to him. Ed's eyes mingled in the crowds again. Shops, stores, restaurants, bars, pubs, taverns, holes – they all had their doors open wide. Festive decorations and German flags hung from poles and windows. The further Ed walked, the more robust the places seemed to be.

"In here." Ed grabbed Winry by the hand suddenly, and took her inside a noisy, lively place. A drunk patron stood on stage with some friends, belting out something that wasn't German or English, singing horribly off-key. Pushing through the laughing mulls of people, Ed pulled a bewildered Winry to the bar counter. She swept the hat from her head and pulled the mitts from her fingers once Ed let go, stuffing them inside the hat. Ed slipped up onto an open barstool, Winry joining next to him.

"Edward Elric!" a voice lurched into their ears, spouting off a strange tongue of German, "what the hell're ya doin' 'ere?"

"Hey, Sam," Ed suddenly grinned, like a switch had been thrown and someone else sat next to Winry, "so you do work here."

"I own this place, you ignorant Brit! What the hell are you doing 'ere?" the middle-aged man with ruffled, mouse-brown hair and a soggy white towel thrown over his shoulder leaned over the bar counter, "I haven't seen you in ages. How ya been and who's yer pretty New Years date?"

"This is Winry," Ed's voice rose to stay above the crowd noise, "she's from Sweden."

"No kidding? My eyes tell me it's no lie: Swedish girls are a might pretty," the man extended a hand to Winry, who gave him an uncertain smile as she shook it, "Hello Winry from Sweden, I'm Samuel from Austria. Can I get'cha somethin' to drink, sweetie?"

Ed rolled his eyes, "Fuck Sam, she's Swedish, don't be stupid. She doesn't understand what you're asking."

"Well, how the hell do you talk to her, boy?" the man at the bar threw the question back to Ed with a laugh, "did ya learn Swedish too?"

"She speaks English," he drawled out, as though Sam should have known.

The barkeep's face burst open with a laugh, "A Swedish doll who speaks English out with a British boy who speaks German, drinkin' in the Austrian man's bar in Munich. Something more to add to my memoirs."

Ed laughed as the companion did, "What's on special for tonight, Sam?"

"What? You're drinking? I couldn't have paid ya to go drinkin' with me last time I saw ya," the bar man grinned, suddenly rushing away at the call of a patron.

Ed grinned, mulling his options over, "Winry, what do you want to drink?"

Winry hesitated, not certain how to answer, "I don't know. I didn't come with any money."

"Doesn't matter," Ed continued to grin, like it had been painted on, "I'll cover you."

"With what?" her expression pinched with confusion.

Ed didn't answer, he just kept up a smile to decorate the cold wall he hadn't taken down. Winry folded her arms on the bar counter and looked to Ed. He grinned back at her without substance. She smiled at him anyways, and asked how he knew the bartender. Apparently, Sam was someone Ed had met on the train when he'd gone from Rome to Munich years ago. He'd spent hours telling Ed his simple life plan of running a bar in the country where his Grandparents had lived. Sam had no plans of either being wealthy or of any note to the world – he simply wanted a tavern to baby. He'd gotten his wish.

Sam flew back to the pair on his barstools at the right side of the rounded bar counter, sliding two glasses that hadn't been ordered along the wooden surface into their hands. Two drinks on the house.

By quarter to eleven that night, Ed and Winry would lose track of how much they'd had to drink.

 


 

Sunday January 1, 1922. 3:22AM

 

"Where the hell are we?" Ed's vision futilely tried to take in the surroundings. He dangled a bottle in his left hand, his thumb in the top like a cork.

"In a park," Winry answered.

It was a quaint little park somewhere in the middle of everything. They'd walked with a parting gift Sam had given Edward to drink at around two that morning, and they continued to walk on through the night, until they'd found the park to stop at. The pair sat on the first bench they'd found.

A very, very blank look hit Edward without warning, and he looked at Winry with so much confusion that she wanted to giggle at how strange it seemed on him, "When did I get to a park?"

"We walked here," she wasn't certain if she should be amused by this, or worried.

"Oh," he sounded so childish. Ed stood up suddenly, bottle still in hand, and he sauntered away from the bench, "Alright then."

Winry watched Ed meander off the park path, existing without living, before stopping when he got to a decorative white railing that kept the park land separated from a pond. Ed turned around and put his backside to the fence. A wrinkle began to crease into his face, and then another. The longer he stood there, the more indignant his expression became. He began bouncing the bottom of the bottle off the wound links of the decorative fence. The reasons crumpling his face vanished as abruptly as they'd shown up, and he returned to hold a sedated, absent look in his eyes.

Winry brushed the palms of her hands together aimlessly, looking down into her lap while she thought. She was a little envious that Ed was existing in some other state, because if she hadn't decided to stop drinking shortly after midnight, she might have been able to enjoy this faulty existence with him. But, Winry'd stopped drinking when she'd come to the conclusion that everything was wrong and nobody was stopping it. The further she moved from the stupor Ed had purchased for her, the harder she thought about what to do, and the quieter she became.

Ed had rambled along randomly amongst her thought-filled silence for the last couple of hours, and as time slowly passed by, his nonsense seemed to grow more coherent. His bottle-buddy was apparently a lot less potent than everything he had been drinking hours earlier. Winry mulled her thoughts over again and considered the time, before she finally rose to her feet, brushed her coat straight, and walked over to him. She plucked off the mittens that tried to keep her hands warm and extended her left hand when she got to Ed, "Can I see that?"

He narrowed an eye at her, handing over the bottle, "Thought you cut yourself off for the night."

Taking it, Winry tuned the bottle around in her hands. She frowned; it was cold, and the label was unreadable to her. She sniffed it and it smelt like raspberries. Curiously, she took a sip. A fruit cocktail? As far as Winry could tell, it was surprisingly alcohol free. Her level of respect for Sam rose a few notches, and it helped her make a decision.

Without indication she was about to do so, Winry casually flung the bottle sideways and tossed it into the stone path, listening to it shatter on the ground.

Ed's jaw dropped, his eyes widening in horror at what she'd done, "WINR—"

With that same left hand that had taken the bottle from him, she slapped him – the palm of her hand cutting across Ed's face. Ed blinked, his eyes widening with his head thrown to his shoulder and cheek tingling. A long, wordless moment occurred before his mind suddenly emerged from the shallow end of the pool it had been drowning in. He shot his head back to her, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Trying to make sure I have your attention," she unravelled the wrap Hermann had done around her right wrist.

Ed gawked at her, his hand coming up to rub his cheek from the sting her hand had left.

Winry looked around – there was nowhere to put the bandage, so she dropped it into the light bit of snow at their feet. She looked at her wrist for a moment, twisting her face, before looking to Ed again, "Are you paying attention?"

"Yes! You fucking slapped me, what the hell is your problem?" Ed yelled at her, his fist slamming down at his side.

"I wanted to make sure you were paying attention."

There was a passive look to her eyes, and Ed glared at it fiercely, "WHAT FOR?"

He was still too burdened with alcohol to react before Winry's right hand cracked into Edward's chilled left cheek. The firm palm of her strong, workman's hand struck so hard on the cold flesh, Ed thought that his cheek had torn. His face may have been frozen, but this stung, and it screamed, and it burned. His jaw hung open from the shock. His ear rang, his left eye watered, and his mind moved impossibly slow to process what she'd just done and how much it hurt.

Winry shook out her right hand, rubbing the sore wrist.

As though he were larger than life, Ed's aura raged up and loomed over Winry, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

She stood before him, expression melancholy and unfazed by his outburst, not at all intimidated by him, and she responded quietly beneath his rage, "This isn't working."

Nothing could have been more efficient to extinguish the raging fire he'd ignited than her quiet words, "What?"

Winry narrowed a thoughtful eye at him, her voice carefully held in control. She'd gone over a million different things in her head since twelve thirty, now she had to find something to say, "I think if it had been anybody else other than your father, things would be different for you. But, because it's your father, dealing with his death is harder for you than you ever thought possible."

Ed looked back at her, the throbbing cheek devouring his face as he spoke, "It was my dad, Winry – the dad that left my mom and abandoned me and Al. He wasn't a father figure in my life, he wasn't anything in my life; he was just there, wishing he was."

"Right." Winry nodded slowly. She stiffened her legs and made herself stand without the tremble in her heart that this world tried to force on her, "It doesn't matter that it's your dad, he was still a person who mattered, someone who was close to you, and if you don't want it to affect you as his son, that's okay. But, as long as you are you, it's going to affect you as a person," her hand reached up, and her palm came to rest flat on his forehead, "That block in your head that's telling you that you shouldn't care at all because he's your father, that you should be able to walk away from this, that you shouldn't be upset, that you weren't family, that's a load of bull and you know it. That's why you're not dealing with it, why you're trying to ignore it… because, if you look at it, the reflection might tell you that you do care," Winry's hand slipped away to join the company of her other hand at her chest, "no matter how much you want to hate him, it doesn't demean you or anyone else because you cared. You'd be less of a person if you could just walk away from his death."

At some point, Winry had expected the golden eyes that looked back at her to fade away, flicker off into the corners of the world, or withdraw. But Edward looked back at her from behind his fallen curtain of hair; she had his attention. He was listening. Winry stood up on her tiptoes, and slid her fingers into the hair that would shield his face, moving it aside so he could open his eyes and see. She gripped his hair tight.

"So, listen to me…"

Winry's voice rose in strength, in tone, and in volume. There was a messy view beyond the cracked stone wall separating Ed and the rest of the world – hurting with a raw, open sore that had been infected by an unwanted world's poison. Winry perched atop the divider and looked in.

"Stop trying to find some way to ignore how it makes you feel; it won't go away. It doesn't fit in the box with everything else you refuse to deal with here. It's too big. You can't ignore it, you can't change it, you can't fix it, you can't walk away from it, and you sure as hell can't drown it. If you don't stop fighting, it's going to break you, and you'll fall apart," like the slow deflation of a blown-up ball, Winry came down off her tiptoes. The firm grasp of her words slowly softened and smoothed as the air in the bubble let out. She let go of the grip in his hair, mind wandering lost in mountainous thoughts as she aimlessly swept the fringes aside. Her eyes came to the deepening onset of colour in the cold, left cheek she'd assaulted, and it was there where her sore right hand finally came to rest. "I can't let you fall apart, because I need you to be stronger than me. I'm terrified of what this world is, but watching you struggle with it is worse, because I don't think I know all the things I need to be yet to help you stay strong, or all the things Al's done in the past to help hold you up. I do know we won't be able to 'leave this behind' when we get home, so I need you to get over how you refuse to exist properly in this world and deal with some of it now. I think you should start with this."

The winter around them waited and watched, withholding its light breeze, careless falls of snow, and icy cold chill. Edward's hand came up and took hold of the damaged right wrist on his cheek. He cradled it loosely through the curl of his fingers, thumb holding it in place, as it was lowered.

"Wh—" Ed realized he shouldn't have bothered opening his mouth; his voice didn't work. His eyes finally broke from Winry, shifting away as he cleared his throat heavily, "Why am I responsible for organizing his funeral?"

Winry made a smile, "Because, you're his son."

Ed scoffed at the statement, sounding like he'd choked, before looking to her again, "Yeah, but I hate him."

Winry wasn't certain why she felt like laughing at the response. She rose up on her tip toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and held his world tight, "Of course you do."

 


 

Sunday January 1, 1922. 10:05AM

 

The waitress leaned over the table and without a word to anyone, filled the cups of coffee for the seventh time.

"The raid just overwhelmed the facilities. People were mangled, bleeding, crying, dying, and laying in cots in halls and all over the wards. You could pick out the dead ones by who had blankets thrown over their heads. Sometimes they didn't take those cots out right away, staff were too busy with other things," Ed rambled on absently, too tired to care where his words went, slouching down in the corner of the booth with his legs fully stretched out, and his feet hanging off the end, "Dad said our immune system isn't entirely 'compatible' for this world, so when I was found in the street without my arm and leg, it was easy for me to get sick."

Winry fussed with her coffee for a moment before happily wrapping her hands around the warm cup and tipping herself up against the wall again, half stretched out along the booth seat of the table they sat at. She'd chosen a facial expression of interest and stitched it on – she was too tired to do much else.

"So, Dad said that he and Charles argued with the administration staff in front of everyone in the middle of the ward," Ed dumped some sugar into his coffee, "they made some huge, noisy scene out of it. Charles wanted me moved into a private room, because he couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with me."

Winry nodded, sipping her coffee.

Ed tilted his head in thought, "I don't remember moving, exactly, I just remember ending up somewhere quieter. Dad, Charles and two of Charles's assistants looked after me," Ed scowled, again sipping the coffee, "Felt like absolute shit for weeks. That stupid cough would not go away no matter what they did. I didn't have the energy to roll over in bed, but I kept coughing," his voice trailed as he detached himself from the memory, "I think I was always coughing." Ed mumbled.

Winry grabbed a piece of toast from the table and smothered it in jam. She stuffed it in her mouth, trying to get coherent words out as she chewed, too tired to care how sloppy her manners had become, "But your dad was still taking care of you, right?"

"Well, yeah, I guess he did. For as much trouble as I caused for him, he kept trying," Ed continued, picking up a new thought, "I swear I tried to get that old man to screw off and he just wouldn't. Persistent old bastard," he spoke like he'd cursed the entire statement, then took another taste of his coffee.

Winry grinned, reaching for another slice of toast, "That's because he's your dad."

Ed's face twisted, concern and confusion crawling into the crunch at his forehead, "Well yeah, but there's only so much a person should take. I was loud, belligerent, rude, disrespectful…"

"Oh, so just like normal."

"Shut up," Ed glared at her, "I was just frustrated, and I took it out on him."

As she had been for the last hour, Winry continued to be amused at how acutely aware Ed seemed to be of his own ill-behaviour while he'd lived in London.

The conversation was ended by the clattering of people who came through this little diner's front door. It was probably the only place in this half of the city that was open, and Tilly and Hermann had finally stumbled upon it.

"OH MY GOD," Tilly screeched, "Where have you two been?" she tore a path through the building in front of her husband, opening her mouth to say something like 'you scared us to death' or 'we've been out looking for you', but she ended up dropping her expression and going with a very blank, "Good lord, you two look horrid…"

Ed grinned, as much as he could manage at this point in time, tipping his coffee cup to Hermann as the man showed up at the foot of the table. He looked up to the ticking clock on the wall of the diner, it took him longer than normal to add up the numbers the clock gave him, but eventually Ed concluded he'd been up for twenty-seven and a half hours; that explained why he felt absolutely horrid.

"I'm glad to see you two are somewhat okay, at least," Hermann reached down, shoved Ed's lazy feet off the chair, and sat down next to him.

Tilly was a little bit more graceful getting Winry to sit up properly before sitting down as well, "Where did you go?"

Ed thought about it for a bit, "… Out."

"That's really helpful, Edward," Hermann's perky words dripped of sarcasm, "if you were out all night, what the hell did you do? Where were you at midnight?"

"I don't remember," Ed winced as he looked up in thought, "midnight happened between a bar and a park." He sipped his coffee again.

"I think you two should come home and sleep," Hermann looked between the two of them.

Ed spoke with protest, "I was in the middle of telling Winry a story when you interrupted."

"A story?" Tilly asked.

"I had pneumonia, she wanted to know about it," Ed nodded.

The husband and wife's expressions fell sharply, and Tilly again chirped, "You had pneumonia? You poor thing. When was that?"

"When I was in England a bunch of years back," Ed turned his eyes into the restaurant, so tired he couldn't focus on anything particular.

Hermann looked Ed over, grabbing his jacket by the shoulder and turning Edward a bit to give an eyeballed assessment, "Well, you survived apparently."

Ed scoffed at the statement, "Yeah, that was my dad's fault. Persistent old bastard. He tried like hell to make sure I hung around in one piece," taking the final swig of his coffee, Ed let the white cup clatter down on the table, "I'm sick of this coffee. Where's the bill?"

 


To Be Continued…


Notes:

"Der gute Kamerad" translates to "The Good Comrade" and is a German military lament.

Chapter 34: The Cataclysm's Catalysts

Summary:

Ed deals with both the passing of his father and his upcoming birthday while some of Dante's strings begin to fray.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The halls of Munich's university seemed eerily quiet for nine in the morning on the first Monday back at school. Ed concluded that students and teachers were a little bleary from the holiday break and everyone was sleeping through first block classes. Edward would have slept straight on until noon if the task of cleaning out his father's office hadn't been something he'd had to take care of at eight that morning. Ed did the task in relative silence. He had a few boxes to sort his father's things into, two of which were for him to take home, and the remainder was for the faculty. Ed really couldn't bring himself to tell the distraught clerical staff that he would rather not take any of his father's belongings home. He didn't know what to do with them once he'd gotten them back to the house.

It had been over a week since his father passed away, five days since the funeral. The day of the funeral had been the most dissociated day Ed could recall having had in a long time; he'd constantly been two steps behind where he actually was, feeling like he were watching everything from the cloud of his own wake. There had been little that could be done about Winry's tears this time, because everyone around him had been shedding them too, and all Ed had really wanted to do was to scream at all of them to stop. He bit his tongue. Edward had been extremely thankful when the day finally ended.

Ed and Winry returned to their proper house after the funeral, apologizing profusely to the Oberths for the intrusion into their house over the prior few days. There wasn't a whole lot of talking that had gone on between Ed and Winry since returning. Ed surrounded himself in his alchemy notes in front of the fire place, and Winry sequestered herself away in her room with plans and blueprints she was creating. At four thirty on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Winry had come downstairs without a word and cooked dinner, served hot between five thirty and six. Other than Winry requesting Ed's presence so she could take measurements to do the blueprints of his new arm, dinner was really all the interaction they'd had. It was as though Winry had found a request Ed hadn't voiced to have some space after everything was finally all said and done. So yesterday, Sunday, Ed preempted Winry half a day in advance by having an elaborate breakfast made for nine that morning. He barked at her for gawking stupidly at the epic food display, righteously annoyed that everyone always seemed so surprised when he showed that he could cook – there had been two different women teach Edward how to cook before he'd turned twelve! The chirping turned into one of the few discussions Ed had carried on with Winry outside of either alchemy or AutoMail: a moderate argument over whose cooking skills had culinary superiority, and who would be cooking dinner that day.

Life continued on at ten to nine this Monday, when Professor Haushofer showed up to help Ed with the cleaning task, much to Ed's dismay.

"You'll be back to work tomorrow, right Edward?" the professor asked while he slid a stack of file folders into a box.

"Yeah, I'll be in," he answered. Ed had been given Monday to deal with his father's office.

"The school is actually trying to bring in someone from Berlin to fill in for your father's classes, you'll probably have your assignments continue with him," Haushofer commented, watching Ed mull about absently.

"Makes sense," Ed answered blankly, more interested in trying to find a way to make his father's tacky abacus fit into a space in a box. Why the hell did his dad have an abacus? The contraption had to have been older than his old man was.

Whether he liked it or not, Ed was an office assistant. It was an extremely humbling and boring title to have on his resume, all things considered. But, unless he worked for some level of government, being the office bitch for the University of Munich's sciences department was sufficient employment, considering the deteriorating conditions of the country. Edward's general assignment was to his father's department, but he had delegation to other professors in the math or science departments, including Professor Haushofer. Now, his time would have to be split doing who knows what. Sadly, he doubted anyone would ever let him grade first year chemistry tests again without any proper credentials. Ed would concede that he enjoyed helping his father mark chemistry exams; it was easy and sometimes utterly hilarious. He couldn't explain how on earth some of these people made it into university.

Haushofer continued to force along the menial conversation with the Elric, not concerned that Ed had little interest in participating, "Your birthday is next Tuesday, isn't it?"

Ed stopped with Haushofer's comment. Ah shit.

"It's your twenty-second, right?"

"It is, yeah," Ed would rather his birthday be forgotten this year. He never really did anything for it anyways; it was everyone else who thought it was a big deal.

"Well then, my wife wants to have you over for dinner Tuesday night," Haushofer announced, "between five-thirty and six. She's asked for you and Winry to come."

"What?" Ed blinked a wide expression over to the professor, "What? No. No no no," he raised his hand in refusal, "no thank you, Professor. I'm... busy."

The professor walked over to Edward and put a heavy hand down on his shoulder, "My wife is not an easy woman to argue with when she sets her mind on something, and she has her mind set on a dinner for your birthday."

"No no, really, it's okay. No," Ed did not want these people doing anything for his birthday, or want any kind of dinner that he wasn't preparing himself, or want to be sitting at a table with Albrecht Haushofer, and he sure as hell didn't want Winry in the same city district as the Haushofer troll either, "Really, I'm busy... uh, Winry and I have plans!"

"Oh? What kind of plans do you have with Winry?" the professor pushed.

"I'm not sure exactly," Ed sputtered, "Winry mentioned she'd made plans, but didn't elaborate."

"That's nice of her," Haushofer grinned, "quite brave of her to venture out and try to arrange something for you when she struggles so much with the language. Do you think she'll be taking you out for dinner? Theatre?"

"Um," Ed's gaze shifted quickly, looking for a life preserver in the moat he was drowning in, "no, I think we're staying in."

"Ah," Haushofer grinned, nodding sagely, "'plans'."

Two long strikes of the second hand ticked by on the wall clock before Ed turned a suffocating shade of deep red and screeched like a snared bird, "WHA— NO. NOT THOSE KIND OF PLANS."

Haushofer folded his arms, eyeballing Edward from over top the rim of his reading glasses.

"That's just… no. No. No. No not those kind of plans," Ed's hand waved around frantically. He scrambled to swallow the colour boiling like a hot tomato between his ears, "I'll tell Winry we're coming over on Tuesday. I'm sure she won't mind." A lengthy string of colourful expletives tumbled through Edward's mind.

Haushofer grinned like he was satisfied with the results, nodding to Ed's reluctance and eventual answer, "And what are you doing Wednesday night?"

Ed's face soured at the continued requests for his time, "Um, my plans are in flux at the moment... why?"

"You have an invite," the professor told him, returning to the task of sorting books and records, "to one of our NSDAP Social meets."

It wasn't even half-past nine yet, and Edward's last two hours had been something of a roller-coaster. Now, the ride took Ed through tunnels that turned his stomach until he was sick, and boiled his blood on high through his veins. 'I want nothing to do with those dirty fuckers' was a statement he tried very hard not to make. Professor Haushofer was a member, but Ed didn't particularly dislike the man.

"It's a personal invite from Adolf himself, and those are rare," Haushofer gave a nod of his head, "he said that he'd sent you an invite in the mail, but there hasn't been a response, so he asked me to pass it along."

Ed stared silently at the work in his hand. The invite to the NSDAP Social gathering had been in the mailbox when Edward and Winry returned to the house. It wasn't verbalized, but there was no doubt in either Edward or Winry's mind that Envy had some sort of hand in Hohenheim's death. The invite had been torn up and thrown in the fire. Ed wanted so badly to put his fist through the wall in frustration... or put his fist through Adolf and knock Envy from him.

"Professor, unlike my dad, I don't do politics. They don't interest me," Ed finally responded with more tact than he thought he'd have available.

"It's not politics, Edward; it's a social event. A meet and greet. What connects us may be politics, but there's no political agenda," Haushofer shrugged, trying to find a way to plead the case, "think of it as one of the university club gathering for drinks, chatter, and some laughs. It's not an official political function."

The thought of that made Edward want to laugh, but an angry, lingering thought knocking on a mental door was borrowing his attention, "I'm assuming that if it's his event, Mr. Hitler will be there too?"

"Of course," the professor nodded.

"I'll think about it," Ed's eyes shifted through the emptying room that had once been his father's place of work, "I'll see how things go."


It was a child's tantrum – only because the figure throwing it could pass as a child. Dante raged around the room, throwing whatever was not held down, and breaking what was not solidly constructed. It was an excessive amount of violence from a childish figure that never shed a tear to her frustrations. She only ripped curtains. Kicking the doors to her bedroom open, Dante threw herself into the hallway, dropped to her knees, and wrapped her stout arms around the upper mezzanine rails in the prime minister's residence. She looked down to the pathetic existences that mingled below; servants, slaves, orderlies, mankind.

Dante had literally blinked and the Gate was gone. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing special, nothing extraordinary. It was an insulting experience. It was beyond insulting. The Gate laughed at her, yet again mocked her for being on the insignificant side of the Gate, and then spat in her face – it had kept Alphonse and Diana. If little fists of flesh and bone could withstand the impact of being punched through walls, Dante's frustrations surely could have managed a myriad of holes. Any return trip to the Gate now would require precious amounts of what little was left of the Philosopher's Stone, with no guarantee she'd be able to claim Diana.

Yet, none of this came close her largest and most inexplicable frustration.

Dante ran the palm of her hand down the side of her face and through her neck, until her fingers shot back up to string through the long lengths of tangled, loose hair, "Aisa, there is a story being created about how you have taken Diana out of Central for the infant's own well being."

"Understood," the nurse figure emerged from Nina's room and into the hallway light, her shoes clapping on the hardwood floor.

"Now…" the excuse was the easy part, it was the logical part, but the remainder was not, "… what the hell do I do about that baby?" she could have ripped the hair on her forehead out with the thought. It compounded the astoundingly infuriating problem of being forced away from the Gate.

Aisa's feet were again heard on the floor as the woman came to the railing, "You can use the Philosopher's Stone to retrieve her, can't you?"

Dante's tiny hands viciously gripped the railing she looked down on civilization, "Possibly. Diana's methodology is different than the Philosopher's Stone's relationship with the Gate. I don't want to waste it to find out I can't retrieve her. The Stone is too precious; we need to save it."

The nurse's brow rose at the statement, "Save it? There's plenty for a trip to the Gate."

The railing rattled as Dante threw herself back from the perch, sweeping up to her feet, "It needs to be conserved. I need to continue to conserve it."

Aisa offered, "Red stones, then?"

Dante scoffed at the suggestion, "Too unstable. I refuse to sacrifice anything because of inherent flaws in a cheap substitute."

"Then Alphonse and Diana can be considered lost?" the woman's words questioned heavily.

"Until I can arrange an alternative, yes," the knuckles on her fingers turned white as Dante clenched her tiny hands, swallowing immediate facts like a bitter pill, "Where the hell has Wrath gotten himself to?"

Aisa looked off in thought, "Last I heard he was seen in the outback of a hamlet en route to Central."

Dante folded her arms, creasing her face with her thoughts, "And Izumi?"

"Wrath is a little easier to track than she is," Aisa gave a cautious eye to the little woman questioning her for answers, "Izumi is keeping herself low, but I did tell Wrath to engage her like you requested, so assuming he's done so, she'll be keeping an eye on him."

"And following him to Central," Dante nodded as she finished the progression of assumptions, "Izumi's smart enough to know I won't be keeping Alphonse at the Empty City. She'll go elsewhere and probably seek assistance."

Looking out into the rotunda below, Aisa frowned at the busy world. The tension among the masses was thick and unstable with nerves; it annoyed her, "The situation in this city is falling apart. Central is in upheaval. Brigadier General Mustang is rallying troops in the masses, quickly too. It's unexpected."

"If he wants to play this way, I will give that pompous jackass a bloodbath," Dante's words thumped in her chest, "and stain his mittens red." As her thoughts crashed through her mind, a red light shone at the end of Dante's constricting tunnel of thoughts, "which might be very useful," the little red witch looked up at Aisa with a progressing thought, "the best way to conserve and nurture my Philosopher's Stone is to soak it in blood."

Aisa nodded in agreement with her mistress' line of thought; she rarely found cause to disagree, "Should Wrath be re-routed to keep out of your hair?"

"No, Wrath can be a useful distraction," Dante's hands slipped through her hair, pulling a handful over her shoulder, and began a braid, "the red stones you have, are they enough to keep Wrath active for a while?"

Hesitating, Aisa thought the question over, "More will need to be extracted. Anything taken previously was fed to Wrath."

Dante laughed suddenly – it shivered through the air, drifting wild and bitter, frustrated and angry, "Then, when I extract more red stones for Wrath, I will take a portion of Philosopher's Stone as well for myself, and turn two exercises into one."

The announcement brought uncertainty into Aisa's tone, "I thought we were preserving the Stone?"

"I said we were conserving the stone, there is a difference," Dante feigned childish delight in the weaving exercise of hair through her fingers, "I need some for myself in the interim. I'll look good in a little red necklace. You don't mind, do you Aisa?"

The woman looked back at Dante like the question of permission was asinine, "I would never mind."

The little devil began to take herself back into the bedroom, her aura trailing behind her like a poisonous red filth dispersing into the pure air. Silent again, Dante paced through the childish room, throwing away the weave she'd wound through her hair. The demon's childish voice began breathing heavily, her feet thundering down harder with each step she took. Dante's hands slowly began to fumble atop her bed of hair, like the frail legs of spiders dancing over her. The fingers trickled down, sliding through her neck before advancing over her shoulders, dancing down her arms, until her hands leaped to her chest and clawed heavily down the front of her body.

The most outrageous concern the Gate had forced upon Dante was beneath her hands. When the devil's fingers could go no farther, they snapped away, like mud had been slung from her body.

Without warning, Dante flared out like an explosion, fanning her flames through the bedroom, throwing her rage around in a wild tantrum. Behind shut curtains and beneath dim light, items shattered without care. She did not discriminate with her destruction of the room – none of this façade mattered. It could all be reconstructed, like the effort of creation or malice of destruction meant nothing – this entire inanimate pretense could be fixed with the simple clap of her hands.

The only thing that could not be reconstructed with the clap of her hands was the only thing that mattered.

Aisa stood, undisturbed, unaffected, and uninterested in Dante's actions, "Miss, this won't help you. It might make things worse."

"WHY!" Dante screamed, "why is this body rotting, Aisa? It should not be rotting. Nina was perfect! There was no original soul in this doll for it to cause me to rot. There is still NO inherent soul in this doll to cause me to rot, yet, I'm rotting," the little girl's arms flew out in shrieking rage, "I stood at the Gate door with that Elric and my beautiful key, and then something happened, something came through the Gate! I felt it pass through me, and I blinked, and in that pinpoint of a second, I left the Gate. Now, I'm rotting. Again."

Taking an audible breath through her nostrils, Dante threw her disgusted gaze away from anyone who could possibly be looking at it, even from the sight of her inanimate toys and animals.

"I don't have time to deal with this bullshit," she snarled.


Beyond some cursing and swearing, when Ed locked himself down in front of the fireplace with his mountain of alchemy paperwork, he was usually pretty quiet – like some child trapped in a fascinating book. Five, ten, sometimes twenty different permutations of any number of formulas were scrawled out, and discounted. Ed could clearly remember being a child, and looking at alchemy texts, and at worst it would take him five shots at a complex transmutation circle before he'd draw something that worked perfectly. Last time he'd taken five shots at an alchemy circle, he'd been nine years old. Now, he had a mammoth brainteaser without a finished result to target.

How to get home?

How could a world with so much information, so much untapped knowledge, not have a single shred of information or plausible formula that brought him even close to getting home. Even if he had something remarkable, like the Thule Hall, he had no way of making it work. He could regard the Thule Hall as a magnificent nightmare, but no matter how flooring the place was, he still had no way of making it work. It degraded the magnificence down to insignificance. This world was maddening. It didn't help that both last night, and this night, he'd been astoundingly unfocussed. There were… things to worry about.

Winry's footsteps echoed from the stairwell through the house. Ed glanced back over his shoulder, hearing the faucet in the kitchen run before the sound of her footsteps drew closer. With a clipboard in one hand, a glass of water in the other, and a measuring tape slung over her shoulder, Winry came up to what she'd affectionately dubbed 'Fort Alchemy' and looked over the scene, "Are you…" she eyed the miserably frustrated look on Ed's face, "in the middle of something important?"

Ed shook his head.

"Can I borrow you for a few minutes?" Winry smiled.

"Sure," Ed stood up, pulling out of his fortress of white sheets of paper, and stepping into the real world again, "what's up?"

Winry used her clipboard to gesture to the couch, "Sit, I need your left hand," she placed her glass down on a coaster.

Ed shuffled around the confines of the living room, trying not to disturb any mountain he'd created, or any piece of furniture he'd moved to accommodate it. He plunked himself down on a sofa cushion, as did Winry next to him. Handing over ownership of his left hand to Winry, Ed sunk into the sofa and looked back on his fortress with a loud and disgruntled huff.

"Not going so well?" Winry asked, wrapping the measuring tape around his index finger.

With a near snarl, Ed's upper lip rose and the bridge of his nose wrinkled, "Not exactly."

"What's wrong with it?" Winry pushed a little.

Ed's face transformed with a scowl, "Everything…"

Winry scribbled down a few measurements from his left hand, "If it makes you feel any better, I'm almost done with the core work on your new arm."

Ed sunk a little deeper into the cushions, putting the heels of his feet up onto the coffee table, sounding somewhat absent, "That's good."

With a few scratches of her pencil, Winry continued to jot down her numbers, "That leg you've got on was easy, it's not networked into your body, you're just wearing a sleeve. It's a huge challenge trying to work out an arm for you that's not… well, up to Rockbell AutoMail standards. I've been so spoilt with Granny, it's been kinda frustrating having to figure out all the ways to improvise to get something functional that you can use here. It's like two hundred years worth of technological setbacks I have to work around."

"You know what you're doing, Winry. You'll figure it out," Ed's words were again lacking of attachment to the conversation as well as enthusiasm.

Winry shook her head and put her pencil aside, resting Ed's left hand down on the clipboard. Without Winry prompting conversation, the room existed in perpetual silence, like it had for nearly the entire week prior. The only two things that existed beyond their own breathing were the ticking wall clock and the contained sound of the fireplace. The distant and detached moment easily lingered on. Ed's limp hand rested on the clipboard of AutoMail notes, and his focus slowly vanished into the corners of the room. The clock chimed in for seven o'clock that evening, and he finally recalled his focus.

Ed's face soured, and he slouched a little deeper into the couch. He snatched up the clipboard and looked at the measurements Winry had taken. Ed twisted his face at the information and dropped the clipboard to his lap; AutoMail jargon was out of his league. He held out his hand in front of himself, palm forwards, and narrowed an inquisitive eye. He saw a hand with a thumb, four fingers, a few blood veins and crease lines; he could rattle off the chemical compositions of the flesh, blood, and bones, but he had no measurements for the size. Winry's hand came up into the picture; she lined her palm up to the bottom of his and held it for comparison's sake. Ed's brow rose at the result, his hand surprisingly dwarfed hers… well not Armstrong or Sig kind of dwarfing… and his father's hand was undoubtedly bigger, but Edward's own left hand was a lot bigger than he would have expected.

"Last time I made you an AutoMail hand, I don't think it was anywhere near that size," Winry spoke with a near laugh.

There was a section reserved in the back of Edward's mind that he kept for the mental smashing of all things relating to the term 'small', and his big hand gleefully smashed the word like an overzealous child in a lively game of whack-a-mole.

"Hmm," Ed lowered one eyebrow, keeping the other peaked with interest, "your pinky isn't straight."

Winry's laugh sounded foolish, taking her hand away and looking at the odd bend to her smallest finger, "I uh… smashed it up in my workshop a few months ago."

"Ouch?" Ed winced a little.

"Big ouch," Winry rolled her eyes at herself, "absolutely my own fault. I just lost concentration and… yeah, Granny had to finish my commission." She gave a sheepish shrug to her accident.

Ed smirked, nodding slowly as his smile faded into the palm of his hand, now resting on the clipboard in his lap. Winry reached out and took hold of the top of the clipboard, sliding it out from Ed's possession. The Elric's eyes followed the diagramming of his hand as it moved, "I'm going to a NSDAP event tomorrow night."

Winry paused, running the statement through her mind, "… Isn't that… Adolf's group?"

Ed lifted his eyes, drawing his focus in to Winry, "Yeah, it is."

"Why?" her voice burst from her throat, doing everything in her power to sully the concern in her tone, "Envy's there, Ed. We don't know what else he's capable of."

"That's why I'm going," Ed's jaw stiffened with his response.

As the end of Winry's voice lingered on longer than Ed's, Edward began to wonder if maybe she was regretting waiting around patiently enough to hear his thoughts. From the corner of his eye, Ed caught Winry sinking down into the couch cushions as he had done earlier, wrapping the clipboard into her chest.

"Hey, don't worry," Ed tried to lift the room as he watched it sink, "there'll be a bunch of people there. I wouldn't go if the situation was too dangerous."

"Envy used that man's hands to kill your dad, didn't he?" Winry made the statement abruptly, without any preamble, hesitation of thought, or deep breath. She stated something both believed to be something of fact, yet neither had addressed.

As far as Ed could tell, Winry's words sounded more hurt about the circumstances surrounding his father's death than he was outwardly feeling. Ed's emotions on the issue, for the most part, were piled in a hastily transmuted, angry black cauldron that he glared at in his mind – because in that mind, Edward Elric could still do alchemy. He'd had to pack the issue away to some extent; he couldn't just leave that kind of a mess laying around. It was hard for Edward to look inside that container - trying to figure out how or what he felt for the man and his death was more challenging than the mountain of alchemy he was cultivating. Strangely, it was just as hard not to look in it. It had no lid. Things kept dribbling out. Some things even jumped out if he wasn't paying attention. Edward had times when, for some reason, he'd find himself with an overwhelming urge to investigate the cauldron… and he'd peek… but to acknowledge things… that was… just…

Ed sighed despite himself, his brow fusing together with an array of wrinkles and creases, "… I'm going to see if I can find that out. If he did it, I want to hear him admit to it."

… hard.

Winry untangled herself; the clipboard wrapped into her body coming off her chest and landing in her outstretched arms. She pulled to her feet and smiled, "Make sure to tell me how it goes, okay?"

Ed nodded.

Winry spun the clipboard around in her hands before nodding and taking herself back to the staircase, "Gonna finish these up and we'll go shopping for your parts on the weekend, alright?"

"Okay…" Ed replied, glancing over to the glass of water Winry'd forgotten on the coffee table.


Hakuro walked down a long, endless corridor in the mid-day instability that was slowly weighing down Central City headquarters, putting it precariously atop pins and needles. The officer swept his hat from his head and wrung it in his hands. These days were just getting worse and worse. It had been a week since he'd seen his family and honestly, he'd sent them away. No official order had been given to the people of Central to leave, no one was willing to admit that the stability of the people, the government, and the country was falling, but instinct told the officer to tell his wife to take the children and visit extended family far from town. He'd never felt like he'd ever had such a poor grasp on a situation before, a situation that included his own officers. Allegiances were divided, unclear, or secretive. Trust had failed, and it wasn't just the military allegiance that seemed to be falling out of the ordinary.

Hakuro entered the office he'd taken away from Mustang – a coveted room that had somehow escaped assignment to government ministers and remained in military control. Mustang was rarely afraid to tout that when reorganization of Central headquarters was brought up. When the door had clicked shut again, the senior officer stopped in his tracks at the middle of the dimmed room. Curtains had been pulled, lights had been turned off, and in the cold leather chair at the office desk was an unwelcome sight blowing lazily on a flickering little candle, teasing the flame with his breath.

Dressed head to toe in his full military garb, hat tight on his head, and hands dressed in white gloves, Roy Mustang gave the 'superior officer' his flattest stare as his chin teetered around in the palm of his left hand, "You finally showed up," he grumbled.

The corner of Hakuro's lip twitched, "How the hell did you get in here?"

"Considering how important you are, I'd have thought you'd be a little more timely," Mustang chomped his words, disinterested in the question.

"Security is at the end of this hall, Mustang," Hakuro's brow lowered, "one call out that door and you'll be in cuffs before you know what's happened to your ass."

The Flame Alchemist snorted at the threat and straightened himself up, "Use your high ranking brain and think of a reason why I'm sitting here waiting for you, Hakuro. You think I'd show up to talk to you here, in the middle of Central, with people out looking for my head, without a damned good reason?"

Taking a deep breath, the higher officer stiffened his jaw, staying back from the desk and ensuring his position was between Mustang and the door, "You showed up to flaunt your new found allegiances in my face?"

Mustang tilted his head in thought, "Yup."

Hakuro scowled at the response, "Are you proud of yourself?"

Mustang laced his hands together and dumped them down on his desk, "Oh hell yes."

"Congratulations on your promotion to the rank of Anarchist, Roy Mustang. You're throwing your precious country back into chaos," Hakuro turned up his nose to the man seated before him, "for what, your own dictatorship?"

"Yes, and I'm not proud of that," separating his hands, Mustang put his palms down on the desk and pushed to his feet, "but from the last time the country fell out of a leadership and until now, we've always been lost in anarchy and dancing like puppets, we were just unaware of it. Democracy has been faked."

Hakuro scoffed at the statement, "Is that how you're going to explain your actions? Is that how you console yourself without the glorious title of State Alchemist?"

"Since Bradley fell, the last nine months have been an illusion created through complacency and neglect, misery and the need for retribution," Mustang folded his arms. Stepping away from his desk, he expertly walked around it, like the locations of every object on the floor had been memorized, and he needed neither eye to navigate, "and within the chaos, the diversions, the governance that rose from the ashes, the shield of the State Alchemists Ishibal hearings… while all attention was diverted…" Mustang reached a gloved hand into his chest pocket, and pulled out a photograph, holding it like a playing card between two fingers, "Dante reemerged."

Hakuro's heavy brow rose, "Dante?" The sound of loss and confusion flooded his voice for the single word.

"The irreverent Dante," Mustang's gaze sneaked to the photograph in his hand, eyeballing his wild card with intrigue, "she has been the catalyst and conductor for this country's fate for quite some time."

"Pardon me?" Hakuro sounded like he'd choked on his confusion.

Clearing his throat, Mustang lowered his hand from the field of vision, "Dante is a five hundred-year-old, body-snatching alchemist utilizing a Philosopher's Stone, readily performing types of human transmutations for her own benefit," the alchemist nodded at his description, "by the time the regime change came, she'd created a figure for herself that walked alongside Sebastian Mitchell, propelling him into power with every right word, and every in-route she knew mankind could give her," the thumb of the alchemist's free hand hooked onto his belt, "that's what Dante does, Hakuro, she manipulates people for power. She's been doing it for hundreds of years," Mustang watched, withholding his triumphant smirk at the dumbfounded look that was surging through Hakuro, "and when the figure at Mitchell's side could no longer suffice, she stole the body of a little girl."

Mustang extended the photograph to Hakuro. Gingerly, the officer accepted the handout.

"This is… Nina," Hakuro spoke, lost in a matter-of-fact state, "with Edward and Alphonse Elric… and the Hughes'?"

"Nina Tucker," Mustang amended.

"As in, Shou Tucker?" Hakuro looked up from the photograph, "that family is dead. Nina Tucker is long dead. How can the Prime Minister's daughter be in a photograph with these people? Is this doctored?"

Mustang scoffed, "Do you think I have time to figure out how to doctor a photograph from Mrs. Hughes' photo album?"

"How could the same child be in this photo?" Hakuro's words spun through the air, "Nina Tucker's body was defiled; I've been given access to the records. This is impossible. You're accusing a child of being some kind of atrocity."

"Nina Mitchell is adopted, isn't she? Have you ever bothered to investigate the child's history? Mitchell certainly didn't have time to – it was his wife's job. Funny how that works," Mustang grabbed hold of the spinning thoughts, and threw them into reverse, "I'm accusing Dante of defiling that innocent little girl's life, by becoming the puppet master over the soulless doll that remained of her, and slipping into the child's persona like you or I slip into shirts, for the sole purpose of obtaining superior power over everything we know, and everything we don't."

An abhorred silence fell between them - ugly, warped, and rotting. It lay like a dead animal at their feet, waiting for the carcass to either be run over once more, or indiscriminately tossed into the roadside and ignored.

"That's disgusting, Mustang."

"What's disgusting is that we keep falling for it."

Again Hakuro's voice flared up, "Have you no shame Mustang? The girl is a child!"

Mustang stopped, something in the back of his head slowed his retort. He eyeballed the officer standing before him, boiling in the moisture of the summer air. Mustang settled himself, calmed his flame, and lowered the temperature of the room with the smooth, sweeping recapture of the photograph from Hakuro's hand, "You have to stop thinking like a father, and look at the evidence. She is a monster, with the face of a child. That negates anything childish about her. And from what I've heard, she can clap her hands for alchemy with more skill and ease than you or I have ever seen Edward Elric do."

Hakuro stood caught in the audacious headlights of Mustang's continued words, "Have you been bewitching all these men and officers into believing in this for your asinine cause?"

"I've told the right people the truth," Mustang's voice fell over Hakuro with a heavy weight anchored to the core of the world, "The whole truth. I've told them about Dante. I've told them what's been done. There's more to this story than this conversation Hakuro, a lot more," his hands slipped into his pockets, "whatever men choose to do with that truth, however they choose to interpret it or share it with their troops, subordinates, colleagues, co-workers, companions, spouses… that's for each person to decide on their own. But, one of Dante's greatest strengths has been that none of us knows. We don't want to admit that something like that actually exists. I won't allow her to use that ignorance against us any longer. If everyone knows, if I shatter her illusion, she'll have nowhere to hide, and this country can be taken from her."

"You showed up here, today, to tell me this fantastically perverse fairytale?" Hakuro questioned Mustang like he were laughing at the man.

All that was given in response was a shrug of, "Yes, I did," but the Flame Alchemist soon gave an addition to his reply, "I'm confident in believing that you may be one of the few people left in Central with a fully functioning mind. You aren't a complete mindless drone – willing or unwilling. I'm warning you that little monster is walking around at your knees with more skill in human transmutation than any person could think possible. She has a Philosopher's Stone to fuel it. I'm giving you fair warning to get the hell away from this."

"And if I ignore all this?" Hakuro chomped back.

Mustang's brow bounced a little, like he'd expected his words to go unheeded, "Oh, look at that… it's time to go," the alchemist's gaze suddenly flew beyond Hakuro's shoulder, "Major!"

A hand gun locked into place behind Hakuro's ears; the man froze.

"Please, General, just stand there and admire my desk for a few minutes. You've done such a nice job clearing it of paperwork for me, it's a lovely sight to behold," Mustang grinned hotly, sliding the photograph into his breast pocket as he walked past the man invading his office, lightly brushing shoulders with him as he strode away.


"Wow! Edward Elric!"

Ed wanted to turn around and bang his head into the wall. It was the third 'wow' in the last five minutes, and by far the loudest, shouted by Hess from the other side of the dining hall. Deliberately, Ed held the blankest and most disinterested expression he could muster as random eyes flickered on and off of him. With almost childish enthusiasm, Hess appeared in front of Ed, hands coming down on his shoulders.

"I'm beyond impressed, Edward. In fact, I might be flabbergasted. What part of hell froze over that brought you out for our Social?" Hess beamed.

Ed's eye twitched, "I needed a change of pace, I guess."

Hess gave a nod and looked into the hall, "I have a table near the front. Come join us."

This was the NSDAP Social, one of the Party's more cordial engagements. Edward wanted nothing to do with this place, but here he was, though Ed sorely wished he could sink into the earth and slip away. He'd have to settle for getting lost in a crowd. Edward wanted to have a good look into Envy's eyes to see what he could see in the homunculus' mind, and gauge the current situation. Apparently, Envy wanted the same from him, considering the invite, and Edward had no problem engaging in a glare-down. This was the best way to do it: in a hall full of people. Considering the ratty metal doors he came in through, this place actually looked like a buzzing banquet hall; people mulled around, chatted with each other, and were generally content to be self-absorbed in their own little worlds.

Ed followed Hess and the pair made their way through people mulling around tables and chairs. Ed threw one drunkard an odd look when the man shoved a bottle of beer into his hand. A table came into view for the approaching duo, and Ed took a disappointing look ahead; Albrecht Haushofer sat with a dolled up girl on his arm, chatty as ever. The Elric couldn't tell if she was a young thing trying to look older, or a twenty-something with the face of a teenager. Ed swallowed a swig of beer, and reminded himself why he was here. There was a uninteresting round of introductions conducted by Hess, interrupted a few times by a drunken young Haushofer who gleefully told a few impossible tales of the Elric and the 'robot arm' he once had. Ed wondered how much of a scene it would cause if he whipped the beer bottle into the young Haushofer's face.

Ed sat at the table for what felt like forever, looking around the bustling room, at a menagerie of lives socializing. Everyone was everywhere, and some people were mentally nowhere. What an annoying charade. Ed wrinkled his nose, his eyes angrily flipping around the hall.

"What a pleasant surprise," a heavy voice sounded off like a deep drum beat behind Edward's ears. Ed jerked in surprise.

Hess's voice rose up over everything with a call of 'Fuhrer'. Ed slipped into a lazy slouch in his chair, taking a few swallows of the beer handed to him earlier. Edward watched Adolf walk out from behind him, drawing people to him like flies drawn to the sweet smell of a trap, and chat emphatically with them as he drifted through the crowd like smoke. The Elric's eyes managed to capture a picture of the moment Adolf's gaze crossed him. Strangely, what Ed saw, or thought he saw, was something he hadn't anticipated. One part of Ed's mind told him to get up and leave the party now, while the other wanted desperately to know why he'd been given such a vile glance. Adolf had looked at Ed, for only a moment, like he'd been repulsed to see him. Usually, Envy looked at him with pure hate or vicious hunger. This was different. What was that for? Then, the feeling got worse.

"And, if I can be excused for a few moments," Adolf finished his circle, coming around the table and putting his hands down on the corners of the back of Ed's chair, "I would like to have a few words with Hohenheim's heir, Edward Elric, who's gracing us with his presence tonight."

"What?" above and beyond being called away, that was the most ridiculous way of being addressed Edward had ever heard. Again, Ed twisted his look up to Adolf, who hung his grin over the Elric like a raw slab of meat teasing a voracious appetite below. Slowly pulling to his feet, Ed kept a conscious thought of how dangerous bait usually was, perfectly aware he was following it like a well-trained animal. He moved away without anyone's continued interest, in fact Hess seemed to react like he'd known it was coming. The two men walked away from the table without another word to anyone.

Ed followed Adolf briskly. Wordless steps of two men marched away from the gathering and down a lengthy hall lit only at either end. Their shadows raced ahead of them as they entered, and by the time they were emerging, those same shadows were clawing back behind them. The hallway opened up to a pool of blue light, lit by an expansive wall of tinted glass windows ushering in the midnight moon. The two men remained silent, wading around within the churning ocean of night.

This was the front entrance of the banquet hall. The 'Social' had been using the back door. Ed smirked at the thought this party had been relegated to the rear of the building.

"I'm surprised, Edward. I expected to hear from Karl that you'd refused the invitation," Adolf's voice carried a low echo.

Ed snorted, "I was in the mood for something different. You people seem so friendly and nice… Winry and I could use good company like this."

Adolf scoffed, the choking sound burrowing its echo into the threads of the carpet floor, "Are you patronizing me?"

"Did you kill my dad?" the Elric son threw his blunt question out point-blank, not interested in bitter prattle.

"Is that what you came here for?" Adolf's brow rose, his upper lip shifting at the question, "Are you looking to avenge his death?"

"Hell no," the look in Ed's eyes standing firm as his hand slipped to his pocket – the absence of his right arm masked by thick shadows in the moonlight, "revenge doesn't get you anything. I'd just like to know if it was you."

"I did not kill your father, Edward Elric," Adolf tipped his head to the side, furthering his statement, and shedding the shadows masking his face, "Envy did."

Ed's golden eyes held the man's smug answer in contempt, "Don't be arrogant, you two are one and the same."

With the swing of his right foot, Adolf changed his posture. The man threw his chest up and open to the evening light as he began to walk forwards, "It has taken me days Edward, days, to recover from your plague."

"My what?" Ed tilted his head in confusion.

"Your plague," Adolf began to pace slowly, his fingers weaving together, and his head bobbing with each heavy step, "the baggage of filth you deposited in my Germany."

Ed eyed Adolf's slow and calculated steps. The dictator's feet made no sound on the carpet. Edward watched the deep black shadow the man cast move with every motion Adolf made, stretching out dark and long through the floor, "Did some voice in your head tell you that I brought the plague and infected you? Envy tends to be full of bullshit."

"Envy was the plague," Adolf announced like an explosion, "the plague you pointed here! The one that besieged me!"

Ed lost his words entirely for a moment. His wide, yet suspicious, golden gaze held Adolf at gunpoint interrogation, "You got rid of Envy?" Ed was somewhat torn, but not surprised – Envy had been evicted before, by a lesser man. Some part of Ed's mind wanted to say 'congratulations', and another part was deeply concerned with this conversation, "or are you just playing around with me for shits and giggles?"

"I think you should be careful how you speak to me, Elric."

"I think you should answer my question, Hitler."

The slow crawl of a grin traipsed its way into Adolf's face, "I like that; you have strong eyes. But, why are they golden?"

Ed narrowed those eyes with no response.

Adolf threw his head back, his voice rising with each sentence spoken, "You can pretend that you're German, but you aren't even English. I may have been put at the mercy of your family's plague, but for the time I was ill with it, I took so much from it," the man's arm flew out, a stiff and accusing finger pointing Edward's way, "and I learnt that you are someone else. You are something foreign, something alien to me, and you place your existence above and beyond all of ours," Adolf snapped his arms out wide from his shoulders, hands fanning out at his sides, "this… this magnificence that I am trying to establish and build is not good enough for you. You see yourself as better than everything here, do you not?"

"No," Ed's golden eyes shone brighter than all the light in the area the two men stood, "I just don't want the life offered to me here."

"Do you understand the kind of tarnished human being you are?" Adolf spat his words, hissing as he continued, "how could you possibly think you are entitled to anything better than this? Your arrogance is so shameful you should not be allowed to lift yourself from the earth at my feet. You are not deserving enough to eat the same bread as me. That hollowed disfigurement at your right side reminds people of that every day they see you."

The Elric didn't glance to the space where a right arm and shoulder should have been.

"Edward Elric, Envy is quite gone and I do not care to know where. I will be the one controlling my hands, and therefore I will be the one controlling my fate, my people's fate, this country's fate, and I will control and orchestrate your fate down to the very last breath you take," Edward finally got to see that the shadow Adolf cast was made up of the poisonous excrement Envy had left behind, "You have no place in this world, and if I were to analyze how you live your life, I'd say you know that. You no longer have the luxury of hiding in your father's protective arms to do whatever it is you do to find this 'better life'. The reach of your arms… or arm… is not enough for either you or your companion to hide in."

The dark shadows of Adolf and Edward moved suddenly, crashing into the wall with Edward's forearm running up underneath the chin of Adolf's flat and unfazed expression, "You listen to me, and listen good. You have a problem with me, fine, take it up with me. I'll take you on. But, if you bring Winry into this, I will rip your balls off and shove them down your throat. She's innocent and she's got nothing to do with this, am I clear?"

"From what I understand, her mere presence with you absolves her of innocence," Adolf narrowed an eye, not showing the least bit of interest in Edward's threat, "you are intriguing, Edward. Envy may have sparred with your father, but you prostitute yourself to pride, greed, and wrath. Are you okay with these indiscretions?"

Edward's weight fell heavily on the arm pressed against Adolf's throat, "You don't know anything about me." Ed pushed himself away, releasing Adolf with a shove. The heavy thump of Edward's polished shoes thundered along the carpet of the entrance way, his jacket flaring out, and his dark shadow stretching out forever behind him, "I'm done with this conversation."

From beyond the Elric's shoulder, a powerful voice bellowed, "I am in the business of cleaning up the filth that plagues Germany, Edward Elric."

"GREAT," Edward's left arm thrashed about dismissively as he stormed away, "I'll call you when I need my toilet scrubbed!"


Bursting into the air from a tangled ball of tall undergrowth, Izumi's left foot landed squarely on a hefty, thick branch of the tree she scaled. With a swing of her upper body and spring in her knees, the woman thrust herself upwards, her hands grappling with another thick branch, deep in the tree's foliage. Izumi hung there for a moment, before finally snapping her hips, swinging her legs up, and thrusting herself upwards yet again – swinging around the branch, and coming to land like a well practiced gymnast. Izumi was quite impressed with herself, she had to be a good nine or ten meters in the air, and there was still a great deal more of this tree to climb. Sitting quietly, catching her breath, the teacher listened to the sounds of the woods settle back into their places. Her ears canvassed the forest's sounds, listening for the distinct sound of Wrath's heavy approach.

"Where did you go?" he called out, almost like a song had been sung.

Izumi took very deliberate control of her breathing, Wrath's voice allowing her to place his direction in the woods.

It was like a game of cat and mouse, and Izumi was willingly and knowingly playing along. If she could keep Wrath busy, the fewer problems he'd cause, and the more time she'd have to sit atop trees and figure out what the hell she was suppose to do about everything else. And as much as the boys had wanted to relieve her of the burden of the living sin, Wrath was still her uncomfortable responsibility.

The teacher's eyes scoured the myriad of greens and browns fluttering in the breeze, searching for a dark mop of hair to appear in the cracks, or for the stray strand of sunlight to reflect off a deteriorating AutoMail shoulder. It was Wrath's mechanics that eventually gave him away, and Izumi watched as the creature moved himself through the shrubs and heavy plant life below. Izumi corralled her breath, holding it in her chest when Wrath stopped beneath her. She watched the creature give a sniff of the air, and then sharply look up to her.

"Hey!" the homunculus exclaimed with a sharp, toothy grin, "I see you!"

Izumi released her breath into the woodland air, "Did the Red Stones heighten all your senses, or just the ones you use for hunting?" she put a hand against the thick trunk and rose to her feet, "I'd still like to know where the your stones came from."

Standing below, Wrath's hands came to his meagre hips and he shrugged, "This conversation is getting old. I told you, Dante extracted them for me." The forest took a sharp breath as the riled homunculus reared back his AutoMail fist and slammed it into the trunk of the tree.

Izumi took hold of an upper branch, and pulled higher within the leaves of the old, shivering tree, "Extracted them how? From what? Red Stones are procured."

"Give me a good reason to tell you," again, Wrath's fist slammed into the tree, mercilessly pounding a hole through the thick trunk.

From her perch, Izumi tried to look out from beyond the higher canopy of leaves, wondering how the tree would fall once Wrath was done carving it out… and why the forest seemed to vanish in the east, "You're telling me that Dante has a stash of Red Stones just to feed you with? And she's pulled them out now, after how many months of starving you?"

Wrath's shrill laughter shook the woodlands harder than his fist shook the tree, "The Red Stones aren't for me. I just get the leftovers."

Izumi's frown tightened, "What are the Red Stones for then?"

"What good reason did you find to convince me to tell you?" Wrath's arms flopped to his side while he twisted his neck upwards to spot Izumi.

"Why does Dante have them when she has the Philosopher's Stone?" Izumi called down to the creature.

Wrath only shrugged in response, throwing back his fist, locking his shoulder, and thundering his arm through the thick trunk of the tree again. He grinned a little when the wood began to groan, "Why not?"

Izumi rolled her eyes, gritting her teeth as the tree's balance began to give way, "This was so much easier when you didn't talk back."

A final, heavy fist slammed into the tree, and the hundred-year-old growth began to topple.

As best she could, Izumi scrambled up higher into the branches as it began to tip. She felt and heard the crack of the wood, the crunch of branches, the rush of the earth, and the general cry of the forest as the tree fell, crashing through everything in its wake. Scrambling through the out stretched arms of the ancient tree, Izumi leaped from the branches before it hit the ground. She grabbed at a few surrounding tree limbs to slow her fall, but ultimately hit the ground, shortly after the old tree. The teacher tumbled, head over heels, and rolled to her feet. Izumi turned herself from jungle cat to sprinter, bolting forwards – east – and away from the destruction, not bothering to place Wrath. The woods cleared suddenly, opening the world up to the bright, afternoon sun, and Izumi skidded to a halt. The treetop canopy of the Amestris outback continued on thirty meters below, at the bottom of the cliff the woman stood atop. Izumi allotted herself a second to glance back, catching the obvious motion, and sound, of Wrath barrelling through the forest towards her. With a deep breath, the wiser of the two jumped off the side of the cliff. Izumi's hands slammed together as she began her fall down the rock face, and reached out for the cliff wall – the spark of her transmutation erupted. The teacher's feet quickly came down on a lip of transmuted rock, her body sinking to it as her knees bent beneath her. Izumi's hands searched the wall of rock, gripping tightly to a dangling tree root, clenching her teeth and stiffening as she felt the definite 'whoosh' of Wrath as he fell past her with an angry scream. She looked out, entirely unimpressed that Wrath had been so eager to catch his prey that he threw himself after her. Izumi winced and looked away before she could witness the homunculus bounce off the lower slope of the drop, and tumble to a tangled mess on the dirt below. Izumi released a breath she'd forgotten she'd held.

"I haven't had this kind of exercise in years. I'm going to have to make an appointment with my masseuse," Izumi rolled her shoulders, hearing them crack, before another clap of her hands gave her a much easier set of footholds to climb back up the rock face with.

Hauling herself back up to the ledge, the teacher again looked over at the unmoving homunculus, waiting for Wrath's stones to lurch him back to life. Again, Izumi chose to clap her hands, and she placed them down on the face of the rock cliff she looked over. Her transmutation smoothed over and polished the rock, free of any blemish, leaving it as slippery as a sheet of ice, and impossible to climb up. Izumi raised her brow once Wrath began twitching like a seizure ridden animal. The creature's reaction soon sullied, and the little forest terror pulled to his feet.

"You cheated!" Wrath hollered, pointing to the sheer and smooth cliff.

"Yes, I did," Izumi's barked down to the wilderness nuisance, "and you can't do transmutations without Ed's arm and leg," her eyes shifted, looking out over the expanse of treetops that filled the valley Wrath had fallen into, "SO," she bellowed, "why does Dante have both Red stones and the Philosopher's Stone at her disposal?"

The child sized golem screamed to the sky, before coming to glare at Izumi hovering above him, "Why should I tell you? So you can starve me from them?"

The teacher bobbed her head at Wrath's expectations, "That's the idea."

Rage in the valley began to settle and Wrath began to look about for another method of escape, "I'm not sharing anything with you."

"Should I be asking Aisa?" Izumi watched the creatures actions stop, and redirect up to her, "she's the one who fed you, right?"

The toothy grin reappeared through Wrath's face, begetting smugness, "Yeah, why don't you go ask Aisa?"

There wasn't a single syllable Wrath had pronounced that encouraged Izumi to take up the task. In fact, his dare had done a marvellous job dissuading the teacher from hunting down the woman. Izumi thought her own reaction over and frowned, wondering what the hell Dante was hiding with her personal escort, "Alright then, well, you hang tight down there and apologize to the trees for all the damage you've caused lately. I know two botanical alchemists who might try to kick your ass if you don't." The teacher pushed to her feet.

"You can't leave! I can't let you leave!" Wrath's scream echoed off the polished face of the cliff.

Izumi lowered her voice, available only to her own ears, "Which means you have instructions to keep me entertained. The last person you spoke with was Aisa, so she should be the first person I find," to which she let out a disgruntled sigh.

Without any further acknowledgement to Wrath's existence, Izumi walked away from the cliff hovering above the valley, ignoring the creature's raging screams as she left him there.


To Be Continued…


Notes:

I finally hit a chapter that stumped me for art. I wanted to post it though, so I'll revisit the art later.

I think it would be absolutely hilarious to see the comments Ed leaves on really lousy Chemistry exams.

I like the idea that, to a point, Adolf didn't mind having Envy in his head – Envy has 400-something years worth of knowledge on how to orchestrate mankind, how to control them with words, suggestions, and subtleties, which are all things Adolf can use. But, I also like the idea that Adolf will not allow any entity, regardless of who or what it is, control his actions. He's too proud for that. When Envy got a foothold and used Adolf's body as the physical means for killing Hohenheim, Adolf wasted no time in finding a way to remove Envy from his mind (which is do-able). Envy knew this would happen (even mentioned it to Hohenheim before he'd died), but didn't care because he gotten the opportunity to kill Hohenheim, and he was more than happy with that.

Chapter 35: Atrophy of Mankind

Summary:

Ed and Winry head out to pick up parts for his new arm while Roy & company try to figure out Aisa.

Notes:

Blood and Violence warning for the back half of the chapter.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

An excited knock came from the front door of the house – the kind where the knuckles bounce off the wood childishly. Winry slipped her way down the stairs, dropping her clipboard to the bottom stair without any clatter, and drifted to the front door. With the quick unlatch of the lock she poked her head into the January afternoon.

"Albrecht!" Winry blinked in surprise, looking around the porch, eyeballing the beaming young Haushofer and Rudolf Hess who accompanied him, "What brings you by?"

"Rudolf told me Edward was sick and not to work today, we have come to see how you and he are doing!" Albrecht glowed happily like a delighted puppy.

"Oh, uh, no he wasn't feeling good this morning," Winry glanced over her shoulder, wondering if Ed was paying attention to the noise at the front of the house, "well, don't stand outside, it's cold," with the wave of her hand, she ushered the two men into the house.

"Have you been doing your best to help him feel better in his time of need, Winry?" Hess asked, slipping in ahead of the younger Haushofer as Albrecht pushed his knuckles into Hess's lower back.

"He's usually pretty good at taking care of himself," Winry smiled at Hess's heavily accented English – at least his method of speaking was more like Adolf's and less like Albrecht's – she preferred hard to understand English as opposed to stupid English.

Shaking his head, Hess stomped a dusting of snow from his boots before smiling up at Winry, "Well, that's quite a shame, I'm sure you give excellent care."

Winry watched Albrecht stagger while pulling off a boot, stumbling into Hess's side carelessly. Winry pinched her face and turned her head down the hall, "Ed, there's company here."

An indistinct string of curses flew out, and a flurry of papers exploded from beyond the end of the hallway.

The eldest of the two guests grinned. Hess removed his hat form his head and tucked it under his arm, all the while eyeballing the excitement at the opposite end of the house. He watched long enough to see a disheveled Elric lumber into the light. An unimpressed curl came into Hess' face as he looked Ed over: dressed in heavy black sweats, worn out old sleep shirt, and unbound, uncombed, and untamed hair. Rudolf's words became German, "Aren't you ever presentable when you're home? I swear the last few times I've been by this house you've looked nothing short of street urchin. A lady lives under this roof too, you know."

Ed gave his best rendition of a grumbling boar, scowling his way further into the hall.

Albrecht shook his other foot free of his winter boot, smiling down the hall at the approaching Elric, "Good afternoon, Ed." Albrecht quickly turned the smile onto Winry, put a hand on her hip, drawing up her hand, leaning in close, and put a kiss to the back of Winry's right hand, before sweeping himself deeper into the house, leaving his "Good afternoon, Winry," echoing in the hall.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Albrecht?" Edward squawked madly at Albrecht, the younger man grinning like a cat guilty of eating a canary.

"You're such a schmooze," Hess' laugh echoed through the house as he followed Albrecht.

"He's a womanizing son of a bitch," Ed's eye twitched as neither man paid any attention to his remark. Ed peeked over to Winry's sheepish-looking expression. She quickly huffed and decided that the task of organizing the winter boots on the entry mat was an excellent use of her time. Ed sputtered out of the hall, and fizzled his way into the main room, astoundingly annoyed at the late afternoon interruption.

Hess' laugh died as he eyeballed the paperwork chaos spread out over the floor, on the tables, and on all the seat cushions, "Seems you're doing better now than when you called in," he shot a doubtful gaze to Ed as Albrecht began poking at paperwork thrown about.

"I had a stomach bug," Ed snarled, stomping over to Albrecht to remove his paper pickings and return them to where they belonged, "and I still do. So if you don't leave, I might begin suffering from projectile vomit. Maybe you two should find some other house to invade."

Like a fascinated child, Hess' brow rose as he began collecting sheets of Edward's work, "I'm quite intrigued with our invasion of Elricland thus far. What on earth is all this?" he turned the sheet from the relative right side up to upside down.

"Stress relief," Ed's eye again twitched, snaking his way from Albrecht over to Hess, once again reclaiming sheets of paper.

"No, Rudolf, its alchemy. Have a look at some of this," like a giddy child, Albrecht began flipping through a pile of sheets on the end table, "I knew you dabbled in alchemy, but this is crazy. I've always thought you were hiding something…"

"Oh for the love of… PUT THAT DOWN!" Ed barked, under-arming a cork coaster across the room at Albrecht. All Edward's words did was encourage the two men further, both eagerly flipping their way through papers while Ed mentally ripped the stuffing out of the couch with his teeth.

"Are you trying to turn lead into gold?" Albrecht grinned, sifting his way deeper into Fort Alchemy, "let me know how to do it when you figure it out."

"That's not what I'm doing," Ed grumbled, storming over to Albrecht and hauling him out of the alchemy world by the collar of his shirt.

Hess snapped his fingers, "I know, you're trying to reach Shamballa!"

"What? No," Ed rolled his eyes, booting Albrecht closer to the hallway, debating if he wanted to tie the annoying Haushofer up with the lamp cord, "this has nothing to do with that. Look, do you two buffoons want the formula for turning lead into gold? Cause I know that one. If I give it to you, will you leave?"

Hess took his collection of gathered paperwork and wandered over to Ed, "That sounds fascinating Edward, but since the formula for turning lead into gold came out of your mouth like it had no value to you, this must be far more intriguing," he shook the papers in his hand, "what, praytell, are you actually doing?"

Ed snatched the papers from Hess and tossed them carelessly over the back of the couch, glaring at the man from beneath his brow as white sheets fluttered into silence. With a sudden smirk, an annoyed sarcasm drawled out in Edward's voice, "I'm trying to make a magical door appear in the sky that has bright sunshine, clear blue skies, lush green grass, and rainbows leaking from it…"

The two invasive men rolled their eyes in unison before Albrecht's eyes slipped to Hess, "Is this considered mockery, or is he just being an ass?"

"It seems our well-wishing appearance is not appreciated," with an animated shrug at the emphatic enunciation of his words, Hess turned away from the room and took himself down the hall to the front door, Albrecht following behind.

Ed's voice carried on through the house after the two men, "Hey, I don't barge into your house and make a mess of your homework."

"You don't go to anyone's house, Edward. You're perpetually anti-social," Hess twisted his nose, slipping his hands into his pockets, casting an eye into the kitchen as he passed it, watching for a moment as Winry made herself look busy within, "Anti-social with an asterisk."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" the Elric pulled himself down the hall, like the crushing force of a collapsing landslide forcing everything away.

Both men looked at Ed with a profoundly unimpressed gaze, before Albrecht turned to Hess, "Remind me why we gave the idea of checking up on Edward any value?"

"I think we gave Winry all the value," Hess's brow rose.

"OUT," Edward bellowed, finger pointed.

With the loud and abrupt instruction, both men ushered on their boots, gave a few dismissive comments to Ed's abhorred behaviour, and let themselves out of the house – ending their impromptu interruption with a rush of cold air as the front door shut behind them.

Ed's eye twitched at their departure and a narrowed gaze snapped to the kitchen, eyeballing Winry's movement throughout, "What are you doing?"

"Alphabetically arranging all the spices on the rack," Winry's voice pitched sharply, "for some reason your dad didn't keep all the spices in the spice rack!"

Edward's shoulders fell, sliding his attention from the kitchen back into the living room. His eyes rolled with his swinging head, and the Elric pulled himself away, stomping back into the centre of the alchemy universe in the main room, detesting the thought of having to reorganize all the papers that had been moved around.


A hole was being paced into the floor. People had tried, but no one could stop it. Again and again dark brown shoes repeated their path – it was the only impatient solution that could tide Russell Tringham over until…

"Your telegram is here, Mr. Tringham!" a voice called as a hand slapped down on the hotel's check-in countertop with the sheet of paper.

"Thank you!" Russell called, freeing himself from the path of his pacing, and rushing to the counter to claim his prize. He snatched up a typewritten sheet of paper in both hands, and the young man's excited eyes scanned it over. A smug, hot grin bubbled through Russell's face as his pleasure rose, "Gotcha." He spun on a dime and began bounding up the stairs, leaping to every third step, "These people are going to owe me a freakin' pay cheque!"

At the second floor, the eldest Tringham shot down the hall, skidding to a stop at a sealed door. Russell took a moment to breathe, straighten himself, shake out his shoulders, hold his chin high, and casually knock on the door.

"Yes?" Mustang's voice bellowed from inside.

Russell's hand fell over the doorknob, and he let himself into the 'war room' – Mustang's interim solution to command central until 'Central' was commandeered. The fluttering white sheet of telegram paper preceded the eldest Tringham brother as he sauntered in.

"Hey!" Russell sounded off happily, eyeballing two former State Alchemists – Mustang and Armstrong, "How's the siege going? Sunk any battleships yet?"

Mustang shot a look across the room with his one eye that could have set the boy ablaze for his distasteful question, "What do you want?"

Russell laughed nervously, and shook out his telegram, "Gillian Atropos."

"Who?" Mustang raised a brow at Russell amidst an impossible amount of papers that haunted him wherever he went.

"Gillian Atropos, 32 years old," Russell snapped the sheet of paper back to eye level, "worked for Mugear as a research assistant for six years in the Xenotime upper core, where Fletcher and I were. She was part of the Red Water project. Can't say I talked to her much, but I recognize her," his eyes quickly skimmed the sheet again, "um, her parents died of Red Water poisoning. And Gillian Atropos herself died two months ago in child birth," the young man shook a shiver through the sheet he held, "You know Ms. Atropos as the Prime Minister's nurse, 'Aisa'."

Mustang's hands gripped the table edge, and he disengaged himself from his work.

Armstrong's eyes puzzled over the statements made, moving over and towering above the suddenly miniature Tringham who most willingly handed over possession of his prized telegram to the officer, "Does she have a husband?"

"Doesn't list one," Russell shrugged.

A deep, noxious intake of air was drawn in through Mustang's nostrils as he inhaled the room. It felt dirty to breathe with so much filthy information in it; the thoughts carrying in the wind were so corrosive sometimes, "How old is Diana?" he asked anyone who would answer.

Armstrong took up a bundle of papers in his other hand, flipping through to make sure he had his answer, "Now? Approximately two or three months."

"Hm…" Mustang exhaled the filth from his lungs, "What's the baby's name in that report?"

The eldest Tringham's eyes shifted, "It doesn't list one. It just indicates that mom and a female baby died in childbirth."

Snatching up a rolled sheet and dumping it onto a clear table, Mustang swept open the sheet and pinned the corners down. He folded his arms, and curiously dabbed his interest in the woman at Dante's side, "If we add in Gillian to our time line, I suspect we'll see Aisa hired on sometime within the last two months. So, why would Dante go all the way to Xenotime for a woman and child?"

"That's an obvious answer," Russell pointed out, "largest documented location of Red Water production ever recorded was in Xenotime."

"Yes, and obviously Dante had a hand in that," Mustang retorted, "but, why waste time and effort if you're in Central to pick up a pregnant woman in Xenotime and make her disappear? Dante already has the Philosopher's Stone, why would she waste her time on the substitute? Red Water production became illegal, and Xenotime is heavily monitored because of that. I don't understand the connection," Mustang shook his head, stepping away from the table and out into room. He glanced up to the towering Armstrong and took the telegram from the officer's possession. Mustang's own eye scoured the typed document of basic recorded details from the Xenotime Municipal Records, catching the wilting Tringham stepping back to lean against the wall, "what are we missing, Mister Tringham?"

The young man's eyes shifted. Russell slipped himself to the door, and quietly latched it shut. He paused everything about himself for a moment, thinking his words through, before stepping away from the sealed frame, "Do you know the best way to crystallize red water and create an imitation Philosopher's Stone?"

Mustang's eye shifted curiously, "I have some vague information on the crystallization process."

Clearing his throat, Russell folded his arms, "The one easy, sure fire way of crystallizing Red Water is perverse."

Without moving, Mustang began to tower over the young man, "I think I need to know."

The Tringham swallowed heavily, "If a pregnant woman drinks the water throughout her trimesters, the water leeches into the placenta and crystallizes during the fetus' growth. It slowly poisons the mother, and the baby usually ends up dying shortly after birth, if it's born at all," he ran his hand harshly through the hair at the back of his neck, "If you start at week three, the placenta crystallizes perfectly. If the red water treatment starts before that, the baby will choke to death on the crystallized placenta before it's ever born. You'd have to castrate the mother if you want to use the Red Stones, because they will have crystallized into the wall of the uterus," Russell shifted his balance between his feet, "all kinds of Red Water pregnancy treatment boils down to: dead mom, dead baby, some degree of Red Stone."

"Sweet mercy…" Armstrong stuttered, seating himself, "that's abhorred."

"I agree," Mustang shook the unsettled look from his expression.

"Some sick pervert in Central conducted that experiment years ago," Russell tossed his head aside, a sour look invading his face, "as far as I ever knew, no one managed to convince anyone in Xenotime to conduct the experiment properly. Non compliance cost people their lives."

Mustang took a step away from his stance, shaking the heavy weight from his shoulders. He moved his feet along the wood flooring of the room as he reexamined the telegram, "Aisa couldn't have been party to that experiment though; both she and the baby are alive."

"Well," Russell's hand's flew out, his tone sarcastic, "what better explanation for a crazed alchemist to make the trek out to Xenotime than to fetch a blooming experiment coming to term," Russell clapped his hands together heavily, shrugging his shoulders at a pair of aghast looks that befell him within the room, "yeah, I know. I'm a ray of sunshine in your day. You're welcome."

With the abrupt shake of his head to throw Russell's chirps from his ears, Mustang sighed and brought a hand to his forehead, "Somebody needs to find out 'why'," he looked back into the room, "why would Dante want something like that if she has a Philosopher's Stone?"

All the Brigadier General's question would receive for an answer would be silence.

"Alright, so we're going to need to confirm if Diana is Aisa's baby, and if the woman was used at all for any Red Water experiments," the senior officer grumbled at his side challenges, "Russell, take your brother back to Xenotime and research this woman for us further. Find her doctors, her medical records, her grave, 'exhume her'; do everything you can."

Slitting his eyes and pinching his cheeks, Russell gave a pointed glare at Mustang, "Is this your way of ordering me out of Central?"

"Yes," Mustang answered abruptly, "your place isn't here during our mission. You're more useful elsewhere, and in less danger. Take Roze with you, she doesn't belong in this mess either," the officer's gaze slipped down to the table, and allowed the timetable he'd comprised on Dante to roll back up, "our march through the southern quadrants of Central begins tonight. Get your ass out of here before the sun sets."


From the depths of a little family shop opposite a hardware store, the AutoMail mechanic had requested a handful of Marks for a non-mechanical purpose. Ed's eyes mingling in the people traffic as he waited outside, finally able to refocus his attention when Winry merrily came out of the shop, a glass bottle filled with a thick brown liquid dangling in her hand. She stuck it under Ed's nose.

A malicious sneer drew across Winry's face, "You should try some. It's good."

"Are you kidding!" Ed sputtered, backing up, "it looks like liquid shit. I'm not drinking that." What an absurd idea. What a preposterous notion. "Who the hell thought they could put chocolate in milk and make an improvement?" Ed looked genuinely distraught over the expense of perfectly good chocolate.

Winry popped the cap off, turning her nose up at Ed and sticking a straw down the bottle's neck. She pinched the bridge of her nose and slowly slipped her lips over the end of the straw. Ed's eye twitched. A deliberate glint sparked in her eyes and she began making a long, loud, dramatic, and drawn out example on how to swallow more than half a bottle of chocolate milk through a straw in only one breath. Ed recoiled, his eyes rolling in disgust, and he shivered himself away from the vile act. Winry came up for air with the loud smack of her lips.

"AH!" she breathed loudly.

"I'm going to be sick," Ed twitched.

"Come on you big baby," Winry grinned, leading their march across the street, "We have more to accomplish," she shook the rattling bag of improvised AutoMail supplies hanging off her shoulder as she crossed. Stepping up onto the other street side, Winry looked up at the door chime that rang overhead as she entered an exhausted looking hardware store.

Today was the day Winry was picking up the beginnings of the materials needed to construct Edward's new arm, and this trip was specifically for his hand. When Ed asked earlier why she'd decided to start at the hand, and seemingly develop her construction from the outer most extremity inwards, Winry stated that she was saving the best part for last – the shoulder port and socket. Ed reminded Winry that the 'best part' was the most painful part of all, and got back from her a glowing, passionate description of why she took great pleasure in the blood-rushing, religious process of wiring together the focal point joining man to machine, and how important it was to do it right. After a few more words and a number of blank stares, the conversation degraded to a point where Ed informed her she was, in fact, a masochistic machine freak.

He spent the next hour icing down the lump on his forehead.

Winry drifted through the store to collect what she could from her list. Edward remained near the door, perched at the storefront window like a mannequin, holding surveillance over the society outside as the world walked by. Ed never did bother keeping track of how long it would take Winry to pillage any particular hardware shop, but she seemed to be mastering the talent, since it felt like she was getting through each location quicker and quicker. His eyes flickered back to the store when Winry shuffled up to his side.

She looked up at him sweetly.

"What…?" Ed asked suspiciously.

Winry's blue eyes shifted before whipping up a pair of needle nosed pliers, "Told you I'd find ones better than what you and your dad has," she beamed, "can I have them?"

Ed rolled his eyes, muttering a string of inaudible words before reaching into a pocket for his wallet, "You done?"

"Yes," she grinned, taking the non answer as a yes, and snatched up the money Ed handed to her.

With one last glance at the world from the window view, Ed slipped his good hand back into his pocket and walked over to Winry at the clerk's desk as she stuffed her purchase into the burlap bag. The hardware store's door rang with chimes when they left.

In the nippy winter air, Ed drew up his hand and narrowed an eye as his index finger canvassed the streets, his attention falling to a four-way corner at the opposite block, "Next store is on the other side, half a block up."

Winry adjusted the bag on her shoulder as they began the walk, "You know, when I get finished with this AutoMail arm of yours, I'll deserve an award!" her hand suddenly flashed through the sky, "Winry Rockbell: AutoMail Miracle Worker Extraordinaire. Improvisation Queen of the Year! One of those better come with a shiny plaque."

When Edward neither quipped nor acknowledged the audacious statement, Winry looked to him. Ed's narrowed eyes were still locked ahead through the streets, his presence darkening, unable to disengage from their intended direction.

"… Shit," He stopped.

"Ed?" Winry tried to look ahead and see what had his attention.

"Sturmabteilung," Ed's heavy voice growled through his breath. With a strong push with his next step, Ed turned himself and Winry around before she'd had a chance to visually analyze what lay ahead, "Move your feet, we're going this way."

"What's wrong?" Winry sputtered, unnerved by the sudden change, "you just said we need to go that way."

Edward's breath could be seen in the cold winter air as much as it could be heard, "I'll explain in a minute."

Edward grabbed Winry by the hand and suddenly vanished between two rows of buildings, disappearing into the stone shadows. He pulled Winry through the ice and sludge of the alley, stumbling to the back service road behind the business streets. Trudging across the unkept service road, they once again vanished into the shadows of buildings, emerging onto a street-side two blocks down. Ed didn't stop; he wove their path across a street of stopped traffic. At the corner of a block, Ed turned their advance sharply, and vanished behind a heavy set of building doors. Edward and Winry stood a moment in the main floor of a white office building, no one paying any mind to the pair who'd burst in. Again in motion, Ed led swiftly through the centre of the building, following as much of a straight line path as he could make, before exiting through the building's rear door, and stepping down into the snow and sediment of the building's private service alley. The building's door slammed heavily behind them. Ed and Winry finally stopped.

"What the hell was that all about?" Winry sputtered.

"Sturmabteilung," Ed looked around at the loading and delivery doors of the street side shops, "they were down the street; one was watching us. We should go home."

Winry baulked, "… Stermawhat?"

"Adolf's goon squad," Ed's eyes flickered to the exit they'd walked through, "we don't want to be out while they're trolling."

Winry looked back at him silently for a few moments. Ed was wound tight by the presence of people she knew nothing about and couldn't pronounce. Winry couldn't say it felt very comforting to have him reacting out of sorts and the fact they were some kind of 'goon squad' didn't bode well for their safety. Winry's eyes lowered to the hand still in Edward's possession, "Does that mean Envy's after us now?"

Edward shifted at the question – he hadn't discussed his encounter with Adolf and the state of Envy with Winry yet. He'd meant to, he'd wanted to, but Ed never got so far as opening his mouth to the conversation. Ed cleared his throat, "It's something like that."

"Okay, then let's go home," Winry adjusted the strap of the bag over her shoulder – if it was this concerning him, she didn't want to be out, "I have enough to get some work done."

Ed nodded and led Winry down the path from the stout alley of loading doors to the service road behind the strip of businesses. His feet stopped, straddling the wheel grooves dug into the unpaved back road. Winry stopped at his shoulder when Edward's advancing motion ceased, his body stiffening as their pairs of eyes looked up and down the road.

Edward's brow tumbled, "You asshole… you don't waste any time, do you?" he grumbled to himself.

Each end of the road had a man standing squarely in the way, arms folded and feet shoulder-width apart. Imposing men's chests expanded with their deep breaths, stretching the fabric of brown, button-down coats. Each man stood large in their lifeless browns, almost identically trimmed, and more than firmly built – the perfect representation of a Sturmabteilung officer from head to black-toed boot. They were an adopted force made up of thugs, bar brawlers, and storm troopers. They were flesh projections of immovable walls.

"Winry, get back in the building," Ed ordered, his hand drawing up and pushing against her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" she stepped back at his urging, looking towards the metal door of the building.

"I'm going to deal with this," Ed hissed, his teeth clenching as the two men slowly drew to life, "I just need you to get inside. GO!" He watched Winry turn and move towards the door, her mitten-worn hands clamping down on the handle. His eyes drifted to the men who approached slowly, teasing him, daring Ed to make a hasty move – it would be easier for him to chose a path and deal quickly with one man than wait until they drew together as two.

From behind Ed's shoulder Winry screamed; a sound that exploded the entire world around them into action. He looked to witness the thundering crash of the metal door swinging wide. Ed bolted towards the building's exit as Winry fought the hands on her coat and in her hair. The two flanking men in the back road moved to follow Edward, chasing as he disregarded their presence. The flying Elric wrapped his arm around Winry's waist and put his strength into her fight.

When a fourth man appeared beyond the open building door, one of the four unidentifiable voices boomed through the alley. Winry was released, and both she and Edward tumbled to the ground in a heap.


The Prime Minister's office looked like it had become something of a debacle. Paper and people had been distributed everywhere. The last time Hakuro had been on the offensive, Fuhrer Bradley had been fantastically organized and skillfully knowledgeable about his pending engagement.

Although he'd chosen to support it, democracy… this democracy… looked astoundingly weak. It certainly had to be why Drachma continued to attack their north – those people were like ravenous desert birds, they could sense frailty. If it weren't for the Briggs mountains, this country would have collapsed months ago.

But, those countries that existed in democracy had encouraged Amestris, and they'd encouraged Hakuro to support it. They warned this nation that 'this transition is hard', but if you endure, you will get through it. As things stood now, with Brigadier General Mustang lurking and waiting, with the military broken into factions, with the general public tangled in fear… democracy was in danger.

This 'fake' democracy was in danger.

General Hakuro let the door to the Prime Minister's office shut silently behind him. He watched from afar as the head of the Central City Municipal Planning Department marked out a series of pivotal city points in a red pen on a map.

This wasn't like Ishibal, or Lior, or any other historical conflict. This city, this pivotal central point in this nation, was devouring itself. This wasn't Central overrunning another group of people – Ishbalans versus Amestrians – this was Amestrians versus Amestrians. The conflict was internal. The conflict split the people. It weakened the nation.

A conflict brought on by this 'fake' democracy, supposedly orchestrated by the same person who'd orchestrated all the others.

Hakuro's hand clenched around the documents he held and marched into the room.

A map that looked more like a blue print of Central had been unwound and held down over a large fold-out table. The room was full of people Hakuro didn't particularly care to have social contact with. He couldn't say he knew the municipal planner, but he knew he didn't care for the upper echelon of the police department, or head of national security, or the head of national defence – which was, annoyingly, a division the military now answered to. Hakuro had tried to convince himself that if these men were put in a pinch, 'national defence' would find a way to effectively assert everyone – he had a hard time trusting that blind faith.

The officer eyed the municipal planner as he rolled up the sheet of city prints and hand it to a representative for national security. Every other department was already in possession of a map. Hakuro made a fairly safe assumption that the final rolled up paper tube on the opposing desk was going to be his. The city planner continued to talk to the department heads, waggling his red pen, while the officer moved deeper into the room. Every department head and their accompanying subordinates were enthralled in the discussions being held, Prime Minister Mitchell included.

"Hakuro!" Mitchell finally noticed him, and everyone rose from their zone.

The officer cleared his throat and spoke gruffly, "You asked to see me?"

"Yes!" Mitchell moved and began an explanation about why he'd summoned Hakuro, but Hakuro stopped listening. Nothing the prime minister could say would explain why Nina Mitchell, or Tucker, or whomever this child was, was in the room – her presence coming into the light as Mitchell stepped away from her.

"Sir?" Hakuro stopped the chattering man with a bark, "why is your daughter here? This is no place for a child."

"Ah, Nina," Mitchell looked over to her and smiled, but the little girl was not looking back – her eyes were focused in the discussion of men; wide and enthralled, "she was supposed to leave with Diana, but she fell ill. Poor thing has developed some rashes on her body. We wanted to make sure she's fine before she travels."

Frowning, Hakuro flipped his attention between the man he spoke with and the little girl, "Shouldn't she be at a clinic then? Or a hospital? If she's contagious at all, she should be quarantined."

"She was at the hospital earlier," Mitchell nodded, "but she's been released. She's no danger to anyone."

"So, why is she here now?" the General again questioned the presence of the child in the room.

Folding his arms, Mitchell took a moment to think over the answer, like there wasn't one readily available, "Because I feel more confident in her safety if she's with me. This city isn't in the best of conditions."

Hakuro wouldn't argue the state of the city, that was for certain, but… to have no one, not even an advisor, send the child away? Give her toys to play with on the floor. Let her sit with the secretary and hit keys on the typewriter. Children should be protected from war, not standing alongside it. Hakuro shook his head, "What did you need me for?"

Leading the general back to the table, Mitchell picked up the final bound tube of city planners work, "Deployment and strategic defence outlines are being issued to key departments in the event Mustang acts before we can eradicate his influence."

What the hell? Hakuro had been in the military since he was 17, he was a General, he was obviously more than capable of laying out his own strategies, "I'm sorry, Sir, why was this drafted without me?" How insulting – he should have been the one to draft the damn thing.

"Because the military does not run this country anymore, General," one of the men surrounding the table trumpeted.

"We're involving you now, Hakuro," Mitchell nodded, ushering the officer into the circle of things as the final roll of city planning was laid out on the table.

Voices rose again; ignorant voices telling Hakuro how best his 'division' would protect the city of Central. How degrading. The officer struggled to hide the displeasure in his face. Who the hell were these people compared to him anyways? Hakuro wasn't one to be shy of pompous arrogance, but really if you're going to be facing an upheaval lead by a military man, wouldn't they have sought his military input first and foremost?

Without warning, a smiling pair of eyes lit up at Hakuro's side, the officer looked down in surprise, "General Hakuro is making faces, Daddy," Nina piped up.

The general's eyes narrowed.

"Please focus, General, your input at this point is important," Mitchell instructed harshly.

Why wasn't it important before? Hakuro tried to wipe all expression from his face. Do these people truly have no experience? Shouldn't someone be addressing what the hell happened in the mountains? The sudden Drachma surge had retreated, the rage from their nation's government screamed of incredible alchemy, and a former State Alchemist and his troupe had fallen off the radar. Hakuro looked down at the little girl at his side, "This isn't a place for you right now, Nina, please let us do our work."

"You don't seem very happy about your work," Nina blinked a round set of eyes to the man sadly.

Hakuro's attention fluttered between the girl and the room. He had two children and never in his wildest dreams would he bring them into a setting like this. This little one existed like a ghost, no one paid any mind to her, where she stood, or the things she said. And everyone continued to talk around her like her presence didn't matter, "Conflict isn't a happy thing, Nina."

A bright smile flashed into the girl's face, and she clapped her hands with excitement, "I know what'll help!"

With snap reaction faster than Nina could have avoided, Hakuro had seized the child, grabbing the little girl's forearms. The sealed brown envelope in his hands fell to the ground and Nina gawked up at him in surprise.

"HAKURO!" Mitchell yelled, his hands slamming down, "what are you doing!"

Well, now the little thing matters. The general's brow creased and the prime minister of his country was ignored. Hakuro crouched down in front of Nina, "I don't have time for your games, Nina, this is an adult's world with adult things, and I need to focus without your assistance."

Nina gave a tug to her arms, "I just wanted to help. DADDY!" the child cried.

"General Hakuro!" Mitchell stormed around the table, throwing a hand to one of the officer's arms, and ripping him away from Nina with a vicious amount of force, "you do not handle my child that way!"

Hakuro straightened himself and barely grumbled an apology. He snatched up his envelope, took a step back, watching the little girl brush her hands off on her dress with a formidable scowl to keep her company, "May I have a moment of your time, Mister Prime Minister? Alone?" Hakuro asked.

"You want a moment of my time?" Mitchell snipped with ruffled feathers, "I want a moment of your time, now!"

Mitchell led Hakuro away, leaving behind the government chatter and angered little girl. Hakuro's attention veered to the envelope of papers in his hand as the two men moved, "I have a few questions I'd like to run by you sir, before we get down to business."

Mitchell's gaze snapped over his shoulder to the officer, "Questions about what?"

The general held up his envelope, unwinding the sealing string as the men walked, "Lieutenant Havoc's police case file regarding Winry Rockbell for starters… I've found a number of discrepancies."


Edward and Winry scrambled off of the slushy surface of gravel and snow, coming up to their feet, both backing away from the gathering of four indistinct men. Once again, the building door thundered shut.

"We have a message to pass along to you," someone announced.

"It takes four of you to pass along one message?" Ed breathed heavily, tucking Winry behind himself.

"Ed?" Winry's voice quietly rose from behind his shoulder.

Elric eyes shifted through the unfolding scenario; thinking, planning, and trying not to be as concerned as he knew he should be, "Stay behind me and don't let them near you. The moment you see an opening to run, take it, and get as far away from here as you can."

"What are you going to do?" the concern in her voice pitched.

"I'm going to talk with these assholes," Ed returned to addressing the crowd of men, "Yeah, so what's this about a 'message' for me?"

One body lumbered forwards, followed shortly by a second drawing to action. Ed stepped forwards with the dip of his absent right shoulder, and spun away from the first charge. Like every step he'd take was choreographed, Edward moved fluidly – reaching back, grabbing the man by his shirt collar, and pulling around the brown-shirted terror into the path of the second assailant.

Edward was spun around from his open right side by a surprise hand of a third man. Ed's left hand snatched the wrist of an oncoming fist out of the air, and with a heaving motion through his shoulder, Ed drew the man towards him, cocked his arm back, and put his own vile fist squarely into the centre of the assailant's face. Ed reared his arm for a second shot, but was stopped when a heavy hand grabbed his elbow from behind and the captor's arm jarred up under his chin. One of the four men saw the opening on Edward and swooped in with two punches to his face, and the bottom of a boot to Ed's stomach. Before any further punishment could be dealt, Ed was released with a loud 'clang'. He staggered away, looking back to see Winry throw her arms over her head, and again strike down on Ed's momentary captor with the rim of a garbage can lid.

Winry looked sharply to Ed at the end of her follow-through, gave an underhanded toss of the lid, and Ed caught it cleanly. He turned and charged towards the first brown-coat assailant standing in his sights. Rather than using his metallic aide as expected, Ed dipped down and ploughed through the man's legs with his shoulder, then hip, spraying up the alley's winter slush as he moved. Edward rose sharply, flipping the assailant head over heels, and dumping him to the ground. With his movements once again fluid, Ed spun on his heels, firmly gripped the handle of the trash lid, and smacked the flat underside into the face of a reappearing combatant. The assailant staggered back and the lid was flung aside. With a thundering step forwards, Ed's left arm roared back, his feet gripped the ground, toes curling in his right boot, and Edward again slammed his fist into an assailant's face.

A hand appeared, grabbed the flying golden ponytail, and hauled Ed backwards. A foot roared in and pushed out the knee on his faux left leg. Ed's good left arm was seized and twisted behind his back. The cascading capture finalized when a foot came down heavily on Ed's flesh ankle, pinning him on his knees. Edward was forcefully straightened upright with a fierce yank on his hair, and before he'd had any chance to react, someone's angered fist began crashing through Ed's face, multiple times, before the solid toe of a boot swung in and buried itself deep below his ribcage. Ed's body heaved from the impact, his hair was released, and as he collapsed forwards from the strike, a heavy fist crashed down over the back of Edward's head, bouncing his forehead off the packed gravel road. A white light burst through his eyes, before everything went to black.

For a length of time Edward could not define, there was neither sight nor sound.

Sound was the first thing to appear in the dark void, garbled like a poor gramophone record. Edward's ears picked up a few indistinct voices, unable to decipher what had been said.

With his left fist shakily sliding through the mess of snow, ice, gravel, and sediment, Ed tried to lift himself, fighting the angry disorientation depriving the world of balance. His ears heard the surroundings better than he saw them as his eyelids lifted. When Winry's screaming suddenly broke through his ears clear as day, the static cleansed, and he caught the crisp sound of the bag of shopping supplies being thrown, and the contents crashing into the winter alley sludge at everyone's feet with a clatter. Edward took two heavy breaths before pushing his shoulders clean off the ground. His forehead remained connected to the pavement through a trail of blood that leaked to the earth. Ed pulled his knees under himself, put his forearm against the running leak on his head, and tried to spot Winry by her cry. She was found in the corner furthest from him; the four brown, burly men had devoted their interest to Winry, her coat off her shoulders and beneath someone else's feet. One man stood behind Winry, his arms wrapped under hers, hoisting the girl up off her feet as she struggled, legs kicking and flailing to fight back the second man in front of her.

It was a bizarre sight of mounting danger that did not register as being real, and was terrifying enough that Ed did not realize it would have the ability to stop time as abruptly as it did.

And Edward Elric moved faster than the grinding, squealing metal gears that struggled to push time forwards. He scrambled on hand and knees, through the mess of hardware supplies scattered about. Nearly on his feet again, Edward snatched up the discarded trashcan lid and hurled it at the collection of thugs, watching it bounce off one man's side. The action took focus off of Winry and brought it back to him.

With a sudden thrust of her legs amidst the distraction, Winry popped free of her captor's grasp, landing on her hip on the alley floor amongst the scattered collection of AutoMail equipment and parts.

Ed turned over his left shoulder to reposition himself as one of the four men approached with haste, only to lose his balance at the sudden movement. He tumbled to his knees again, falling below an arm that swung out for him. Ed's hand swept through the winter sludge on the unpaved ground as someone's grasp returned to his hair. The first thing the Elric's fingers touched was what he picked up for defence. As Edward was hauled backwards by his hair, his hand clenched and arm locked. Before anyone or anything could strike again, Ed turned his shoulders and buried Winry's new needle-nosed pliers into the hip of the man dragging him. The unbridled animal cry of a screaming man raged out as Ed wrenched around the tool buried in the man's flesh and then ripped it out, breaking away from his assailant. With the leather-wrapped handles in his fingers, Ed adjusted his grip on his weapon, once again finding footing on the cement ground.

Golden Elric eyes scanned the depths of the alley as best he could, but all he needed to know was that Winry was no longer in the scene. With his head down, Ed thundered forwards to the next person in his sights, his shoulders connecting with the muscle-bound torso of a man; the Elric crashed into the assailant and hurried him backwards. They staggered along together, grappling at one another, until Ed had controlled the tango long enough that he drove the man into the cement wall of a looming building– making sure he'd run up enough force that this terror of a man felt the impact of the wall from head to toe. Ed didn't have to look to know there would be two more men available. He spun away from the wall, drew out his left arm, and slammed the nose of the pliers into the shoulder of the next arriving combatant. The impaled object became a handle to the man's stunned body, and Ed took a firm grip of the pliers embedded in the flesh, placed his balance on the strength of the left leg Winry had made for him, and put the bottom of his right boot into the shocked man's stomach, ripping the pliers out as he shoved the assailant away.

There wasn't enough time to brace himself for the fourth man. Edward's hand clenched around the handle of his defence, and turned to witness the final assailant drop to the ground like he'd been shot in the head. Ed froze, golden eyes flying wide – there'd been no gunshots. Startled, his gaze moved off of the man clutching his skull to a wrench that fell to the ground, landing in a pile of winter slush.

Ed staggered back from the event. The sleeve of his coat swept up to wipe away the blood draining from his forehead through the curves of his face, spitting out what had gathered in the seam of his lips. Heavy, exhausted breaths rolled through his movements as Ed backed away in a haze. Winry appeared in his line of sight suddenly, materializing between one of the blinks of his eyes. He was certain she had something she wanted to say, maybe Winry was even saying it, but it was lost in the mess his failing vision made out of her missing coat, soiled clothing, scratched cheek, split lower lip, and cold hands that tried to push him away faster.

Edward suddenly planted his feet on the ground defiantly. His shoulders stiffened, his hand clenched tight around the pliers he gripped, and a deep breath was drawn in. Winry gripped the front of his coat tightly; as if she could stop Ed if he showed signs of re-engaging the melee.

With two sharp snaps of his left arm, Ed drew up the bloody pliers and hurled them backhanded into the alley wall, listening to them clatter loudly off the cement and rattle around on the ground before coming to rest, "Didn't I tell your boss…" a pointed finger drew around high at head level as the Elric's brow became riddled with seams, the bloodied whites of his teeth clenched, and his raging voice exploded, "HE DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!"

Winry pushed against Ed, backing him up, "ED! Shut up and leave!"

"Did he send you out here thinking I'd just bend over and let you kick my ass for free?" Edward roared, his voice scorching mankind's ears with wildfire. Ed's sleeve again wiped through his face before the only arm he had wrapped around Winry's right shoulder as she pushed him back, "NOW I'M TELLING HIM TO FUCK OFF! GOT IT?"

The looks in a handful of angry, dark eyes flickered onto him.

"YOU TELL HIM THAT!"

"GET GOING," Winry screamed, her movements panicked, a trembling hand coming over Ed's mouth frantically to silence him as his grip on her shoulder tightened. She pushed and fought against his verbal rage until Ed's retreating motion accelerated to a hurried pace, and they left the confrontation behind.


Really, Alphonse thought that by this point he'd be dying of starvation or sleep deprivation. Yet, he wasn't hungry, tired, thirsty, or delirious. Al didn't know how long he'd been at the Gate. There was no sunrise or sunset. Al had no clock or watch to tell the time. There was just the never-ending light encompassing the void of the Gate. Al wasn't even sure if this was 'light' – it was some kind of illumination. Light at least carried an air of warmth to it and cast shadows, this illumination was as void of anything as the Gate was.

The young Elric was expecting to fall into some kind of delirium; he hadn't slept since he'd gotten there. Surprisingly, his mind seemed to remain intact, never falling into sleep deprived madness or feeling exhaustion weigh on him. What Al was suffering from was frustration. He'd been awake and aware for every moment he'd been at the Gate, knowing every dull or terrifying second that passed, unable to find a way to release himself from this prison. Time was endless and unstoppable, he'd never been so aware of its progression until he'd lost the ability to track it. He had no idea how much time had passed unless he counted. He was assuming days had passed, but he certainly couldn't count for days to have confirmed that.

Alphonse likened the experience to what he'd heard life had been like as a suit of armour – no need for anything to sustain his existence.

His jacket, shirt, socks and shoes were thrown around the base of the Gate from time to time. There was very little to do, so dressing and undressing himself was something to do. Screaming at the Gate, screaming into the white void, and screaming to know he was alive was also something to do. It was like he was someone trapped in the debris of a disaster, desperate to be saved, but buried so far away he'd never be heard by anyone. After a while, Al gave up on the screaming and turned to talking to himself.

He told himself stories. He told himself lies. Alphonse created worlds, destroyed worlds, and rebuilt worlds, until he got bored of the process.

The youngest Elric got up, walk to the black pitch of the Gate, and ask it to tell him a story. He didn't even get the courtesy of being looked at by one of the frightening purple eyes Izumi once told him about. The only conclusion Al could come to that would explain why they didn't appear, was that Diana frightened them away somehow.

Alphonse wondered how that worked, so he asked the Gate. No answer. He wrote his question into the Gate's thick pitch, and still received no answer. He asked the Gate verbally and non-verbally about a million different things. Al asked what it was about a trip to the Gate that permitted people like Dante, his teacher, and his brother to clap their hands to perform alchemy. He asked why he couldn't see to the other side. Al asked where the pitch came from and what the light around the Gate was. No answer ever came; not that Al had expected one to. If someone was invading his turf, he probably wouldn't be too cooperative either.

The more time that passed, the braver Alphonse got with the Gate. He was glad it didn't seem interested in harming him – it made the adventuring easier. Touching it was one of the first things Al had done, second thing he'd done was to write and draw on the black pitch. He'd written his questions and drawn transmutation circles. Nothing happened. Bravery increased in the young Elric: he sunk a hand in. He sunk his forearm in. Alphonse Elric sunk his entire arm into the Gate, and other than dealing with the viscosity, it was no trouble to enter or exit. It gave no sensation; if he were to ever describe what it was like to be 'voided' – this was it. It was remarkably similar to how it felt to be in the white room at the Gate, except stronger. The Elric folded his arms and frowned at the Gate. With a sudden, deep breath, Al leaned forwards and stuck his face into the pitch. He opened his eyes. Nothing. No, it was really nothing. Interesting! He wasn't looking at blackness, he was looking at nothingness.

Al took his face out.

The bored little Elric wandered over to the hinge of the heavy stone doors. With a thoughtful gleam in his eye, Al stuck his arm beyond the Gate, and reached around the frame, feeling through the substance to see if there was anything to touch. There was – he could literally reach around and touch opposing frame of the door. Why was it surprising to find that an open door had two sides? He felt it out as best he could, afraid to reach too far and lose his side. As best he could tell, with a few sprints around the open doors to see if he could compare, the reverse side of the Gate was a mirrored image of his side. 'Interesting' transformed into fascinating. He scampered to the opposite hinge and tested the concept again. Same result.

Fascinating!

Centering himself at the middle of the Gate, Alphonse dropped to his knees. Down on all fours, he carefully slid a hand out along the surface he knelt on, sliding his hand beyond the Gate. The smooth surface continued; there wasn't even a perforation to mark the change – just a density change. Al bounced to his feet, scampered to the frame of the Gate yet again, put his hands against the open Gate doors for balance, and stuck his foot in. His toe tapped the surface. The Elric's bravery shifted weight to the exploratory foot, and he stepped down – making absolutely certain he had the majority of his weight and balance remained on the brighter side of the Gate.

Nevertheless, he stood for a moment at the Gate doors, with one foot standing on the surface of the place on the other side.

It was fascinating and exciting and tantalizing and astoundingly dangerous. Al took his foot out.

Sitting down, Al tried to figure out what his new information told him.

On the opposite side of the Gate was a dark 'heavy' space, with a mirrored facing Gate. He'd felt the Gate frame and not a secondary set of doors, which meant there was one set of doors that opened in his direction. From his point of view, if Al wanted to see the Gate, he had to be in this white space first. Maybe there was a space like that as well for the other side of the Gate? A black one? …That made sense! The worlds could be viewed as opposites, so this side was full of light and that side was full of darkness.

Something more suddenly made sense; complete and utter sense! The youngest Elric roared with ironic laughter as he flopped over on his side, "Diana's not linking to the other world itself, she's linking to the other world's 'Gate space'… or whatever this place is. That's why I can't see the world beyond the Gate!"

A young infant was needed, because an infant hadn't developed bonds between its mind, body, and soul. That infant needed to be a hermaphrodite – a child combined of both worlds.

"How would Dante get a baby from 'beyond' the Gate? She didn't, did she? That's why the Gate is black and so well behaved," Alphonse told the white space an answer it wouldn't share itself, "Dante must have fused Diana with one of the creatures within the Gate – that's why we're not seeing the world, only the Gate space… because that's where the Gate creatures exist, in the black Gate space."

How fantastic, two points up on Dante, and she didn't even know it. Now, what was he supposed to do with that knowledge?

Technically the opposite Gate was part of the other world, but it was physically detached. Could Al walk into the other room and return just fine as long as Diana was there? He wasn't about to try – Al was the only one who knew alchemy wasn't possible beyond the Gate, so he couldn't risk getting himself stuck. How was he supposed to bridge the gap between the place at the other world's side of the Gate, and the world itself? Where had the blood come from that flowed from the Gate? He hadn't seen anyone bleeding in the pitch, but then again, he wasn't sure if his eyes could see anything in that room – he'd only touched things. Did somebody die in that room? What was the energy? Where did that come from?

There were still more questions than answers, and Alphonse threw his arms over his face as he rolled onto his back, "This is stupid, I still don't know what I'm supposed to do." Again, frustrations mounted and the youngest Elric scowled. He didn't understand how the other world functioned or how to put together the scattered puzzle pieces of information he had, "All I set out to do was find my brother and bring him home where he belongs. Why is that so hard to do?"

Another question the Gate had no intention of answering.


To Be Continued...


Notes:

Red water treatment in pregnancy (to crystallize the stone) was something Nash Tringham was experimenting with. The experiments had been a success in Central, but Nash was unwilling to continue the experiments in Xenotime

I've never given much for a description of Aisa – she's something the reader is free to imagine up. I'd suspect everyone has a different idea on what she looks and sounds like. I've always seen her as the kind of character whose face is never clearly seen on screen and whose voice is unremarkable. For the times where she is visible, she's very bland, unassuming, and dismissible.

Chapter 36: Social Augmentation

Summary:

Ed is slow to recover from his fight while Izumi tries to track down Aisa.

Chapter Text

"GET THE HELL OFF OF ME, BOTH OF YOU!"

Hermann's brow creased, teeth clenched, and he threw a number of options out the window before deciding to drain his syringe into Ed's shoulder, stubbornly defiant against the protest of an extremely loud and volatile Elric.

"Give that a few minutes and things will feel a good deal better," Hermann put his tool aside amidst the lethal glare he received after Tilly removed the pillow from the side of Ed's face. "You have got to be the luckiest son of a bitch I've ever met… still able to put up a fight with me after all that."

Ed calmed in the dark house. Only a meek fire ran to heat the home; it was the easiest thing on the calamity of a headache Ed had. Tilly tucked the pillow beneath Ed's head and replaced the soft bag of snow wrapped in a hand towel that was being used to quell the swelling on Edward's left cheek – it seemed everyone who'd hit him was right handed. The woman took a glance over to Winry, eyeing her curled up quietly in the rocking chair next to the fireplace, before settling herself back down.

"Edward, I am a scientist. I met you and we were scientists researching advanced theories in flight, rocketry, and engineering. Yet somehow I've turned into your personal doctor." Hermann shook his head at the concept, "how did this happen?"

"That's what you get for learning to be a doctor before turning into a scientist," Ed flinched when Tilly swept an alcohol soaked ball of cotton over his knuckles.

Hermann's hand clamped down on Ed's good eye, pulling it wide for investigation, and instructed the Elric to focus on the motions of his pen, "The last person I ever thought I'd get a call from during dinner hour yesterday was Winry," Hermann glanced over to her in the chair for a moment, "and I'm really impressed that she called, even if she only had four words to go on."

"Yeah…" the reply came out slow, and Ed's eye lost focus on the directorial pen – everything diverted to his thoughts of the prior night. Herman snapped his fingers to reclaim Ed's attention to finish with the assessment.

"You're better now than you were last night though," the pen was slipped into the chest pocket of Hermann's shirt, "I only had to snap my fingers once."

"There you go," Tilly announced, showing Ed his re-bandaged hand that accompanied his wrapped forehead and torso, "fresh bandages all around. Little less red and a bit more white." The woman's eyes widened playfully, giving him a carefully eyeballed head-to-waistband examination, "I don't think I've ever seen you without your shirt on, Edward. It's quite interesting to see a man without an arm," Tilly put her spool of wrapping bandage down on a side table, "it's a shame really, because if you had both those arms and we could wash those bruises off, you'd be something quite exceptional to look at."

Ed reddened at the comment, looking at the woman warily.

"Mathilde!" her husband stared back at her, a little unimpressed.

Tilly rolled her eyes at the two of them, "I am just saying he would be the first thing any and every girl between fifteen and thirty on a French beach would look at. He's blonde, a bit pale, but he's nicely built," the wife huffed at Hermann's blank stare and gave a very sweet smile to Ed, "it would make him fun and games for all the ladies to try and find out if he's just as nicely built from the waist down."

A little dark red vein popped into existence among the bruising on Ed's red and purple face, "I think something's seriously wrong with your wife, Hermann."

Tilly laughed.

The pseudo-doctor laughed as well, rising to his feet and moving out of the room, "She's a troublesome little chick, just 'chirp chirp chirp' all day long." Hermann snapped his fingers, far less distraught over the conversation than Ed was. The older man tidied the mess he'd made of the coffee table with the sorry little first aid kit kept in the house and took himself to the front door, snagging his boots, "I'm going to head home for a bit and grab a couple of things. I wasn't expecting to be here all night, so I'll be back here in about forty-five minutes to an hour," Hermann threw his coat over his shoulders, "I'll put some stitches into your forehead; I should have some thread left from the last time I put your face back together."

"Har har," Ed rolled his eyes… as best he could with the left eye mostly swollen shut. Yet, there was that sudden threat of a needle again and Ed cringed. If he was lucky, he'd be unconscious for that procedure.

"I'll see if I can find anything in this house to make us a late breakfast with," Tilly nodded, standing and taking her leave as well, "can't save people's lives and then let them starve."

Tilly excused herself from the living room and shortly thereafter Hermann vacated the house. Edward listened to the building fall into relative silence once the front door rattled shut. Ed swallowed the groan his body tried to voice as he moved to a more upright position. His head was still pounding, though it was thankfully far more manageable.

"I don't think you're supposed to be getting up…"

Ed blinked over to Winry, "I thought you'd fallen asleep."

Winry snorted, "It's hard to sleep when you're trying to kill people with your voice."

"Sorry…" a sheepish look took over Ed's face; he just didn't like needles!

Winry leaned forwards in the rocker and slipped to her feet, making her way to the couch, "Are you feeling better?"

Not counting his swollen face and a body parts wrapped in bandages, Ed responded, "I'm alright." He shuffled a bit, giving room for Winry at the end of the sofa, "I'm sore as hell though. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Winry nodded, "I'm alright."

"Where did you find Hermann's phone number?" Ed finally had the opportunity to ask.

Winry tucked her knees under herself and sat down, nesting into the cushion, "In the card-files on the desk in your dad's old office," Winry tipped her head into the seat backing and gave a light, embarrassed laugh to herself, "I felt pretty stupid for a bit. I called and didn't realize until Hermann answered that I didn't know how to say what I wanted," her eyes fell away, "you weren't doing good by the time we got home… "

A log in the weakly lit fire place broke from the slow morning burn, shaking out its cinders while it crumbled; Winry's desire to explain herself further crumbled along with it.

Ed figured this was one of those moments where he was supposed to find something reassuring to say, and when he took the deep breath needed for it, an unexpected weight ploughed over Edward's body like an avalanche. As quickly as he felt it hit, it lifted, leaving behind a battered and bruised man that felt like he was floating in water. The knots through his neck, shoulders, and back felt like they'd loosened and Ed allowed the tension to drain. He had no doubt it was the result of whatever Hermann had shot him up with. Ed gave a shake of his head to try and tone the feeling down and he turned to watch Winry where she sat.

"I should have told you," Ed blinked, feeling like every muscle movement he made to speak was exaggerated.

"Told me what?" Winry looked up.

"About Envy," Ed answered, unable to do anything to hide the fight he was putting up against whatever was trying to carry him away, "and Adolf and the meeting during the week."

Winry smiled lightly, "We can talk about it later, I think you need to lay down."

Winry's voice began to compete with the fireplace as the loudest thing in Ed's ears, "We should talk about it now. It's important."

Edward had developed a 'bad' habit in London of falling asleep to the sound of the fireplace; Ed found the destructive element's confined behaviour somewhat relaxing. Fire reminded him a great deal of Mustang, and he had to give the man due credit for harnessing something so wild without walls to confine it. It was strange for Ed to realize how much of a safety net it had been to have Mustang around until he was honestly stranded on his own.

The fire also brought out a couple of nice memories to entertain from childhood with his mom and brother; how they'd snuggle up in the rocker and she'd read to them in front of the fire on cold nights. Or when they'd come into the Rockbell home from outside on a rainy day and dry out in front of Pinako's fireplace. That was worlds ago, and a long time ago; a part of what felt like somebody else's normal life. But Ed still remembered that shadow of a memory clearly enough that he could stand in the middle of a yellow house and look down at three kids he once knew. Little Winry opened her mouth to speak.

"Yeah, well, you're important too sometimes… like right now."

Ed startled. He returned to reality in a fog, on his back upon the couch with Winry's hand sweeping away the hair on his face and setting down the cold bag of snow onto his battered left cheek.

"S'okay Win," Ed mumbled – he had not expected his mouth to be that hard to move.

He heard something that sounded like Winry's laugh, "Hey, come on. You need to be taken care of too once in a while," Ed wondered how annoying it must be for his hair to keep messing up his forehead; Winry kept sweeping it away, "Equivalent exchange, or something."

"Pffff…" the dismissive noise was the last coherent thing Ed managed.


"Okay, seriously," Jean Havoc threw down his cards in a huff, "bleed me dry already. Who the hell invited you to the poker floor?"

"He did," Riza pointed to Roy as she collected her winnings.

"Sir, I respectfully request that we establish a 'no women allowed' set of poker rules," Havoc complained in a hushed voice as he gnawed on his cigarette in the empty, darkened room. The air smelt a little like ash, but mostly of the dank moisture that had been trapped within the building walls undisturbed for days.

"Request denied," Roy answered casually, "I do not promote sexism."

"You promote a lot of other things that have the word sex in them though," Havoc was the only one of the men in the room – Breda, Furey, & Falman – who could get away with that remark, "why exclude this one?"

With the shake of his head, Breda gave an elbow to his financially woeful partner, "You realize that you're complaining about a woman who's sitting right in front of you, with a better shot than you, and all your money."

"Hey," Havoc threw in an excessively dramatic show of hurt, "I'm a damned good rifleman, thank you very much."

Falman gave a snort to the exchange, "I think we should deal before you become target practice, Lieutenant."

Havoc raised his arms to call his surrender, "I'm not only second rate, but I'm also broke. Don't bother dealing me in."

Breda gave a 'tisk' to Havoc's departure from the game, "Never gonna impress the ladies with poker skills like this, man."

"Pft," the blonde officer spat his cigarette out into his fingers, "I could be letting the high-ranking lady win. What kind of a man takes advantage of a female rookie at the table? What kind of man embarrasses his senior officer in front of peers? I have morals."

As Fuery handed out the next deal of poker cards, Riza leaned over and gave a whisper of her concerns to Roy, "You… didn't tell them I knew how to play?"

"Why would I?" Roy grinned, giving her question a shrug, "It's more fun to watch them suffer this humiliation."

"You're cruel, sir," Riza rolled her eyes, "did you tell them that it was my night for the beer run?"

"They don't even know you're in on the beer run," Roy mused at the idea.

One of Riza's eyebrows perked, "That's because I'm not; you asked me if I'd pitch in tonight."

Roy gave a wise pat to his major's shoulder, "And I knew it wouldn't cost you a single cent, because you'd bleed them dry."

Riza's expression went flat, "It was your night to buy, wasn't it?"

"Gentlemen," Roy raised his voice enough to gather only the attention of those in earshot, what lay beyond the darkened confines of this candlelit room needn't know they were there, "last hand before we head out to pick up evening refreshments."

"I can't believe you put us all on the 9-5AM rotation. That's not even a graveyard shift, it's just cruel," Breda grumbled, "that better be some damned good beer."

"You'll be taken care of," Roy smirked at the complaint as he swept up the cards handed to him, "we need to take our hold on the southern ward tonight, and if we do it while the sun is down and people are asleep, we'll avoid as many civilians as possible." There was an ire to Mustang's word's that everyone shared – it wasn't that it wouldn't have been hard to move into the southern ward in the daylight hours, it was that the Central authorities were using the general population as shields to hold them back. It was a disgusting strategy, so they'd move in at midnight instead and establish their presence. The men and women who called this ward home could wake up in the morning and know that the debacle of the clashes between the 'rebels' or 'militants', or whatever the hell the Central authorities were trying to label them, had passed.

Brigadier General Mustang had made it very clear that he had every intention of leaving the general population out of his skirmishes. They were what he was trying to protect, even if Central Headquarters disabled the power grid to the ward, Mustang would still be fortifying his presence. He needed to ensure his strategic footholds were in place first and foremost, before advancing on the heart of Central – like cutting off the limbs of a beast one at a time before finally taking it down.

Roy's good right eye looked up to the game as Riza's coins were placed down for her bet and his comrades followed suit. Havoc moved away from the group, silently latching his rifle into his fingers and sliding up to the open hole in the wall of the structure. Mustang watched his sniper – his preverbal left hand – dressed in his stealth blacks, slip into the darkness with mastered precision and skill; he'd sit, kneel, or crouch there for the duration of his shift if Mustang asked it of him, and he'd do that without complaint. There was a lot of trust to be placed into the man at his left side, covering his blind spot.

"Your bet, sir," Fuery told his commanding officer.

Mustang looked at his cards, shuffled them a little, and placed one down to be exchanged by Fuery, then offering a few coins to the pot. Even at the poker table, Fuery was his coordinator. If X needed to be connected to Z or Y needed to communicate with V, he got it done. If Fuery was ordered to remain up here with a rifle on his back, manning the team's communications through this empty building, he'd keep the operation running and get his jobs done. It was a shame the young officer hadn't a hope or prayer that kind of work ethic would carry him through the ranks – if a man didn't flaunt what he had and partook in the pissing contests needed to get ahead, he'd end up as a diamond in the rough that Mustang would find.

The second pass of the group saw Falman take three new cards, make some kind of displeased sigh at himself for it, and know it was time to bow out. Mustang didn't quite have that skill; he stubbornly ploughed ahead – even with a bad hand sometimes. The Brigadier General kept people like Hawkeye and Falman around because their heads were cool enough to think things through and know when to step back, retreat, regroup, realign, or simply surrender to the situation. It took someone special, with a strong sense of self, to be man enough to accept defeat. Falman was the oldest and one of the calmest officers he kept – never riling up, accepting his tasks, and doing them diligently. Officers like that were as good to have around as dogs, except dogs worked for free… theoretically.

Roy had asked once if Riza would consider having Black Hayate 'trained' for military service work. 'Trained' was a poor choice of words on Mustang's part, since the Major would probably have her dog doing bench presses in a weight room if she desired it. The answer at the end of the conversation was 'yes', but only if the dog was paid the most egregious salary Mustang had ever seen for a service animal. Sadly, Falman – and most of his crew for that matter – was cheaper labour than Hawkeye's mutt. No one needed to know that though.

Left in the three-ring circus were Breda, Hawkeye, and Mustang, and Fuery called for another round of bets. Breda was always a riot to play poker with. Roy was never certain if the officer realized he was so expressive while playing the game, but comparing his playing style to Hawkeye's was like night and day, because Riza sat stone cold like a rock. Breda hummed and hawed, or scowled and frowned, like the decisions he was making with his cards was either slow and painful or a careful science, Mustang could never figure out which. His free personality shone through in his work; it was his best asset. Breda worked hard, kept the office light, entertained with his snark, and could easily be one of the most solid foundation workers Mustang had.

Roy Mustang had a little bit of everything to make up his core group of people. This time they were all going to be together for a siege on Central and they were all going to do this right.

A spark suddenly lit in Breda's grin and his cards were displayed on the floor for all eyes to see, "Take that: full house, eights high."

Havoc's impressed whistle drifted into everyone's ear.

Nothing even flinched in Riza's disposition as she lay down her hand, "Full house, queens high."

"God damn mother fucking…" Breda ripped out a blue tantrum as everyone snickered or stifled their laughs as Riza collected her winnings, "…son of a bitch. I almost had you!"

"That's why she had queens high, pal. The major is actually poker royalty," Havoc snickered.

Riza shook her head, glancing to Roy, who thought the whole escapade was highly amusing. The Brigadier General was the only one who knew she'd won the Central College Rank Poker Championships on the way through the academy in her junior and senior years. Riza still had the plaques stored in a box to prove it.

Mustang drew to his feet, placing his five cards down on the floor face down, dusting his black pants off, and glancing down to the major who never needed a hand to stand up. She stood as his right arm marksman, as she had for so many years. Every quality that Mustang viewed in himself that he didn't have he could see in her; she'd even started to remind him of qualities within himself that he thought he'd lost with Maes. There was no better person to keep at his side than someone as loyal as her hound. She had everything in her repertoire Mustang knew he needed to be complete.

"The major and I will be back by quarter after ten," Roy announced, "I know it's not much time, but drinking stops at eleven, responsible drinking at eleven thirty; I need everyone's focus between midnight and one. The south is going to lose its reliance on Central's command – your shift'll be over when we're set up in the ward."

"Yes, sir," was the chorus in response.

"Alrighty," Lieutenant Havoc called out a little louder than normal, catching Mustang's attention as he adjusted the scope atop his rifle, "Wouldya look at that, I can see the liquor store from up here," he took a look through the scope, "and I can see the store front and clerk. I hope I don't have to shoot any patrons for stealing other people's hard earned money." The lieutenant offered a quick glance to his boss.

The unfortunate thing for Mustang was, when you pick up people who fill into the slots of your most crucial assets, they end up figuring out too much about you. Riza left the room ahead of her superior officer, presumably grinning if the satisfied looks on everyone's faces was any indication.


"Close your eyes!" Winry ordered.

Ed closed his eyes.

"Keep'em closed!" Winry shuffled through the kitchen, rattling a few indiscriminate things, before a glass plate tapped down on the table, "okay open them!"

Ed opened his eyes and laughed.

Eleven iced vanilla cupcakes had been arranged on a plate, each one with two lit candles stuck awkwardly in them. He'd known it was coming; Winry could be the nosiest, most vulgar cook he'd ever met. A crash of pans drew Ed out of bed before eleven that morning. He started to come downstairs, but Winry flew into a rage and ordered him back to bed. Ed was too tired to argue, so he lounged around in bed until noon, when she 'invited' him down again.

"Happy birthday," Winry announced with a smile, hands on her hips.

Ed smirked at the simple celebratory display, "Did you eat the twelfth cupcake?"

Winry rolled her eyes, removing the tie from her hair, "It was a poor, deformed, suffering creature, so I put it out of its misery. Besides, eleven works better since you're twenty two. I had it all planned."

Again Ed laughed, then took a deep breath and blew out the candles.

Winry slid into a chair and snatched up one of the freshly prepared cupcakes in sync with Ed and they gave a collective chomp into their fresh, fluffy pastry.

"Are you feeling any better today?" Winry garbled as she chewed, fiddling with the cupcake in her fingers.

Ed shrugged and swallowed, "I'm still tired," which was a gross understatement. It had taken all his effort just to get out of bed, "I was spent by seven thirty last night. I need to get over this." Ed rubbed his forehead, still littered with marks.

Winry chewed on her second bite, cradling the cupcake in the palms of her hands, "I went to the market this morning while you were asleep and got some things, so don't worry about going out."

"On your own?" his eyes widened.

"I'm a big girl, Ed," Winry nibbled on her treat, "I've watched you enough to know how to grocery shop," she gave a self assuring nod to her own actions, "I picked up butter, eggs, bread, a jam that looked interesting, um… some greens, potatoes, and a thing of ham. I'll figure out how to cook ham."

Ed blinked wordlessly.

Winry chomped down on the last bite of her cupcake, "I did laundry last night after you passed out and strung it up in the living room, then made the fireplace cook to dry it out. It was really cozy in here all night; the house should always be that warm," Winry grinned happily at the idea of warmth, "it should be dry now."

"Um…" Ed sat feeling a little humbled by all of the maintenance she'd done, "Thanks Winry."

She shrugged, standing up from her chair, "I'm going to clean up my disaster in here. Just keep eating cupcakes so I don't gain ten pounds from them."

Ed turned the cupcake around in his hand, saying nothing. The clatter of his father's kitchen materials began to sound throughout the house and again the half eaten treat was turned in Ed's hand.

He had been the most useless person since Saturday, and Winry had done nothing but step up. Ed had never been fond of being cared for, and even if it was reassuring that Winry was able to look after everything, Ed preferred to be doling out the care. He sure as hell did not like feeling so fatigued that he could barely manage his own day, and considering the fight he'd been in, he actually felt physically better than his body was letting him function. Ed had never had to trudge along with such an unquenchable exhaustion before.

Putting the remains of his miniature cake on the table, Ed stood up, "I need to talk to you about what came out of that NSDAP meeting." He'd been putting this off. Ed couldn't even pawn this conversation off on lethargy any longer; he'd really left Winry in the dark on this one. The longer he procrastinated, the worse this would get. It was his birthday, she'd made cupcakes… Ed probably wasn't going to get a better mood between the two of them going for this.

Winry tossed a washed down whisk into the draining board at the sink, "You mentioned that the other day."

But really, how was he supposed to put this? There was no way to coat it. 'Hi Winry, I didn't tell you something really important that you should have known last week' couldn't possibly go over well. Ed felt the sinking feeling in his stomach drop a bit further; he could probably script her reaction. Winry was not going to be impressed with him. Maybe he should just get on with it, "Adolf told me that he'd gotten rid of Envy."

"What?"

Winry's actions suddenly stuttered to a halt and Ed flinched when she spun around on him. Yup, this wasn't going to go over well, "I don't have any reason to doubt him. He trumpets himself too much to gloat about it if it was actually a lie."

"A-are you sure?" the sudden information had clearly side-swiped her.

"Yeah…" Ed felt himself shrink a little.

Winry stared back at him with an astounded reaction that morphed into concern. Her brow quickly knit while the gape in her mouth grew wider and Winry let her hands fall to the wayside, "Wha… Who attacked us then?"

Edward's jaw became firm, "Those were Adolf's men."

"But why?" that answer clearly made no sense to her, "We haven't done anything to him. We don't even know him! Doesn't he realize what Envy is?"

Ed swallowed hard; it was still hard for him to comprehend this world's thought processes and how the people in it came to judge others. He didn't think it would ever make complete sense to him. "Envy told Adolf about us and where we're from, and that's made us targets. We don't have to have done anything, we just have to be something he doesn't approve of." Ed's gaze shifted, "He's blaming me for Envy's invasion of his mind. He called it my plague."

A thunderous silence raged around the room after Ed had spoken, and then Winry's jaw fell open, "You've known about this since last Tuesday. Why wasn't this important enough to share on Tuesday?"

Taking a deep breath, the bridge of Ed's nose creased in frustration, "I'd gone there thinking that when I came back, I'd be able to tell you I knew what we'd do next, and I ended up knowing less about what was going on than I'd started out with," Ed sighed with the shake of his head, "I didn't know what I was supposed to tell you." It was an answer as astoundingly close to the truth as Ed was going to be able to give her. He was a quite pleased with himself for the effort – and that was going to be all the self-gratifying pleasure he'd get out of the conversation.

Winry's hands washed over her face as she huffed in disbelief of the last few minutes. Her foot suddenly thundered down onto the floor and she took the three powerful strides required to centre herself in front of Ed.

"You have to tell me something. I don't care if you don't know what you're going to do about it," Winry's angered voice ordered, "I asked you before you went to tell me what happened after it was over, and you didn't."

Ed opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself – all he had was excuses… really pathetic excuses. Ed hadn't ever considered that not telling Winry was a good idea; he'd just avoided doing it. He didn't want to admit to her how much of a loss he was at. It was foolish, and he knew it, and he let it happen anyways. It wouldn't have changed what happened on the weekend, but it certainly changed Winry's perception of the events.

Winry grunted and shuffled her feet, stepping away with a huff. She moved past Ed, but didn't make it far; Edward's left hand swung out and caught Winry's hand.

"I'm really sorry, Win."

With a grumble, Winry's frown snapped crossly at Ed, "I'm sure you're really sorry. But what if your injuries were worse, what if you were in the hospital, what if I found myself in a situation where I didn't have you around – how am I supposed to know who I can trust and what I should watch out for? I would not be disappointed in you if you told me you didn't know what to do, Ed. I'm disappointed when you don't tell me these things!" there was an immense amount of desperate frustration leaking through Winry's voice, "You keep sheltering me; how do I convince you to stop?"

There was a point being missed somewhere that Ed was trying to convey and he couldn't quite find the handle for it. A tongue lashing from Winry was well warranted, but his rationale was not coming out right. It wasn't that he was concerned Winry would be disappointed in him; he didn't know why he was so sure she wouldn't be disappointed, but that hadn't been his motivation. He wasn't entirely certain it had a lot to do with sheltering her either. If Ed ran a scenario in his mind of what a conversation with Winry Tuesday night may have been like, and looked at how he'd buried himself in alchemy the next day, and then added in the fears realized on Saturday…

The frown Ed had fought off quickly zipped through his brow and he found a sequence of words as close to his logic train as he could coherently verbalize, "I'm disappointed if I don't know what to do to keep you safe. You don't deserve this. You shouldn't have to live in a life where you're afraid of the world or what it might do to you."

The cross look Winry wore lingered for a few moments after Ed's words vanished, and without warning it all drained away. Winry let her stance soften, expression ease, and presence warm. Ed rolled his jaw; he didn't know what to make of the transformation.

A pair of clear blue eyes looked up at him, "You don't deserve this either."

Ed's brow rose at the remark, feeling the tension in his jaw vanish.

"I wish I could rescue you from this world some days and take you home," Winry drew in a breath before Ed could even think of countering her response, "I don't need to go home as much as you do. Getting that new right arm on you doesn't fix a whole lot; I'm just putting a bandage over all the damage," her eyes shuffled to the corners of the kitchen as her thoughts continued to be voiced, "at least you feel like you can find some way to get us home with all that this world, Dante, Envy, and your father have given us. I wouldn't be able to do that, I don't understand it… I wouldn't even know where to look."

Ed opened his mouth to reply, and found that he had nothing to say. He ended up doing nothing more than standing in front of Winry with his jaw slowly closing and an empty head of thoughts– they'd all abandoned him without warning.

"But, you don't deserve this. I know that much."

Winry moved as though she had something more to say, but she was interrupted by a boisterous knock to the front door of the house. They both froze, startled by the noise. Ed glanced in the direction of the front door, not able to see it from where they stood in the kitchen. A second knock rattled off the wood and Winry slipped away to answer it, stranding Edward with his mental chaos of non-thoughts. He could hear Winry undoing the latches on the door, and his eyes fell to the palm of his left hand. He flexed his fingers, opening and closing everything. Ed's tired golden eyes looked up to the table where cupcakes and candles for his birthday sat arranged on a plate. His ears heard Winry open the door and Ed suddenly remembered that he needed to breathe.


Izumi decided that what she was most grateful for about being in the middle of the protests and demonstrations taking over the streets around the security walls of Central headquarters was that the sheer number of people would block the light from any handclap she needed to make. The alchemy teacher that figured this unrest worked to Mustang's advantage.

It wasn't the threat of a mysterious evil-doer or a sinister plot to bring down Central that was inciting the people, it was the appearance of a communiqué that was presented to the public and no one in Central seemed to know who was responsible for bringing it to the surface. The government officials had flown into a tizzy, because the communiqué surfaced in the hands of the Central Times prior to publication early that morning. Within hours of the newspaper's morning run the chief editor was taken into custody, but the man refused to divulge his source.

What was known about the communiqué was that it had originated from Drachma and was regarding Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong's inexcusable show of military alchemy at their last 'engagement'. The entire document was published showing how Drachma accused Central of staging the skirmish to disguise negotiations going on over northern borderlands – a hand-over from Amestris to Drachma. The people of Amestris had fought long and hard to keep this border property and they were not impressed that it would just be negotiated away without any public input or even without public knowledge. The new 'government' couldn't just give portions of their nation away! The communiqué was destined for the upper most echelons of the government as a tongue-lashing laden with threats of redemption. That only added to a compounding number of frustrations with the people that had shown up since the Central Market explosion Izumi had also witnessed some time ago.

Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong, in the meantime, was being lauded by many in the city for bringing the vast majority of his battalion home alive with his show of defiance against his orders. If they'd done nothing but hold Drachma off for an undetermined amount of time in order to hide the country's affairs from the public's eye, who knows how many lives would have uselessly been lost.

By noon the city was up in arms and the major's actions had drummed up an astounding amount of support for Mustang's cause. His cause was bolstered when the Armstrong household itself issued an endorsement for the Brigadier General earlier that afternoon.

It was well known that a group of 'militants', as the government had instructed the newspapers to call them, was spearheading the 'unwarranted' upheaval of Central and up until that morning they had only select company for support. The south and southeast wards of the city had their reliance on Central's system of command reduced because of Mustang's footholds. The officer's expansion beyond these two wards of the city was running into heavier resistance against the Central authorities, and when the city turned on its head around noontime, not only did the government disengage from Mustang, but the brigadier general also changed his focus from a northern push through the growing masses of people, to a take-over of the south western ward instead. It was expected that Mustang and his growing number of supporters would commandeer the southern third of Central City by dawn the next day.

Izumi took the long walk around the walls of Central Headquarters. She wanted to get inside and do it in a way that left the masses of people outside, because who knew what would become of Central City if the population stormed in. The woman needed to find a point of the wall closest to a building structure so she could slip in and out with as little detection as possible. Izumi had already made a mess of the Mitchell home that morning and Dante hadn't been there. It was doubtful she would be in the Empty City with all that was going on, so the stout little problem known as Dante had to be in Central somewhere.

The teacher made her way around a bend in the compound and again she was confronted with a curious thing: the influx of security – both police and military for Central headquarters. It was more of a police presence than the military that was being used elsewhere. She'd seen this when she'd walked along the east side – a bulldozer and backhoe had been stopped from working around the Central headquarters wall. The security presence was being used to keep protestors from damaging the equipment. That was strange.

The teacher's nose wrinkled and she continued on, eyeing the south west corner of the western wing. The masses also seemed aware that this was an alluring point in the compound – many men, mostly young men, had gathered at this point and had begun an attempt to scale the wall. Izumi didn't know what they possibly thought they'd accomplish by doing this. The teacher moved with undisturbed prowess through the upset society, eyeing the ground for the layout of the subsurface terrain. There were the gutters in the streets showing the sewer system moving parallel to the road. There were the manhole covers showing cross sections of underground piping running perpendicular to that. The cross sections of piping on the next block should lead to the underbelly of the Western building.

A gunshot rang out into the air and the crowd screamed before falling to a murmur. Izumi looked back to see a soldier standing upon the wall, his rifle raised in the air, ordering the people to back down. It took a moment for the masses to gel in rebellion to the order and the frustrated soldier fired a second, then a third shot into the air, yelling at the people to back down.

Izumi shouldered her way through the droves of moving people – sanity saying move away, group mentality drawing people towards the fires. Izumi shoved through a number of people before she stood at the wall a ways down from the noise. All attention for the area began to centre on this soldier and the rocks being thrown at him and his partners. Izumi's hands sharply clapped together and she put one of her more intriguing alchemical reactions into this south western leg of stone wall. Every pocket of air within the stones and the pastes that held the wall together was extracted from the materials, causing the barrier to give a hefty 'cough' – blowing protestors back and sending the few soldiers standing on the wall into the air. Izumi heard them squawk as they tumbled down onto the grass within the Central compound.

Izumi had transmuted her way through the wall amidst the confusion and slipped to the fire door with enough time to roll her eyes at the armed soldiers picking themselves up off the ground. The teacher gave an eye to her handiwork with the wall; she wondered if any of them would notice that the wall was a little shorter and thinner now.

Izumi slipped into the building; she didn't want to sewer crawl anyways.

The stairwell at the fire doors went at least one floor down and assumedly all the way up to the sixth floor. The teacher heard no sounds of life in stair column and she made her way upwards to the echo of her sandal claps. The sixth floor was a good place to start. Important people place their offices at the top of buildings. It was only a matter of making her way from this wing to wherever in the central portion of the compound the Prime Minister's office was. Izumi slipped out into an empty hall with a long string of south-facing windows. The curtains had been pulled on all of them and Izumi snuck a finger behind the fabric and peered out into the problems plaguing Central City. All these windows were close enough for some crazy child and his well-aimed, oversized slingshot to reach from any one of the nearby trees. Izumi made her way swiftly from the window and marched down the hall and she managed to walk for quite some time without encountering anyone.

"Madam!"

Izumi's feet slid to a stop. Strangely, she found herself more annoyed with how old 'madam' made her feel than how she was finally being intruded upon. Izumi turned back to eye some young, sharply dressed, building security officer.

"Yes, young man?" she answered courtly. If he was going to make her feel old, Izumi would address him like he was too young for the getup.

"I'm sorry, Madam, but the building's been locked down; why are you in here?" the officer said as he approached.

Izumi sighed, not sure of what role she was trying to play, "I just came to have a peek. It's really hard to see this city fall apart so badly. I was just on my way out; sorry I intruded dear."

"Please don't re-enter this wing until the protests simmer down," the young man gave a wave of his hand to encourage Izumi along.

"Don't worry about that, I have some paperwork that I need to get back to anyways," Izumi shrugged, and took up a firm pace.

The officer nodded a bit, "What department are you from?"

"Social Services," Izumi kept her walking pace.

"Where are you work tags, Madam?"

Izumi gave the boy a disgusted 'tisk'. Before he had a chance to do anything, Izumi had clapped her hands and opened up a hole in an interior office wall. With a quick spin on her toes, the unassuming housewife booted the gawking security officer into the room.

"Where's Prime Minister Mitchell?" Izumi barked.

The flailing guard reached for his sidearm, but the blue alchemical spark from Izumi's hand clamped down on the barrel, sealing the tip of the weapon. The terrified young man looked up at a looming, angry presence standing over him.

"Where do I find Prime Minister Mitchell, young man?" Izumi repeated firmly.

"I don't know!" the boy's words quivered slightly as they came out, "and if I did, I wouldn't tell any of you protestors where the Right Honourable Mitchell is!"

Izumi rolled her eyes, "Kiddo, I am not a protestor. I just want to collect a few puzzle pieces and find out what's happened to one of my boys. That's all. I don't give a damn about what's going on in this city."

The young officer stared back blankly at the woman, not sure what he was supposed to say in response.

"So you stay here and keep quiet for a while, okay? Be a good little boy and do as you're told," Izumi marched out of the hole in the wall she'd made and promptly sealed it again, easily stripping the room's actual door of its handle in the process. Without any concern for the engagement, Izumi continued down the hall. The young officer was probably safer locked up in that room anyways.


All things considered, Ed's birthday had started out okay, yet somehow the day ended up with Winry at a piano with Albrecht Haushofer and his younger brother Heinz, and Ed upstairs in the spare room being poked and prodded by the doctor Rudolf Hess had shown up at the Haushofer house with. Ed had just assumed that when the Haushofers found out about his injuries, they would have postponed the idea of a birthday dinner – no such luck. Though it wasn't so much a dinner at this point, it was more like a kidnapping.

Professor Haushofer stood guard on the room, making sure Ed obeyed the instructions of the doctor, and signalling for his wife when Ed was less than cooperative about a physical examination. Ed had no problem arguing with the men in the room, but Mrs. Haushofer would show up with a ladle in hand and Ed's protests would turn to moderate pleas. Mrs. Haushofer seemed quite certain she wouldn't lose an argument to this blonde young man, and sure enough, she never did.

A pen scratched down on a sheet of paper, and the plump old doctor – a former medical instructor from the university – glanced up to eye Ed from above the rims of his glasses. The pen scratched a little more, "What time did you wake up and get out of bed this morning?"

Ed adjusted the neckline of his undershirt after he'd slipped it back on over his head, "Woke up at eight-ish, got up sometime around eleven."

"What time did you go to bed last night?"

"I lay down at about seven thirty," Ed snatched up the red dress shirt given to him at Christmas, "don't know what time I fell asleep."

"And how are you feeling now?" the doctor tapped his pen on his sheet.

"Tired," Ed grumbled. It felt like his mind was trudging through waist deep mud and he'd been doing it all day; the frustration continued to grow.

"Why don't you spend the night, Edward?" Professor Haushofer watched Ed react warily to the suggestion, "my wife'll give you a nice, relaxing evening, the family will entertain Winry, and you can recuperate."

"No," Ed swatted away the 'helpful' hand of the doctor reaching forward to assist Ed with re-buttoning his shirt, "no thank you Professor."

"You really should, Edward," Hess added to the professor's plea.

Ed let the intrigued doctor watch him masterfully finish doing up his own shirt buttons one-handed without a second thought, "No, I'm sorry. Thanks for dinner, but I'd rather stay home."

Hess's arms refolded, his frown worsening and chin dimpling, "Edward, you were lucky to come out of your encounter the way you did."

It took a vast amount of the strength Edward had to refrain from pointing a finger at Hess and accusing his political cohorts of being the ones who'd attacked him.

"If someone is after you and Winry, shouldn't you want to stay somewhere safe?" the professor continued, "After your father, and now this, what if you're attacked in your home while you're so ragged?"

Ed gave a tug to his shirt and stood up. He didn't know which irritated him more, the fear of a home invasion being used to goad him into agreeing to stay with the Haushofers, or the fact that Ed hadn't even considered the possibility that these people would have the balls to attack him in his own home. It suddenly became a real fear, and he really didn't like the incursion of unease.

A disastrous melody of piano key strikes intruded, followed by a loud chorus of giggles and laughter that echoed into the room from the floor below.

Ed's uniquely golden eyes shot back to the doctor, "Can I be excused for a moment?"

The doctor looked back with interest, "I suppose…"

With a lowered brow, Ed made his way wordlessly out of the room uncontested – but it felt as though every eye followed him on his way through the hall and down the stairs.

Ed caught a full view of the open sitting room of the Haushofer house from the stairwell rail. Ed's frown struck, and sharply worsened as he eyed Albrecht and Heinz flanking Winry on the piano stool fronting the oversized instrument. Both boys had saddled up tight, and the hand Albrecht had placed on Winry's back gave Ed's right eyebrow fits.

Ed made his way down the remainder of the stairs and into the core of the house. "What are you giggling at?" a question asked in English, but everyone turned to look at him.

Winry grinned brightly, looking childishly amused, "Albrecht and Heinz are showing me how to play… uh… this!" her finger pointed to the single sheet of music that entertained them.

"Ode to Joy," the younger Heinz shrugged, his English well enough to understand, but not enough to reply, "it's easy enough."

Ed could only shrug as Winry swung back to her playing task; he didn't know how to play. But Elric eyes abruptly narrowed, holding the older Haushofer brother in contempt of his physical involvement with Winry. Ed had expressly forbid such a thing on at least three different occasions, the only exception being the Christmas party because of dancing – when Ed had brought that issue up with his father, Hohenheim had abruptly told his son to grow up. The Christmas party was not, however, a life time exemption. To make matters worse, Albrecht knew Ed was giving him that look for that reason. Albrecht used his own dwelling as a safety net; he smiled quaintly at Ed, snuggled an arm around Winry's back, locked his hand onto her shoulder, and returned to involving himself with Winry's hands to educate her in the piano.

If Ed had any desire to stay at the Haushofer house, it instantly became less.

Ed's hand slipped into his pants pocket, his chin sinking into his shirt collar, and he watched Albrecht guide Winry around on the ivory keys.

Son of a bitch; Ed wanted to pull his own hair out. The Elric could feel his ability to peacefully co-exist with the inhabitants of the entire planet run on empty. Ed felt like a five-year-old in need of throwing a really good tantrum to feel better, except he didn't have the energy to put into it. It was a struggle just to keep his mouth shut… he was a guest in this house after all, he had to keep some dignity about him.

Footsteps were heard coming down the stairs and Ed looked back to see Professor Haushofer making his way down. Hess was already standing on the stairs, three quarters of the way down, eyeing the room.

Drying her hands off with a dishtowel, Mrs. Haushofer made her way into the room. She applauded her husband and the other men from the upper floor for having enough sense to know when to come down. Dinner was almost ready and they should be seated. She smiled at Ed and patted him on his un-bruised cheek. Much to Ed's delight, she also swatted Albrecht's arm off of Winry, telling him to show more respect, and then took him by the ear into the kitchen to set the table. Professor Haushofer gave a pat to Ed's shoulder as he passed, and then took the escort mission – leading Winry into the kitchen. Ed moved to join the procession, but Hess stopped the Elric from following. Ed glanced back.

"I think you should take Karl up on his offer."

Ed took one of his deeper breaths of the day and sighed, scratching his fingers through his face.

Hess's words strengthened, "Look, if you're worried about Winry, don't let jealousy over Albrecht mar that—"

"Woah, who's jealous?" Ed stopped the conversation.

Hess blinked, "You're jealous."

"I am no—" Ed had to lower his voice, "I am not jealous over Albrecht for anything."

Again Hess blinked, his words coming out flat, "Edward, apparently you need to be told you're jealous, so I'm telling you, you are jealous."

"No," an unfathomable amount of frustration circulated through Edward's veins. He was one thin thread away from punching something. Perhaps if he weren't so wound up, Ed might have managed to sound a little more composed, "Why does nobody listen to me? Winry's not one of the social club girls that Albrecht can just pick up and cozy up with whenever it's convenient for him!" Which wasn't exactly what had been going on, but that wasn't the point.

The proclamation managed to break the blank look Hess had worn on his face, and the man began to laugh, "Every young lady needs a knight in shining armour, it seems," a hand fell heavily onto Ed's shoulder, "fine, have it your way, but whatever threat you view Albrecht as, weight that against your ability to take care of her right now. You're out of sorts and you know it."

Ed's hand rubbed over his face. What a mess. Both Karl Haushofer and Rudolf Hess were associated with Adolf, and it was this party's goon squad that had attacked him. Neither of these men knew, and now they were trying to shelter Ed and Winry from his wrath. These people had no idea what insanity was brewing above their heads and Edward wasn't in any position to tell them… and even if he tried, they wouldn't believe him. He'd probably get shot for defaming Adolf Hitler. To make matters worse, Envy was out there somewhere. Ed's motivation to get the measurements from the Thule Hall – like he'd planned to do the night his father had died – and leave town came back to him in a flood.

But Hess was right, and Ed wasn't able to hide it; he was lugging this awful feeling around like a ball and chain and it was exhausting. The Haushofers could keep them for one night.


Izumi acknowledged that she had a similar behavioural problem than Edward Elric did – she had instances where she would act on instinct first and consider the ramifications of her actions at a later point. Or just simply not care about the consequences of her actions… that happened once in a while. But Izumi thought of herself as being someone of good judgement and wisdom, so for this exercise she would display her ability for stealth; a task far harder than going in with alchemy blazing. With Dante around, Izumi didn't want to engage her without knowing more.

So the teacher found an excellent perch for herself in a broken down ventilation shaft overlooking things from the corner of the prime minister's office. She even had a little ledge for the coffee she'd gotten from the tax department's lunch room. Izumi's strategy for finding the room Mitchell, Dante and company had been holed up in was sound – follow the flocks of people. People reported to people, who reported to people, who reported to the top eventually. Here she was – literally at the top of this room.

For the majority of time that Izumi had watched, little Dante sat perched on the centring desk either cross-legged or with feet dangling over the edge. She spent most of her time playing with her little red-gem necklace, and Izumi could guess what that stone was made out of. What a terrifying thought. It made any idea Izumi had of quick-use alchemy null and void. If that was either a Red Stone or a Philosopher's Stone fragment, her alchemy would be disastrous – Izumi could compensate her actions and alchemy if it was a Red Stone, so she could work intuitively against it, but a Philosopher's Stone fragment was beyond what she knew how to handle. Since Izumi had no idea which one it was, it was best not to use alchemy at all.

Beyond the terrifying little demon's shiny toy was the frightening display of control she had over the room with four men in suits and ties, and of the Prime Minister especially. The ancient alchemist didn't do much; in fact she barely involved herself with anyone at all. But she had sleight of hand and suggestive words that changed the course of action for all of them. For the discussion of the Drachma letter, Dante childishly voiced an opinionated comment of 'I think its fake' and every man in the room concurred with each other that yes, it was a fraudulent letter. None of them ever turned to Dante for her opinion, she simply voiced that particular thought and the thought became fact. It looked suspiciously like brainwashing, except that the men in the room with Mitchell behaved incredibly normal. Even the incorporation of Dante's lies seemed to flow smoothly. It was terrifyingly unnerving.

And then there was Aisa. Izumi had never paid much attention to Aisa at any point in the journeying, and the teacher figured she knew why: Aisa didn't do anything. She sat in place, or stood to the side, or did as she was instructed, but otherwise she did nothing. Izumi would have thought someone that potentially bored would have a book, or knitting, or something homey to keep herself occupied. As someone who was apparently designated to look after 'Nina', Aisa didn't do much by way of caretaking either. She simply existed, and did little more than that.

By mid afternoon Izumi had lost track of how many people had come and gone from the office. One of the only things she really kept note of was that there were few men beyond those who seemed highest in rank that appeared affected by Dante's selective wording. She only spoke with any effect when certain people were present. Beyond that, not a single military officer had entered the room all afternoon, which was odd considering the military personnel were predominantly being used to counter Mustang's advancements.

Oh, and she also had a counter going for how often Aisa fetched coffee. This was trip number four. It took Aisa fifteen minutes to go and come back from wherever she needed to go for the drinks, and Izumi would make sure to catch the woman early enough that she would not extend the fifteen minutes – she did not need Dante coming out.

Izumi slipped out of her hideout. Her observational patience had run out ages ago.

Coming down from an overhead panel in a private washroom, Izumi hopped to the floor. She took a peek out into the hall to confirm Aisa was on her way, and then waited behind the door as the nurse's footsteps passed, before she slipped out into the hall behind her.

"Haven't they had enough caffeine by now?" Izumi's low call came out, pulling the woman to a stand still, "a few of them seem a little wired."

Nina Mitchell's nurse turned, "Good afternoon, Izumi."

Izumi replied without a greeting, "Where's Alphonse?"

"Excuse me?" Aisa blinked, "if you wish to speak with Dante, she's just down the hall."

"No," Izumi shook her head, her arms folding crossly, "I'm here to talk to you. Where's Alphonse?"

"He's missing," was the blunt answer.

Izumi's thoughts stumbled over the two simple words, "Missing? How can he be missing?"

"Circumstances occurred that cause the misplacement of Alphonse," Aisa shrugged, her hands clasping in front of her.

"What a load of bull," Izumi snarled. With a flash of rage in her eyes, Izumi's hands flew out – she would get an answer out of this woman.

"Stop!" Aisa raised her hands, holding them out in front of her body cautiously.

Izumi's motion stopped, her shoulders loosening.

"We've never been properly introduced, so unless you're prepared, it's not safe to do that around me," Aisa's hands retreated, "I don't advise clapping your hands."

Well, that was one of the stranger statements Izumi had heard over the last while. Her dark eyes slipped from one side of the hall to the other, "Why not?

It took a few moments for some kind of answer to be brought forth for Izumi's question. Aisa had stood motionless for quite some time, looking as though she'd thought over the question more than once. The seemingly insignificant woman extended an arm, and a hand, for Izumi to take. The teacher looked back at the nurse like she'd lost her mind.

"Go on," Aisa encouraged without a tinge of emotion to her words.

Again, Izumi's gaze shot around the empty hall, before she did take the step forward and gripped down onto Aisa's wrist, watching as the woman let her hand fall limp. Izumi looked at Aisa's complete indifference and then her dark eyes dug into the cool skin of the wrist she held. Izumi felt the heat of her own heartbeat skyrocket. She re-gripped her hand again and again around the wrist and forearm, her fingers digging in or holding gently, until finally Izumi drove forwards, her left hand gripping the cooled flesh of this woman's throat. The alchemy teacher stood silent in the hall, her fingers again shifting and resettling on her skin.

With the thrust of both her arms, Izumi threw herself back from Aisa, taking a few uneasy, wary steps backwards, "What…?"

Aisa's hands re-clasped in front of herself, "The blood in my body was consumed and my veins emptied. I've been embalmed with Red Water and Red Stones to sustain my existence. I have no heartbeat and no pulse."

Izumi shook her head, like she hadn't been able to understand what had been said.

"So I'm asking that you do not perform any rash transmutations around me. There will be consequences if you do."

"What?" Izumi choked; that was absolutely ridiculous, "wha... did Dante do this to you?"

"Dante executed the procedure," Aisa nodded.

"WHY?" Izumi raged much louder than even she'd realized.

"Research," Aisa answered with a shrug to her shoulders, "and necessity. So, if you're not as skilled as Dante and you clap your hands, you could blow a crater in the side of this structure. Please be careful, Izumi."

Being lectured over due diligence and care by… by this woman was not something Izumi would even consider accepting. The teacher's words few out, the rage in her voice hugged by concern, "What makes you so important that Dante would do this to you?"

Aisa remained static, without an answer.

Izumi's teeth clenched, "What about all this makes Wrath so afraid of you?"

"You should calm down, Izumi, before someone hears you," Aisa offered the warning.

Izumi would have none of it. Bursting from her stance with her left shoulder down, Izumi barrelled down on Aisa, running her shoulder into the woman's chest and continuing her charge down the centre of the hall with the woman. The farther Aisa was away from her power structure of Dante, the less danger she posed. The further away Izumi was from Dante and her little red necklace, the safer they would be. If this woman's body – her flesh and bones – were being preserved and sustained by Red Stones, then every action Aisa took, every motion she made, depleted the stones further. And if this woman was truly sustained by red stones, she would be able to withstand a massive assault.

The two exploded through the window at the end of the hall, Izumi throwing both herself and this woman off of the sixth floor and into the air. Izumi's hands flew out as the ground shot towards them; if it was Red Stones and Red Water she was contending with, she knew exactly how her alchemy needed to be controlled.

Izumi crashed her palms down for a handclap intended to soften their fall and ensnare Aisa into the earth.

That didn't happen.

The simple act of clapping her hands had rebounded on Izumi with more force than she'd ever felt or known possible – even her own failed human transmutation hadn't backfired like this. The transmutation spark Izumi generated reacted so violently it exploded with a shock wave. Amidst the blinding reaction, Izumi lost her feeling of the world around her. There was no concept of up or down, left or right, depth, width, or height – she should have hit the ground long ago. Izumi thought it was one of the strangest sensations she'd ever experienced. The teacher never saw the surging torrent enter the space she was in, and Izumi felt her entire existence become swallowed by the black, filthy flood with an intolerable crush. The pressure devoured her and the overwhelming sensation pounding her body became unimaginable. She couldn't force herself to scream if she'd needed to.

But for a moment, and only a moment, the alchemy teacher knew everything.

And then it was gone.

"WAKE UP!" Alphonse gripped her shoulders.

Laying flat on her back, Izumi's eyes flew open.

"You're okay!" Alphonse squealed, flopping on top of his teacher and wrapping his arms around her neck.

"What?" Izumi looked around madly, feeling her body become free from the torrential pressure of everything. She sat up slowly in the white space with the young Elric clinging to her. In the corner of her eye, she saw Aisa laying motionless on the sensation-less white surface. Izumi's heart raced with panic, existing within a nightmare she'd never wanted to revisit, the fear alone able to make her sick. The woman who had desperately wanted to be a mother and barely had her chances, wrapped her arms tightly around Alphonse, fingers digging into his hair and shirt. She looked over her shoulder to the black monstrosity of the Gate and its wide open doors, wondering what the hell she could have possibly done to deserve being back here again with another one of her children.

 


To Be Continued…


 

Chapter 37: Pages in the Journeyman's Voyage

Summary:

Aisa continues to confound everyone while Ed and Winry muddle through a few regular days

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The white space of the Gate was a lot different than Izumi had remembered. Maybe her imagination warped it over time, or maybe her perception of it had changed, or maybe it really was this way: it was calm. There were no eyes, no creaking door sounds, and no flashes of horror even though the Gate had momentarily shown her everything. The only truly overwhelming sensation had been the impact of everything and even that had no one standout emotional response she could give to it. Despite how this realm seemed to be quite harmless, the gaping black monstrosity was pried wide open and it still terrified the woman to death.

"I'm so glad you're okay!" Al squealed, clinging to his bewildered teacher, his chin on her shoulder and his words echoing behind her ears.

"What?" Izumi still felt inexplicably lost; what the hell just happened?

Al continued to cling to her and babble on, "There was a bang and Diana wailed and then you and Aisa appeared! It was crazy. I'm so glad you're okay, I didn't know what was wrong."

Izumi allowed Alphonse to hang off of her while she looked over to Aisa on the ground, still caught up in the overwhelming journey that only lasted mere seconds, "Alphonse…" it was baffling to have these words in her mouth, "why are you at the Gate?"

"Dante brought me," the young Elric sat back, sitting down on his knees in front of Izumi as the woman's hands rubbed through her face, "she wants me to find out how to get my brother back."

Izumi's hands slowly slipped from her eyes, but never actually landed in her lap. Finally able to see the young man clearly, Izumi stared back to Al with a widening awe, her eyes feverishly investigating the youngest Elric who quickly grew uncomfortable with the examination. Izumi reached out with both her hands and grabbed Al at his ears, turning his head, eyeballing him, and examining him, before her focus drilled deep into Alphonse's eyes, "What the hell happened to you? How'd this happen?" Izumi's heart suddenly raced, one hand frantically dug through his hair while another sharply pulled up his shirt, "What did it take?"

"Take?" Al floundered backwards from his teacher, trying to crawl away on his backside, "what do you mean, what happened? Nothing happened to me!"

On hands and knees Izumi began to pursue the scrambling boy, but stopped; Al did seem perfectly fine. Then again, so did she, "I told you the cost of going to the Gate. What did it take from you?"

"Nothing," Al answered frantically, turning his eyes to the Gate, "Diana brought me. I think Diana absorbs the sacrifice to get here and then she quells the Gate. It doesn't attack, or converse, or anything; it's just there."

After everything Izumi had read, understood, thought she understood, and completely could not understand, Alphonse's explanation made sense. Her focus turned inwards and Izumi began to search herself for what she had sacrificed for this trip. No matter how hard she looked or felt within herself, physically or mentally, she found nothing to suggest that any part of her was sacrificed. If anything, she felt a touch better than she had before the trip. The woman's hands again extended and she took hold of the soft, round cheeks on Al's face, the back of one hand brushing his hair off of his forehead. The fear in her heart that something had again been taken from one of these two Elric boys eased, but her concerns remained. Her hands moved and pulled the boy's eyes open wide, peering in with trepidation and curiosity.

A distracting sound came from beyond Al's shoulder and the boy and his teacher looked to what lay at the foot of the Gate. Izumi's ire rose as she came to her feet and she lent a hand down to bring Al standing as well; both watched as Aisa stirred and pulled to her knees.

"Damn," the woman spoke clear as day, "Dante will be incensed with you."

Izumi's hand patted down on top of Al's bed of messy hair and she waited for Aisa to rise to her feet before calling out, "Why am I here?" of all the places in the world, or not in the world, she did not want to be, "How did I get here?"

"I told you," the woman responded firmly, "not to clap your hands!"

"I'm a better alchemist than you seem to give me credit for," Izumi barked hotly, considering who her teacher had been, "I compensated for your flesh and Red Stones; what the hell happened?"

Aisa began to approach. Her footsteps made no sound and caused no drift in the air at the mouth of the gate, but her advance caused Alphonse to back away. Both Izumi and Aisa poured their focus over the cautiously retreating Elric.

"Al?" Izumi's brow rose.

Al responded hesitantly, looking intently at Aisa, "There's something not right with you…"

Aisa stopped her approach, "There's something not right with you as well."

Izumi stepped back to take Al's hand, keeping her focus on Aisa.

Al's grip tightened around his teacher's hand, frowning a little as he tried to figure out what exactly it was that wasn't right. It was strange that he'd get this feeling from her at the Gate of all places, when he'd never felt anything from her before, "What's so different now that you're at the Gate?"

"Does Al's perception of you here have anything to do with all those Red Stones in your body, Aisa?" Izumi's hand added a squeeze to the young Elric's grip, looking down to catch his fascinated eyes fly wide.

"Is that what's wrong with you?" Al chirped, calling for an explanation.

Aisa did not answer.

Izumi frowned a little; she had no more of a vibe off of Aisa than she had when they'd been in Central – what was Al seeing? Maybe she wasn't seeing it because they'd travelled to the Gate together? "She's technically dead Al; it's the stones keeping her alive."

Why would someone do that? What would be the purpose of doing that to human being? Al couldn't wrap his head around what Izumi had told him, not that Izumi had been able to either. Red Stones gave the homunculus their strengths, but homunculi were also incomplete people. "Are you a person?" Al asked, "you're not a homunculus or something?"

The nurse almost looked like the question had made her laugh, "No."

"Are you some kind of super-human this way?" the young boy's eyes shot around in thought.

Aisa only shrugged, "I honestly don't know, since that's not my purpose."

Izumi's dark eyes narrowed over Aisa, "So how the hell did you manage to transport me here? By the time I'd clapped my hands, I'd worked out any possible link I could have made to your Red Stones."

"Your compensation was too weak; I told you not to clap your hands," Aisa drew a frown through her face.

"I didn't have to compensate, I redirected the power of the Red Stones away from my base transmutation," Izumi's eye twitched at the woman.

The riled alchemist didn't change Aisa's response, "Your compensation factors were too weak."

"Answer my question," Izumi snarled, "what did I do to get us here and what do I do to get us all home?"

Aisa sighed at the stubborn woman, "The only people who you can control at the Gate are yourself and I. Alphonse is tied to Diana; he is responsible for figuring out how to get himself home."

"I'm not leaving without him," Izumi's grip on Al strengthened.

"Then we're stuck here," Aisa informed the group. The woman's brow then lifted like she'd had something more to say, but her motions ended, her posture unlocked, and she gave a curious look to the young Elric, "So, Alphonse Elric, can we now discuss what happened to your eyes?"

"Huh?" Al blinked, "My eyes?"

Izumi's exhale was loud enough to catch Al's full attention and the young man looked to her as she knelt down. Izumi's hand swept through his hair and, like she'd done when she'd first seen him at the Gate, the teacher's fingers tried to hold the boy's eyes wide as she looked deep into them, "That's why I thought it had taken something from you," her hands slipped away, patting down onto his shoulders, "your eyes are gold, like your brother's."

"What?" Al looked at his hands as though there was some way they could show him his reflection, "but my eyes are grey."

"I would think something like this would have been noteworthy enough for Dante to have mentioned," Aisa looked at Al curiously, "but she hasn't made any note of this change. What happened between the time you last saw Dante and now?"

The young man could only shake his head – how could his eyes have changed colour? How could he believe this without seeing it? "I've just been at the Gate. The only thing that happened was the surge that sent Dante away. And it wasn't even that strong." Al looked up to Izumi, "it just kinda blew by me… and really, Dante just vanished. When it was done it hadn't felt like anything special had happened."

Aisa's eyes slipped away from the figures and to the Gate.

"Did something happen to Dante when the surge sent her away?" Alphonse called out.

The nurse's gaze narrowed, "No."


Hermann and Edward stood verbally handcuffed to the corner of the ladies section in a wide department store and Hermann was quite certain he was less bothered by this than Edward was. Though Ed hadn't said anything, the younger man occasionally huffed and sighed and hummed and grumbled and shuffled and rolled his eyes, all to the older man's amusement. By this point however, both of them had some form of 'disgruntled male twitching' going on. This was their third store and both of them were bordering on astoundingly bored.

"The girls seem to be having a difficult time picking out Winry's new coat…" Hermann aired out the beginnings of a conversation.

Ed sunk his chin into his collar a little further, the creases on the bridge of his nose became a little darker, and the downturn in the corners of his mouth sunk into the collar. "It seems that way…" his words were emphatically enunciated.

Hermann nodded slowly, trying not to laugh at Ed's reply; he was quite certain a response along the lines of 'how hard is it to pick out a coat?' with a number of expletives inserted along the way was being restrained. The scientist decided that a topic not involving their unmoving presence in the ladies department was in order, "How've the headaches been?"

Ed's brow rose, "I haven't had any since Sunday, actually."

"Just the lethargy?" Hermann asked.

"Just that," Ed mumbled.

Hermann mulled over the response a little. He had half a mind to take Edward home and let Mathilde escort Winry around for the remainder of the day. "That should clear up over the next few days, just rest with the Haushofers until you're feeling better. They treated you well over night, didn't they?"

"Yeah…" Ed gave a sigh, "they did. And then I didn't haul my ass out of bed until mid-morning, so now I'm being told I have to stay there again tonight."

This was something befuddling for Hermann: how he could watch Ed accept people's offerings, even the ones he and Tilly gave, and be so difficult, reluctant, and stubborn about it all. Edward did not have to stay with the Haushofer's, yet he still accepted their hospitality with his fuss. Something Hermann had come to understand was that Ed tended to cave or relent more often than not – his contrary protests were sometimes easily overcome. It was as though Edward wished to not be welcomed or invited, or not be a concern to anyone, but he still had a desire to be acknowledged in some manner. There had to be something about the younger man that Hermann wasn't quite figuring out that would explain this behaviour. He honestly doubted Ed was ever going to tell him and Hermann was fine with that, but it still made Edward Elric a fascinating puzzle to mull over.

Today's puzzle piece was the frown Edward began to wear after mentioning the Haushofers; it gradually soured, looking more miserable over time.

"What?" Hermann prodded curiously.

Ed withered further, the folds in his scowl darkening.

Hermann's expression widened silently.

Edward finally sputtered like a clogged engine and grumbled his concerns, "Albrecht's been following Winry around the house like he wants her to think he's some kind of puppy dog; it's pathetic to see a guy behave that way. She pats him on the head and he wags his tail – who does that?" Ed snorted, "Considering his tactics, it's a wonder he's got himself a reputation at all."

Hermann caught himself laughing at Ed's concerns, much to the Elric's dismay… but honestly? Did he really see Albrecht as any kind of danger to Winry? "I thought you'd already apprised Albrecht of your plans for his elaborate execution should he try anything with Winry." A malicious twinkle appeared in his eye and Hermann was more than delighted to continue this conversation with a suggestive thought, "And what would you do, Edward Elric, if Winry decided she actually wanted to snuggle the puppy?"

It took all of the companion's willpower not to absolutely split with laughter at the utterly mortified look Ed gave him at the suggestion.

As though the stars had aligned for Hermann's amusement today, Ed flustered when Winry suddenly appeared. Hermann watched Winry pay no mind to Ed's quickly stifled reaction; she smiled sweetly at Hermann, put herself toe to toe with Edward, and began whispering.

Whispering was pointless; Hermann's audible recognition of English was non-existent, so if Winry was trying to hide the sounds of displeasure in her voice over the selection of winter coats, he figured she should give up the charade. Both Winry and Edward had an uncanny ability to project themselves, which was either a godsend or a detriment to everyone around them. Hermann watched from the corner of his eye, noting Ed's dwindling patience and Winry's mounting frustration in tone and body language. It was fascinating to see anyone within Edward's sphere, since he still kept a 'beware of man, do not approach' sign around his neck. Hermann wondered if Ed was actually easily accessible to everyone and he just wore the angry warning sign to deter people from trying; like the big angry dog was nothing more than a small noisy mutt.

As Hermann refocused on the scene, the scientist got to watch the stubborn scowl on Ed's face attempt to stare Winry down. Winry responded with a matching stubborn scowl. Ed's look soured and Winry's followed suit. Golden eyes pinched followed shortly by narrowed blue ones. Ed transformed his reaction into a wrinkled glare and Winry stiffened her shoulders and glared right back. Hermann had to bite his lip and look away to keep from laughing. He was too busy trying to contain himself to notice who won, only knowing it had ended when Hermann saw Winry sulking away.

"What was that all about?" he asked.

Ed's upper lip creased, "Winry wants me to ask you, nicely, if we can go to one more store. I told her to go look around for another five minutes and fetch your wife if she really can't find anything."

Speaking of his wife, Hermann suddenly switched the tracks his thoughts ran along, "Say Edward, Mathilde received a fascinating telegram for me the other day."

"Yeah?" Ed glanced over.

Hermann nodded, "I've been invited to an informal conference in Prague on a number of scientific endeavours. Tsiolkovsky will be going, so I'm planning on attending… would you care to join me?"

The anomaly that was Edward Elric resurfaced. On any other occasion, the chance to travel and meet some of the most profound scientists in their fields should have been something Ed would have jumped on, but for this invite, the Elric seemed hesitant.

"When is it?" Ed raised a single brow.

"Early in March, I don't remember the exact date," Hermann continued the conversation, despite Ed's lack of enthusiasm, "I even heard that Einstein is mulling over the invite he's been given."

Ed gave a sarcastic laugh, "What a hack."

Although Hermann was aware that Edward was not one of Einstein's fans, he couldn't help but wonder about the reaction, "Einstein? What's wrong with him?"

The excitement that always seemed to appear when Edward was allowed to exist in a scientific element flew out in his words and gestures, wrapping around the Elric like a flowing cape, "He's dangerous; he understands what he's doing on a formulaic basis, but he doesn't understand the inherent power of that matter," Ed snorted and shook his head, "a scientist needs to understand their science and he just wants to plot its formula, arrange its coordinates… dissect, control, hand hold, and manipulate it. That kind of scientist scares the hell out of me," Hermann watched the little flame the was dancing in behind Edward's eyes, "you can't dissect or assemble matter, elements, or laws of the universe first, then figure out what can be done with them, and then understand what the heck you've just done. You have to take the time and let yourself understand why your science behaves the way it does, and then you can take it apart safely. All three sciences function the same that way and they all bite you in the ass if you don't respect them, especially if 'understanding' comes last."

Edward Elric spoke of science like a preacher – it was one of the few things he talked definitively and absolutely about, like there was no way he could be wrong. His approach to science was completely backwards to anyone else's he'd ever encountered, in fact he spoke a fair bit like an alchemist, yet the Elric had an astounding ability to grasp and understand scientific concepts without a lick of teaching, or in the most minimal amounts of study time. For the life of him, the rocket scientist couldn't figure out why Edward didn't just step up and make a name for himself in the scientific communities; he would be pure genius. It was like he was content being an unknown, doing his own thing. Surely, he had to have a reason for that.

Reasons would have to wait for the next department store; Hermann's train of thought came to a stop at the red light put up by his wife and Winry's appearance. The nearly-comical annoyance Ed didn't voice and the frustration Winry wouldn't speak of flared up again. Both husband and wife gave a shrug and a sigh to it. Tilly led the way out of the store, followed closely by Winry. Hermann was next and Edward lagged behind, his shoulders raised to his ears and his hand shoved into his pocket like a sulking child. Hermann paused to let Ed catch up, slapping a hand down on the Elric's back when he passed. Although the trip was growing tiresome, Hermann's greedy little desire to figure out more about Edward Elric would not oppose Winry spending another hour in a store.


One of the few times that Mustang would remove the eye patch and expose the wound on his face was to look through a set of binoculars. The sensation of having the binoculars touching his face and squinting the dysfunctional left eye cavity made things significantly more comfortable. The image he got in his right eye was crystal clear – the day was nice and warm, the sun was out and unobstructed by clouds, the grass and trees were full of green, and the picture in his eye of Central City should have been quite pleasant; the birds were even chirping in the trees. Yet the binoculars were soon lowered after Mustang had gotten his fill of the scene at Central headquarters.

"What the hell causes that kind of damage?" to double check what he'd seen, Mustang brought the binoculars up again to be certain he wasn't imagining things.

Something had erupted in bizarre fashion; the grass below had been burnt to a crisp, the white walls of the headquarters buildings had been singed black, and every third floor window had been blown out – third floor windows were blown out for blocks.

Havoc could only shrug, "Central's not talking, but buzz says Aisa was involved," the officer rolled his cigarette through his teeth, "and someone fitting Izumi's description was identified by a security guard in the building."

From their rooftop perch, Mustang looked over to Havoc as the man changed the rounds in his rifle, "And no one clearly saw who was involved?"

"No one official," Havoc shook his head, "just protesters who looked over with enough time to see two people 'falling' out of the top floor window and then witness the 'bang'."

"That's definitely an alchemical burn on the building, but…" Mustang placed the binoculars aside once more, "assuming that it's Izumi and Aisa involved, what the hell was going on? Why were they falling out a window?"

Havoc gave a snort, snapping his lighter and lighting his cigarette, "That's why they pay you the big bucks."

Mustang nearly laughed at that, "Nobody's paying me at the moment, that's for sure."

Unable to grasp the oddity of the situation, Roy picked up the binoculars once again and returned to surveying the damage. He'd never seen an alchemical reaction behave linearly before – assuming that's what this was, since there was no other explanation for it. Windows on the second and fourth floors closest to the impact zone should show signs of damage, but they did not. The only sign of evidence that this reaction was not entirely linear was the burn marks on the building and on the ground. For the life of him, the flame alchemist could not figure out what the heck had happened and what would have caused not only this kind of damage, but caused two people to disappear. Where did they go?

One thing that Mustang was hoping for was that if Izumi was nearby then so was Alphonse.

"At least the mystery explosion served a purpose," Havoc tucked away his lighter and began to wipe down his weapon, "it distracted Central long enough that seizing the southwest was a cakewalk."

This was true; Mustang, his troops, allies, associates, and supporters now claimed the entire southern third of Central City. Mustang's next target was the eastern ward and Old Central, which – depending on who you asked – was either part of the eastern ward or something 'more eastern' than the eastern ward and stood as a completely independent district. For a historical site, it was grossly under maintained and over run with the poor and homeless. It was a dirty fingerprint on the eastern fringe of the Central City map; Old Central would be easy to take, but the whole of the eastern ward might be more of a challenge, even if that's where Mustang was currently perching himself for this view.

"Sirs."

Both Havoc and Mustang turned at the request of Sergeant Fuery, whose head had poked up from the roof hatch atop the building.

"Um…" the frazzled officer adjusted his glasses, "there's a situation downstairs – we need you."

Mustang and Havoc exchanged a concerned glance. "Situation?" Mustang began refitting his eye patch.

"Yeah…" Fuery aired out slowly, hesitant to give out much more, "you really should come down to the lobby – both of you."

This was neither the time nor the place for any kind of 'situation'; they were thin for this surveillance exercise and the last thing Mustang needed was for someone to take advantage of that. Both officers slid down the ladder into the loft of the building, following Fuery as he led them out of the upper reaches of this office building and down into the heart of the structure. The building's stairwell cut straight up the centre of the complex and let out into the security lobby – a lobby that was occupied by a handful of officers in Mustang's security regiment. As the pairs of boots echoed off the final few steps and the stairwell let everyone out into the room, the movement around him stopped and Mustang's advancement into the lobby slowed.

Hawkeye stood in the centre of the room, weapon in her right hand, left arm holding a 'prisoner', even though Mustang had told his officers not to take prisoners. Her prisoner of choice stiffened Mustang's shoulders, tightened his jaw a little firmer, and left him feeling distinctly uncomfortable. With a deep breath and slow exhale to follow, Mustang's footsteps echoed into the silent room as he walked forward.

"General Hakuro, what brings you my way?"

The older officer, with his hands clasped freely behind his back, chest pumped proudly, stared sternly towards Mustang, "I came to negotiate with you."

"Negotiate?" it was a very short sentence that had a tidal wave of meaning for Mustang. What the hell could he negotiate with Hakuro over? Even as one of the highest ranking generals in the military, serving the prime minister directly, General Hakuro had very little negotiating power.

But the General quickly qualified his remark, "The terms of my squadron's surrender."

Mustang's footsteps came to a stop in the middle of the deathly silent lobby. The good eye Mustang looked forward with narrowed, "I'm not taking prisoners."

"Then take their allegiance," Hakuro's words were heavy, bitter, and crass; like the action of offering up his men was not something he was doing willingly.

"Why?" Mustang had to know.

Hakuro's jaw rolled and his eyes slipped away for a moment as he thought, before returning to address the rebellious officer, "Orders are being given that I'm not willing to follow, and I won't ask my officers to follow them either. I gave them the choice of going under the command of another officer, or deserting, or if this city and country meant anything to them, they could align their support with you."

It was an astounding compliment to be given in a very backwards and subtle way, yet the narrowed eye Mustang held Hakuro in darkened and he glanced around the lobby where his own silent men stood, "What orders?"

Again Hakuro paused and took a look around the room before the steadfast, solid glare he wore returned to Mustang, "The safety of the population in Central City is not on the list of priorities that was handed to us. Somebody in this democratic aristocracy wants a bloodbath."

"If your men are giving their support and allegiance to me, I'll accept it," Mustang replied to the reluctant General's offering, "and what about you?"

"I have more important things to take care of," Hakuro answered abruptly and heavily.

"I can use a man like you, General Hakuro," Mustang's offer came out quicker than he would have liked, but still rang firm and clear - if the general was giving up his men, why not offer to take in the leader of the pack as well.

Hakuro laughed and the solid rock the man projected softened a little with the sound, sounding nearly sarcastic, "I don't want to be used by you, Brigadier General Mustang."

It took all of Mustang's strength not to roll his eye or scoff at the tone Hakuro used to address him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, as much of an asset as it would be to have Hakuro around, and how much of a giddy child he might have felt like for being able to put the general under his thumb, Mustang was mostly thankful that he wasn't going to have to deal with the dynamics of having Hakuro around.

The hands Hakuro had kept locked behind his back came free and the older man walked forwards, coming to a stop in front of Mustang. The two men shared a cold, silent stare for several long moments before the general pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket.

"Here."

Mustang slowly took the offering and opened the sheet, his eye widening as he began to read the original print of the communiqué issued from Drachma to Central over annexation in the north and Armstrong's actions. "You gave this to the Central Times?" Mustang's eye drilled through the sheet.

"The government had it for days," Hakuro snapped his military jacket straight, taking a step back from Mustang, "no one had done a thing about it, like they hadn't noticed or they didn't care. Our land to the north, our men in battle, and our own people upset at our walls… none of it seems to matter. For some reason, we don't matter anymore."

Slowly Mustang re-folded the sheet, watching the frustration boil through Hakuro.

"You know what does matter? Mitchell's little girl," the general scoffed, finally turning away from Mustang and walking past Hawkeye as he let himself out of the building, "but I have my own that matters more. Good day."

The silent room filled with fascinated eyes watched as Hakuro exited the building, taking his heavy, angry, and frustrated aura with him. Havoc nearly startled Mustang as he let a long, drawn out whistle blow the situation off of everyone's shoulders. With a sigh, Mustang let go of the tension he'd locked himself up with and looked to Hawkeye who still stood in the centre of the room. Her brow rose.

"How many do we get?" the senior officer asked.

"Thirty five," the major responded.

Mustang was almost tempted to give off the same whistle Havoc had – thirty five military officers once assigned directly under Hakuro had to be decent acquisitions, "I suppose…" it was a greedy little thought that suddenly became highly plausible, "we could take the east tonight."


Ed figured the only reason he went back to work on Friday was because he was so absolutely sick and tired of sitting around at home feeling like a lump on the sofa that he was actually hoping work would invigorate him in some way. Get out! Talk with people! Perform menial tasks. Absorb some kind of energy from people around him. The outing just made him more tired and the urge to put his head down on the desk and zone out was a little overwhelming.

To make matters worse, this new professor – at about one hundred years old – had completely set up shop in his father's old office. Ed had forgotten the new teacher had arrived on Monday and it had probably been a bad time for Ed to abandon the old coot. Great first impression; he certainly hoped the old man understood the circumstances, since Ed still wore the remnants of a lovely shiner around his left eye.

And as Edward walked into his father's old office that Friday morning, what turned out to be the most draining encounter of all was not the ancient teacher he had to work with, or the mountain of work waiting to be completed…

Ed walked into this office at quarter after seven that morning and saw that his father was gone. Every sense that the room had once said 'this was Hohenheim's office' had been removed, replaced, or changed in some way – it even smelt different. The whole moment had taken Ed by surprise. Ed had emptied the room of his father's personal effects, but left everything else pertinent to the job alone. He'd left it just as his father always kept it and none of that existed anymore. The people Ed knew were still the same, the associates his father kept were still the same, the house was still the same, Hohenheim's bedroom was still exactly the same, but his father's footprint in this one particular part of the world had been erased. Ed was ready to write the day off and head home before he'd convinced himself to step through the doorframe.

It had become a little hard to fight through the day ever since.

"Generally, osmosis is something students attempt," a voice mused, "I didn't think it worked for organizing paperwork."

Ed fell out of his chair with a yelp. Holy shit, he had put his head down – how long had he been out? The Elric spun around wildly and ended up face to face with a grinning Rudolf Hess; thank god it wasn't the instructor.

"What do you want?" Ed asked abruptly, still feeling a little hazy from the sudden jolt.

The man shook his head, "Just came by to see how you were. Karl told me in class that he'd driven you in for work today. You sure you're up for it?"

Ed's reply was fronted by a yawn he tried viciously hard to restrain, "I'm fine."

"Well it's good to see you out at least," Hess mused as he brought up his briefcase stuffed with notes and sat it down on Ed's desk, "I only have a few minutes before my next class, but I've been meaning to get something to you since Tuesday. I'd completely forgotten about this when I'd gone to bring in the doctor to Karl's place."

Ed stared blankly as Hess rummaged in the briefcase.

"Here we are," the man produced a thin white envelope and snapped the crisp flap up. Ed's golden eyes curiously watched as Hess produced two thick slips of paper from the sleeve and hand them over, "for your birthday."

Wrinkling his nose, Ed took hold of the slips. Each time he read them, and then re-read them to make sure he was reading them right, the Elric's face fell a little further, "… Orchestra tickets?" Ed didn't even know if he liked the German orchestra. He didn't exactly have any opinion on classical or instrumental music one way or another. What the hell was he supposed to do at a concert?

"Yes, for tomorrow night. It's a little short notice, so I hope you're not doing anything," Hess gave a nod.

Ed flipped the tickets over, read them again, and continued to look blankly at the gesture. Finally, after puzzling over any possible relationship Edward Elric might have with classical music, Ed re-read the full description on the face of the ticket, choked on his gasp, and abruptly handed them back.

"I can't accept this."

Hess looked back at Ed with a good deal of confusion, "Why not?"

Ed's jaw could have fallen off, "Christ! Were you not paying attention when you paid for them? I can't accept that."

The financial concern was not shared by the man handing him the tickets, "I got them from the event organizer; he's one of our party supporters. We have a mutual promotional arrangement and they cost me next to nothing," Hess slipped the tickets back into the crisp envelope, "treat yourself and introduce Winry to the finer side of German culture instead of the doldrums she always has to be a part of with you."

Choosing to ignore the implication that his company was something less than satisfactory, Ed paled as the tickets were re-offered to him. Beyond the fact that Ed figured he would have had to starve for a week to afforded the tickets on his own, Ed didn't know if he owned something nice enough to attend, let alone Winry. He hadn't really ever mingled with high society… classical music was high society, wasn't it? That price was absolutely high society at the very least – that upper class still existed despite the growing depression. Ed's eyes shifted through the room hesitantly.

"They're a gift, Edward," Hess's shoulders fell, "accept them like that. Get out of the house for a night and have a treat."

Giving the envelope a wary eye, Ed's single hand came up and took hold on the end of the gift, "Alright."

Now Edward Elric had a whole host of problems – most of them requiring him to find something to wear on short notice and figuring out how he was supposed to interact with the concert crowd. You could judge people's worth by these kinds of events, where they sat, and who they sat with. Maybe he just wouldn't mingle and keep the interactions to smiling and nodding.

"They're in a section of private balcony seats that we normally have reserved…"

The outing got worse.

"… and there'll be about ten other people with you. They're political associates of mine, big players in the Nationalsozialist…"

And worse yet.

"… so you'll have good company." Hess gave a shrug and a smile.

The envelope of tickets hung in Ed's left hand and he allowed a disapproving frown to slowly overtake him, "I don't need your propaganda assault like this, Rudolf. I know what you guys do already. I don't do politics, so trying to coerce me into your fold isn't going to work."

Hess laughed, snapping his briefcase shut, "This isn't propaganda or coercion; it is a nice night out with proper German society. If you learn something from it, or if you don't, it's no mind to me, I just hope you have a good time."

What a slimy son-of-a-bitch… Ed searched for a reason to stand up and clock him. That was the biggest load of bullshit he'd heard in ages.

"I have to get to my next class, so if I don't catch you before the day is out, have a good weekend," Hess announced as he made his way out of the office, leaving no room for any further protest from Edward.

And none was forthcoming, Ed was too busy fuming over being suckered into these two tickets that meant rich people, fancy clothes, politics, classical music, and god knows what else. He couldn't excuse himself from it at this point; Hess could easily follow up and see if he went or not. The envelope of tickets looked back at Ed like some kind of giggling monster, like someone was having a good laugh at his uncomfortable expense. Ed sighed and tossed the envelope into his briefcase.


"This just doesn't make any sense," Russell's forehead hit the table emphatically, sending a few of his papers flying and sending Fletcher scurrying after them, "there is no way this is right."

"Maybe we're over thinking things," the younger brother returned the sheets to the table.

The older brother barked out a laugh, sitting himself up again, "No, it's all a forgery. Someone went to a lot of trouble to clean this up; they even had the remains 'cremated'."

At home in their study room in Xenotime, Fletcher pulled himself back into a chair around this oversized table covered in medical documents his older brother had 'borrowed' from the hospital's records the night before. Any and every document concerning Gillian Atropos, aka Aisa, was on this table.

"It makes sense that she was listed as an organ donor. If she was expecting to be harvested in any way, why not make it official," Russell's hands fished through the mess of documents to pull out the donor information sheets, "and lo and behold several of her internal organs were donated to people, schools, organizations, labs – organs that won't work since they're poisoned with red water, yet here's the surgery record for the procedure." Russell's fingers drummed atop the papers covering a wooden table, "but there's no record she was castrated."

"Can you find the recipients of the organ donations?" Fletcher asked.

Russell shook his head, "Protected documents in other people's files; I couldn't get'em."

"How about the doctor who did the surgery?" the younger brother suggested.

The older brother's head continued to shake, "Can't find the man anywhere. It's like he vanished," a sarcastic laugh made its way out of Russell's mouth, "hey, it's like he never existed. What a surprise."

Fletcher's face twisted at his brother's attitude, "I think you've been working on this for too long."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Russell conceded, rubbing a hand through one eye and sweeping the papers into the centre of the table, "I think the fact that I can't find anything on the donation procedure just means it didn't happen. I wish I knew where to look for the truth about this woman and what happened to her, so I can find the string to unwind all the lies."

"Need a break?" a chirpy voice called from behind the door of the room as it pushed open.

Fletcher folded his arms and put his chin down on the table, smiling sweetly at their visitor, "Hi Roze."

"We have guests," the woman from Lior clasped her hands in front of herself.

Russell turned in his chair, throwing an arm over the back as he looked at the door, "Yeah?"

"Hi boys," Maria Ross stepped into the room with the wave of her hand, instantly dispensing of the tension Russell had been creating with his frustrations, "how's it going?"

"Hey lieutenant," Russell grinned, stretching his back and pulling to his feet, "it's not going at all... but when did you get in?"

"About an hour ago," Maria looked out into the hall, holding her arm out and stepping fully into the room once Brigitte had taken her hand – the officer pulled the lost little German through the door while she looked around at her new scenery.

Brigitte's arrival pulled Fletcher out of his seat and brought Russell over to the door.

"Hey Miss B, welcome to Xenotime; city of lies, atrocity, and other incredible screw ups," was Russell's greeting.

Fletcher kicked his brother in the shin for the remark and smiled sweetly at the women who'd joined them, "Don't mind him, he's frustrated and overtired. Someone should put him down for his afternoon nap."

Brigitte gave the two brothers she'd barely seen while they'd been in Central City a wary eye for their antics.

In actuality, Xenotime was one of the safer locations Mustang could have sent Lieutenant Ross with young Brigitte; anything that had happened with Aisa and Dante in the city had happened months ago. On its own, Xenotime was still in recovery from all its problems with Red Water, so security was extra diligent. It was also one of the last places Mustang figured he could send the child and have her be found. At one point, he'd considered sending her west to be with the Hughes' or south to Resembool or Dublith, but all of those options were foreseeable – sending Brigitte and Lt Ross to Xenotime simply made no sense, so it made sense to Mustang to send them there. He could also have Lieutenant Ross keep tabs on the Tringhams and their investigation of Aisa and Diana's origins.

Fletcher and Roze were given the honour of showing Brigitte around the Tringham's property, leaving Maria with a load of luggage and the unhappy elder brother. Honestly, after the trip they'd had to get into the city, Maria wasn't sure she'd be able to give the miserable boy any empathy. The officer was sore and tired and she gave a long, strong stretch to work out the muscles in her back.

"You've really got nothing at all with all this information?" Maria's arms fell to her sides, watching Russell take himself back to his chair at the table.

"I've got nothing useful, how about that?" Russell qualified, slouching in his seat.

"Alright," Maria sighed, sitting down in one of the empty chairs around the table, "what kind of useless nothingness do you have?"

Russell twisted his face, sweeping the blonde hair off of his forehead before snagging a few sheets off the tabletop, "Gillian Atropos died overnight, her child was stillborn, most of her organs were donated and her remains were cremated. All of the doctors involved with her child's birth, their deaths, her surgery, her autopsy… even the person who runs the crematorium don't exist. Or if they do, I can't find them."

Maria had to concur, that was a whole lot of nothing, "Organ donor recipients?"

"Protected," Russell folded his arms, "I got that she was divvied up between people needing a donor and a couple organizations, because each destination had its own limited out-record, but I honestly don't think that actually happened."

"If she was full of Red Water, those organs couldn't have done any good for a recipient, could they?" the officer asked; Maria was still far behind on the alchemy learning curve.

Russell shook his head, "Naw, they would have been rejected or died out without a Red Water source. The organs would hold up against injury and handle surgery really well, but they would wither without a continued Red Water source to supply them."

So much for the medical investigation, Maria thought, "So they left records that she was gutted for useless organs? I guess that makes sense if you're trying to hide someone performing a lengthy surgery for other purposes."

A response wasn't given to qualify Maria's thoughts. A pencil was taken up into Russell's left hand and he began tapping it off the table, his eyes piercing the walls as the young alchemist thought over the officer's statements, "She wasn't exactly gutted." Russell flew up straight in his seat, shuffling his papers around, "Aisa was cleaned out... but… but but but," papers flew and the travel weary officer watched the young man rip through his papers, "her reproductive system, lungs, and heart aren't documented anywhere as being taken out."

Lieutenant Ross sat silently, waiting for the young man to explain the importance – she'd learnt that it's best to never preempt a scientist's theory; they'd just cut you off anyways.

Russell snapped a sheet of paper up, "Her reproductive system is where the Red Stones would have crystallized... you need your heart to pump your blood and lungs to give air to your voice," the eldest Tringham brother let his arm fall, the sheet of paper snapping through the air as it moved. His face twisted a little with confusion and disgust, his shoulders falling in dismay, and Russell realized his research epiphany had only made things more confusing, "She was left with enough to make her appear human... but she's more or less hollow, and if she had full Red Water treatment, she's going to have a chunk of a Red Stone sitting in her lower core."

"I realize she shouldn't be alive in that state," Maria figured she was too worn out to respond with an appropriate amount of horror, "which is disturbing… but why in the world...?"

"Hell if I know," Russell tossed his sheet lazily onto the table as he blinked wide. He gave a wary look to the discarded sheet on the table before looking at Maria and then looking to the exiting door to the room, "I think I've been staring at this for too long, I need a nap. Damn."


Ed's pocket watch told him they'd been at this high-class masquerade for an hour of concert play and a half an hour of 'arrival', 'coat check', 'find your seat', plus 'my word, is that Hohenheim's son?' time. Edward blinked over to the miniscule table his cocktail glass sat on, watching the nearly unnoticeable balcony server swap it for a full one again. Honestly, Ed had never thought he'd find himself in a tuxedo, but there he sat in one – completely pressed and packaged. The getup even had a handkerchief in his jacket pocket and a white bowtie. He did not like the bowtie; at least with a neck tie you could loosen it easily. Whomever had polished his shoes had enjoyed themselves far too much, because they had more glare than the waxed floor. He felt horribly out of place.

Ed was also extremely aware that Winry felt out of place. Winry ended up in some sleeveless, olive green silk dress. The fabric hung off her shoulders, scooped down modestly in front but left her back wide open. It stretched nearly to her ankles on one side, had a hemline that made no sense, and a waist line that snuggled her hips. Her hair was wound up like some sort of ball and once again pinned to her head. At least Winry found a white shawl she liked to go with things.

When the orchestra conductor raised his arms to the audience, and then his voice, Ed glanced to Winry as she leaned in.

"Is he signalling intermission?" she whispered.

"Sounds like it," Ed responded, watching the crowd start to murmur into life.

Winry gave a sharp sigh and rolled her eyes – the girl's proper posture in the chair deteriorated rapidly, "Thank god, I have to pee."

Ed snorted, covering his mouth to hide the laugh, "You didn't have to wait."

"It would have been rude to get up in the middle," Winry hissed, dumping her shawl in the seat and hastily making her way to a curtain door for the suite, "where the hell is the washroom?"

Ed followed Winry's abrupt exit, snapping his suit jacket straight as he ducked out, "I haven't a clue where it is… um," he pointed down the core of the hall, "down that way, probably."

Winry scowled as people began to file into the halls, "I'll find it… I'll be back."

Ed didn't get a chance to respond, he could only sigh and watch Winry walk away awkwardly.

A heavy hand fell onto Ed's left shoulder unannounced, startling him. Ed glanced back sharply to a man whose cocktail glass came to his mouth for an emphatic swallow. "So that's Winry now, huh?" the man asked.

Ed was a little hesitant to respond; the man's face was familiar, but Ed couldn't place him.

"Very nice," his hand patted down on Ed's shoulder again and he cleared his throat, "My condolences about your father, Edward, he was a good man. I wasn't in town when his funeral was held, so I'm sorry I couldn't attend."

Ed gave a nod to the statement, "Thank you. And don't worry about it." Obviously it was someone who his dad had known well enough to discuss Winry as well. Ed bit his tongue on the blunt 'and you are?' and went with something a little easier on the ears, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

"Alfred," the man offered a handshake and quickly switched to his left when Ed only had that to offer, "Alfred Rosenberg. I've known your father since he joined the Thule Society."

Oh, now he made more sense.

"When are you stepping in for your father?" the man mused over another taste of his drink.

"I'm not," Ed gave the irrefutable response, "not my thing," was the safest qualification he could give.

The man made some kind of unintelligible noise to dismiss Edward's brush-off, "Perhaps not the society, but the party, now it used to not be most people's thing… and look at how things have blossomed under Adolf! It's fantastic. Efforts all over the map are paying off. We're expanding throughout the country." Alfred flicked his wrist and sharply swirled his drink, "You'd fill in quite well I think."

Really, Ed should have seen this conversation coming a mile away – of course they would try and recruit him, he'd been foolish to think he could escape it. At no point did Ed ever like making his physical scars an issue for himself, but this would be one of the few times he would pull the disability card, "I thought you people didn't care too much for this sort of thing," Ed gave a pat to his hollow right shoulder.

"Well…" Alfred rolled his eyes lazily and took another sip of his drink, "you're not Jewish, at least. Fucking Jews control Britain, France and the Soviet Empire – we don't want them to have any say in our system. We're surrounded by this bullshit Edward, so we'll keep civilized young men like yourself around."

In one blurb not only had Alfred Rosenberg managed to completely dispose of Edward's interest in holding a conversation with him, but he also fermented how badly – and how quickly – Ed wanted to get the measurements of the Thule Hall together and leave. That would be a task for early in the week, when everyone had school and work to be obligated to.

Ed begrudgingly relented to the fact he was in the wrong company to disagree with this asinine way of thinking and offered something to escape the conversation, "I'll consider it."

"Good idea," the man's heavy hand patted down on Ed's shoulder once more and Alfred sauntered away as he called back, "enjoy your evening and we'll talk more later."

That was enough of that. Ed tucked himself away against a wall and out of people's way as they mulled around the courtesy bar. Edward stood back and watched while the upper class occupying the balcony area laughed hotly among themselves, indulged in their smug prattle, and slowly filtered back into their seats as the intermission wound down. By the time the lights dimmed again, Ed still stood alone in the back hall, a cocktail glass having appeared in his hand at some point during the break, and he'd already finished half of it by the time he'd realized it was there. The orchestra struck up again with a low murmur, then a brash thunder, and the sound ran through the auditorium, into ears, through the back halls, and into every channel the sound could travel. Ed glanced around in the sound, looking for Winry, but she was nowhere to be seen. Shuffling a little deeper into the hall, Ed took a swallow from his drinking glass and looked curiously up and down the hall. Movement in the far end of the hall caught Ed's attention, but as his focus narrowed in on the figure it disappeared into another suite. Ed sighed and looked down the core hall again.

Winry made her way down the centre of the hallway looking painfully annoyed, resettling the dress straps on her shoulders and adjusting the way the green frock wrapped tightly around her hips. The lower skirt was lively enough that it hid how hard she fought through each step on the pointed heels of her shoes. Ed took a generous sip of his drink as Winry cursed the fabric monstrosity into submission while she walked. The rim of the cocktail glass woven through Edward's fingers sat lightly on his lower lip as he watched Winry approach, the ends of her skirt flying around below her knees, her arms swinging with the rhythm of each step, and the core of the silk dress lightly bouncing with every stride she made.

The long walk took Winry right up to the tip of Edward's polished shoes. She narrowed an eye at the blank stare she was getting from him, "What?"

Ed breathed and choked on the drink he hadn't swallowed – holy christ did this alcohol ever burn. Ow. "…What-what?" he managed to sputter through a fit of coughs and watering eyes.

Winry snatched the glass out of Ed's hand and helped herself to the rest of it, promptly plunking the empty glass down on a nearby counter.

Ed gave his head a sharp shake and he roughly cleared his throat, "What the hell took you so long?"

Winry gave a nasty glare for the question, "You try figuring out how to do up garters in a bathroom stall when you're wearing a long dress."

The coat with tails had stopped being so bad a long time ago and Winry just continued to reinforce that.

"Let's sit down. I want to spend as little time as possible standing in these shoes," Winry grumbled, waving her hands and turning away from Ed, walking towards the balcony curtain, "I can't wait to get out of this… thing and hide it in the closet."

"Winry…" Ed sounded a little more exasperated than he'd intended, but his tolerance for people's intolerance was running thin.

Winry raised her hands as Ed followed to catch up, "Ed, I'm sorry, but this is uncomfortable. If I move the wrong way and the shoulders slip off, I'll be giving everyone a show. I don't know how fancy women wear things like this."

"Winry."

"I grew up in jeans and overalls and I haven't worn a pair of those in months! I sure haven't ever worn anything silk before. Those stories you read as a kid, where girls dress up as princess and become royalty for a night…"

"Winry."

The girl in the olive green silk dress bristled and spun on him, "Stop calling my name. What?"

Edward Elric was poorly adept at acting his age in a number of situations. He was ill equipped to function socially in a few others. He also was aware of aspects of his disposition where he had the emotional maturity of a pubescent teenager. Ed had a number of times where he wished he had the social wherewithal to not let his mouth run away on him. There was a novel of indexes for moments in his life where he would have liked to have been able to act his age, fit his good clothes, and manage to convince his voice that it could function when he wanted it to.

Ed stood in front of Winry for a moment, the slit of his mouth opening, tongue holding onto something to be said. In the middle of a great charade Ed used his own hesitation to draw a fresh breath of air into his lungs, let his shoulders fall, and surprise himself by putting his act together in one calm breath.

"You look really nice tonight, Win."

The annoyance in Winry's face flushed away and her reaction went blank. Her eyes glanced around quickly in the darkened hall as the orchestra's music echoed from beyond the curtains hiding everyone else away. Winry looked down at the dress she wore and gave a few tugs to it, fixing how it hung over her, "… Yeah?"

Ed nodded, "Yeah, you do."

This whole world liked to tell Winry she was pretty and Ed wasn't sure that she accepted the complements – her standards and everyone else's were so different. Whatever picture Winry had of herself in that dress, whatever she was seeing in the mirror on a day-to-day basis, however she thought she was coming off, it wasn't what everyone else saw and it wasn't who Ed saw walk down the hall and steal his drink. Maybe it was something she should know. Maybe she should hear it from someone she'd believe.

"Oh…" Winry brushed her hands over the skirt of her dress, "thank you, you look nice like that too."

Wrapped in the dimmed building lights, with a subtle smile warmed by the low notes of the clarinet's solo, Ed found a few free fingers, took Winry by the hand, and walked her silently back to the curtain of the auditorium balcony.

In some ass-backwards way Hess was right, Ed supposed; he wasn't always the best company and keeping Winry so close exposed her to all sorts of problems. She had a host of things that she could complain about, and so did Ed for that matter, but Winry never complained about the journey itself. For nearly every moment Winry had been here, Ed shared the walk with her through the unending feeling of being very far from home. Tonight – this blip in their life amongst the endless worry – maybe it was a little bit nice. Monday through Sunday was always part of the journey, so a little break to do something and be somewhere that completely expelled them from the doldrums of the norm was… a little bit nice.


To Be Continued...


Notes:

There were three important people in the beginnings of rocket science: Oberth, Goddard, and Tsiolkovsky (whom Hermann referred to).

I was raised on FMA03, because of that when someone says 'human Al' my first image is always Al with grey eyes. When you qualify it as Manga or Brotherhood Al, then his eye colour changes to gold. I've given Dante Hohenheim's rotting body and Al his father's golden eyes, not because I've ever seen Al with grey eyes as being something that's wrong, but because I think 'what an incredible gift to get from the father he's always wanted and never had'. I wanted Al to get something from his dad from that event.

Chapter 38: The Crimson Charm - Part 1

Chapter Text

Winry stood in the middle of a disaster she'd made on the upper floor of the house within the dusty afternoon light that filtered into the house from beyond the windows. Sheets, towels, linens of all sorts, clothes – her entire wardrobe, clean and dirty – all of it was thrown everywhere.

Winry looked around the upper floor in a panic. Where is it? It had to be somewhere. Winry gathered up as much of the disaster as she could into an armload and pitched it into Ed's bedroom, adding to what she'd already piled in there.

When a knock came at the house door Winry sighed and stormed down the stairs. The rule in place since the disastrous weekend was to keep the door closed to strangers – even the mail man – but Rudolf Hess was not 'a stranger' and Winry opened the door.

"Good afternoon," he gave a modest smile.

"Good afternoon," Winry let him in. University classes let out at three while Edward was out of work at four thirty, so it wasn't a surprise to see Hess show up before four that afternoon.

Stepping into the house, the guest tapped the snow off his boots, "How have you been?"

"Alright," she replied, wishing he would state his purpose and leave, "what can I do for you?"

Hess began unbuttoning his coat like he'd intended to stay for more than a moment, "I came by to see how you were doing and to find out how you enjoyed the concert."

Winry shrugged, "I'm good, concert was good… uh, yeah," she clapped her hands together at her stomach.

With a laugh, Hess stepped out of his boots, "You sound busy; may I help with anything?"

"Naw," Winry gave a wave of her hand, "I just have laundry upstairs that I need to get done."

"I can help with that," Hess made his way to the stairwell.

Despite Winry's attempt to intercept him, she still found herself stumbling backwards up the stairs as the intrusive man made his way to the second floor, "I don't really need help with the laundry, it was just what I had going on – don't worry about it." Her stomach sank a little when Winry could tell by the look in Hess' eye that he could see the mess in the hall, the avalanche of things falling out of Ed's bedroom door, and that her room had been stripped bare. She laughed sheepishly – could he just leave?

"I'll help you sort it?" Hess offered.

Winry wanted to either shrivel up or punch him for the nearly condescending smile he gave, "Why are you here? You didn't show up to help me do laundry… did you?"

Hess laughed, "No, I actually came by to talk to you about Edward."

"Oh yeah?" Winry turned to the fabric avalanche coming out of Ed's door, "what about him?"

Hess's brow rose with interest as he watched Winry grab up an armful from the floor, "I don't know anything about him really, even Hohenheim didn't talk much about his son or their past," the man 'oof'd when Winry shoved the pile into his arms – instructing him to 'hold this!' Hess stared blankly at the bundle, "I uh… just know they were reunited during the war while Edward was still a teenager, shortly after an air raid that took his arm and leg," the man's eyes widened as he saw the oncoming sheet fly towards him and cover his head, though it didn't deter him from talking, "you seem to know him well enough, I thought perhaps you could fill in some blanks."

Winry's hands came back to her hips and she admired the human fabric tower she was building; this gave her an excellent opportunity to shake out her things! She quickly searched her thoughts to make sure she had enough of their fictitious life story beyond the Gate in order before responding, "Yeah I heard that's what happened, but Ed's the one who should be talking about himself, not me." Winry threw a couple of skirts and a sweater over Hess's head.

"How proper of you," Hess's stifled voice came out from beneath the pile. He gave a thought to uncovering himself, but with a few more clothes and two pillow cases stacked on top of him, the man figured he may as well stay put, "I'm very interested about some things Winry. Edward has opened up around you in a way none of us have seen from him behave before. He was very withdrawn until recently, then you showed up and drew him out into the sun. I thought perhaps you would be our best insight to get him to open up a little more than he already has."

Winry snorted a laugh, making a few disgruntled faces at the man who wasn't able to see them, "I've known Ed since the day I was born, and he's a private person and I respect that. He's trying to deal with some really hard circumstances and I'm trying to support him while he does that," she added another few bits of clothing to Hess's tower, "ask Ed yourself and if he wants you to know, he'll tell you, otherwise it's none of your business."

For a few moments Winry regretted burying this man in a mountain of things, because she couldn't see if he was resigned, annoyed, or frustrated with her refusal to cough up information on Ed.

"I asked his father once, but Hohenheim was sly," Hess's words came out smooth, even with what he was buried under, "have you and Edward been involved at all?"

"Invol…?" it took a few seconds before Winry blanched at the question, "no….  Ho-Why would you think that?"

Edward Elric had the good sense to walk through the door right then and there, ending Rudolf Hess's line of questioning.

"I'm home," Ed called into the house.

Winry's eyes widened in horror and she quickly shot her attention to the absolute disaster the upper floor was – how was she supposed to explain this? "… Y-you're early!" she cried out.

"I finished early," Ed's voice echoed in the stairwell.

Winry looked between the pile burying Hess, the disaster she'd filled Ed's room with, the vacancy her own room was, and the scattering of random things all throughout the floor. Her fingers danced around at her lower lip, "That's nice… um… help yourself to something in the fridge!" Winry scrambled over the pile she'd thrown inside Ed's doorway.

"I'm gonna change first," Ed hauled himself up the stairs heavily, feet thumping down on the steps tiredly.

Winry's hands ravaged through her hair with each step Ed took and she looked around his room frantically. Could she heave this all inside the room, shut the door, and deny him access? No. Could she get it in the closet? No. Under the bed? No. Crap. Winry scrambled out of the room and tumbled into the hall again, coming to a dead stop when she saw Ed standing with one foot on the upper landing, the other on the second step from the top, and a stunningly perplexed look on his face as he eyed the mountain burying Hess.

"… What the…?"

Winry giggled nervously, watching while Hess shed the sheets from his arms and discarded what had been thrown over his head. Winry's hands slapped down over her hips in resignation over the debacle.

"What are you doing in my house?" Ed's German question finally came out as he drew up to the top step, having to double take at the trail of things escaping his bedroom door.

"I came to see how things were," Hess patted down his hair, "seems things are domestic."

"Right… don't you have anything better to do? Other people to annoy?" Ed gave the man a wary eye before sharply turning and gawking at the disaster his room had been turned into, "holy shit Winry, what have you DONE?"

Winry threw in a grumble as she folded her arms, "I've misplaced something and I'm trying to find it."

"By doing this to my room?" Ed's face twisted, though he backed off on his question when Winry's glare was an absolute 'yes' to the question, "… what'd you lose?"

Wrinkling her nose, Winry shuffled a little, picking up a few things from the pile that trailed out of Ed's room and tossing it back into hers; she felt like an absolute heel. "The doll you got me for Christmas," she mumbled, "I can't find it."

Hess's brow rose at Winry's admission, though his bemused question fell to Edward, "You bought Winry a doll for Christmas?"

Ed's annoyed and pointed finger flew out into Hess's face, "Shut. Up."

The older man grinned at the embarrassment Ed tried to hide behind a wretched scowl. Hess laced the buttons down the front of his coat and gave a nod to the two of them while his grin never wavered, "I'll be on my way."

"Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out," Ed snarled.

Hess laughed at the quip and both Edward and Winry watched with similar frowns as the man disappeared into the lower floor of the house.

"Where'd you see it last?" Ed asked, taking the focus off of Hess.

"On my bed," Winry frowned, "it's always on my bed, unless it got caught in the laundry Saturday morning, because I don't remember moving it."

Ed shrugged, the steps he took pulled his shadow through the hallway into the afternoon light, "It'll turn up. Don't worry. We'll look for it after dinner," his left hand landed on Winry's shoulder as the front door of the house slammed shut. The building fell silent for a moment in the wake of the sound, even the faint tick of the downstairs clock began to creep into their ears before Ed spoke again, "What the hell was Rudolf doing here?"

"Oh," Winry laughed a little as she shook her head, "he was poking his nose around about you; wanted to know if I had any juicy stories to tell about Edward Elric."

"Yeah?" a frown worsened into Ed's brow, hissing his disgust through his teeth, "that slimy bastard doesn't know how to back off. I'm gonna have to put my boot up his ass," Ed's hand tightened around Winry's shoulder and his voice picked up, "whatever. We're getting out of here, so he can waste all the time he likes."

"We are?" Winry raised her brow, attaching a non-verbal expression of 'finally?'

Golden eyes suddenly shuffled from side to side, "Yeah, well, I left work early feeling a little 'sick'… and I'm gonna still be sick tomorrow. We're going to grab the measurements of the Thule Hall during the day."

Winry nodded, very thankful they were finally on their way to getting that task over and done with, "Okay."


Izumi wished she had a wristwatch to keep track of time, because she'd lost track of how long they'd been at the Gate. She was certain they'd been at the Gate for some time greater than twelve hours, but less than twenty four… maybe… she had no way of telling. The teacher felt as though her internal clock had been shut down; Izumi hadn't felt hungry or tired and it was growing unsettling.

Giving a hefty sigh, Izumi resumed her pacing around the white nothingness of the Gate space, "Alright Aisa, all over again, how'd I manage to get us here? You haven't answered my questions at all."

"Your compensation factors were inadequate," was the same answer given every time – like a ritual game, "my Red Stone facilitation is more than what you compensated for."

The excuse was really getting old and Izumi was more than ready to beat an answer out of the woman… if the threat of who-knows-what happening didn't exist. Reaching over and strangling the woman to death wouldn't do her any good; Aisa was dead already.

"Maybe you should find a way to go home," Al moved up beside Izumi.

"Absolutely not," was her firm response.

Al sighed, "What good does it do anybody if you just stay here with me?"

That was a very good question, one that Izumi did not have anything beyond rhetoric to answer with, because she did not know what good she was doing there. But the thought of abandoning Al to this space… that was unfathomable. She'd left a child behind here once and she didn't have the strength to do it again.

"Aisa!" Alphonse called out, "maybe if you tell my teacher what she did to get here, she'll go home! Can you tell her, please?"

"I have told her, would you like me to repeat myself again?" the continual disinterest Aisa had in answering the question ground down on both Al's and Izumi's nerves.

Al sighed, shuffling away from the teacher giving him a nasty look for the request he'd just made, "Look Aisa, I'm sure Dante told you not to tell anyone, but aren't you better serving Dante if you're with Dante? Shouldn't you want to tell us so my teacher will know what to do and then you can go home? I'm okay here, really."

The nurse's eyes shifted from Izumi to Alphonse and then back again, "It might be in Izumi's best interest to remain here with me. Dante's wrath when she finds out I've been used in this way will be unsettling."

"I like how I've already been sentenced for something I don't know anything about," Izumi scowled, lines zipping through her brow.

"Then you should tell her what happened!" Alphonse pleaded.

Aisa's words drawled out monaurally, "The compensation factors in her transmutation were inadequate…"

Alphonse threw his hands up as Aisa finished her spiel.

"Let it drop, Al," Izumi waved for him to come back to her, "even if she tells me, I'm not leaving."

With a determined look in his eye, Al continued to attempt some kind of conversation with Aisa, "Can you tell me how it works at least? Like the procurement process for the Red Stones inside of you?"

Aisa looked back at the youngest Elric brother, intrigued by the question, looking as though she'd begun thinking the question over and debating if it was a safe to answer or not. Izumi's brow rose curiously at the woman actually attempting to entertain one of their questions.

"Where do you store it?" Alphonse approached Aisa, "all the excess stones and things keeping you alive?"

"Those aren't things you need to know, Alphonse," Aisa finally answered.

The young alchemist frowned, starting to walk a wide circle around her, "Yeah, I'm sure it's some big secret you and Dante keep." Alphonse continued his circle around Aisa before coming to a stop in front of her again. His hands came down onto his moderate hips and Al gave her his most inquisitive frown, "and you really don't have a pulse, like Sensei says?"

Aisa shook her head, "My body is also room temperature, so it feels cool to the touch." With a shrug of her shoulders Aisa extended her right hand, "Go on."

A little burst of excitement pushed Al forwards. Though there was nothing about Aisa that was in any way exciting, this woman was still a fascinating 'something' that was different than all the things he'd learnt about the Gate. Now they were learning about what Dante could do, even if it was just little bits at a time.

Yet Alphonse Elric had no idea why the closer he came to Aisa, the more the leery sensation she gave him began to crystallize in his mind's eye. She was like an enigma hidden in a dense fog and the woman whose physical figure had not changed, morphed, or mutated in anyway somehow felt like she'd transformed into a monster of nightmares by the time Al was close enough to touch her. Alphonse froze before taking hold of her wrist, eyes wide, and heart racing for no reason he understood. He looked to Aisa like she should have been able to tell him what was wrong, yet all the nurse did was look back with moderate confusion to the boy's hesitation.

"Al?" Izumi called, hints of concern in her voice.

Al glanced to his hand; poised to take hold of the wrist he'd been offered. A realization suddenly hit the young Elric – Aisa terrified him.

"Is something wrong?" Aisa looked down to Alphonse.

Without another thought to his hesitation, Al moved quickly and pushed through the unidentifiable fear, his right hand taking hold of the nurse's extended wrist.

The Gate pulsed the moment his warm fingers landed on her flesh.

Izumi staggered further back from the yawning doors as baby Diana – silent for the woman's entire tenure at the Gate – let out a torrential wail. The point of contact between Alphonse's grip and Aisa's wrist shot a deafening crackle into everyone's ears before exploding into wild red transmutation sparks, strings of power thrashing about madly and without control. Suddenly it was Alphonse joining the frenzied screams Diana made.

Izumi hadn't finished her dash towards Al before she began to stumble. The sudden syphoning of air into the uncontrolled transmutation flying around Aisa and Alphonse, and the power that blew out from the Gate because of it, made it almost impossible for the teacher to remain standing. The currents began to blow past Izumi with raging force, the pressure of the air growing exponentially, and the fear in Izumi's stomach sickened when two large, wide opened eyes appeared within the voided black space of the Gate. The pupils cast a rancid, raging gaze over the doorstep visitors, pounding down on Izumi through to her core. The teacher broke herself free from the terrorizing glare and scrambled to take hold of Alphonse as he screamed, nearly unable to keep standing as she grabbed him. Izumi wrapped her arm around the frantic boy's neck, looking over her shoulder to Aisa amidst the disaster. The woman had fallen pale, her eyes had rolled back, and she was completely unresponsive to everything Izumi yelled. The teacher tried again and again to break the hold Alphonse had taken on her wrist, each time being burned by the sparks of the alchemical reaction.

Pulling Alphonse into her body, Izumi's teeth clenched while the ends of her hair were flung madly around her head, still watching the open doors as the eyes of the Gate began to grow unruly, sending Diana into a frenzy. Again the teacher tried to pry Alphonse away and all Izumi could do was watch while the boy's fingers begin to literally sink into the flesh of Aisa's wrist. With a desperate burst of energy, Izumi's right arm flew above her head, her left knee came up to her chest and, with all her body weight, Izumi slammed her elbow down on the sparking connection point between Alphonse and Aisa. The woman had put her knee into the young Elric's chest while she'd moved and Alphonse was thrust away as the connection was finally severed.

Al hit the surface with a shrill cry and Izumi fell to the ground with Aisa at her back. The chaos their connection brought forth from the Gate wasn't quelled by the separation – the winds still raged and the air remained thick, but the cascading transmutation ceased and Alphonse fell silent. Izumi scrambled through the raging alchemical winds towards him.

"AL!" Izumi's hand landed on the boy's chest. Her fingers gripped into the front of his shirt and she rattled him, "ALPHONSE!" The woman's hand gave a sharp slap across his face when he didn't respond, hoping for some reaction and receiving nothing in return.

A pained cry leaked out from Aisa's lungs and the woman came to her hands and knees, cradling the wrist Alphonse's fingers had damaged, "We need to go!"

"What have you done to him?" Izumi's panic swung around and she flared her rage amidst the torrents of the Gate.

Aisa slowly drew to her feet, "He reacted to me! We need to leave - now!"

Izumi's eyes shot between the non-responsive child and the woman with asinine claims, "He reacted to you?"

"YES," Aisa hollered, looking up at the raging Gate. Her jaw moved, but her voice struggled to follow, "You have to clap your hands and get us out of here, or when the Gate breaks down Diana it will pull us all through!"

Izumi took a few swallows of the maddening winds attempting to rip the white coat from her body. Izumi's jaw slipped open as her hands gripped Al's shoulders, "WHY?"

"I wouldn't have let him touch me if I knew why!" Aisa's response was loud and shrill, "Dante always claps her hands to return from the Gate, you should be able to do the same. I am the catalyst, so when I'm gone the reaction should end and this will all stop."

Izumi's eyes flew around the erupting space at the Gate amidst winds and power blowing so wildly past her the currents could be seen. She looked at the raging set of eyes trapped at the Gate staring back on them with more than hunger in its stare.

"HURRY!"

Izumi's hands gripped the soft cheeks of the unresponsive Elric and the teacher took a deep breath.

"It's not Dante's wrath people will fear if you don't come out of this alright."

Izumi clapped her hands.


Ed was up nearly as early as he would have been for work, waiting for the world to be buried in mundane life before he and Winry ducked out of the house and headed to the Thule Hall. The day was nice enough for it; it was only a few degrees below zero, the sky was clear, the sun was strong, and the day was bright. Ed was thankful that meant the Thule Hall would be well lit for their measurement task.

The pair had arrived at the hall before nine and both of them figured that the cold winter weather in the days and weeks prior had been drawn into the underground realm, because the wide room and all its stone was bitterly cold – even with the sun shining in.

Both shivered a little as they entered the sunlit hall, looking around at a place that they'd last seen when it had been covered in spilt blood. Ed and Winry centred themselves in the room, neither saying a thing, no one setting their bags down, nobody's voice offering to take the lead – they only stood on the sunlit centre; the place where Hohenheim had died. Winry pried her eyes off of the three doors in the far reaches of the hall; once upon a time, when her adventure began, she'd come out from behind one of them and she couldn't remember which. Winry glanced to Ed whose expression had locked down firmly. Her free hand snuck out to find his, to see if he could be unlocked, but Edward moved away before she could try.

Ed knelt down and put his bare hand on the cold stone surface of the Thule Hall floor, his left index finger slipping into the carved grooves and he explored the etching. Ed balanced on his knees as Winry finally set their bags down on the sigil, sending a light wave through the still and frigid air. Sliding along the ground, Ed's fingers continued to feel their way along the depth of the transmutation circle's grooves before he finally sat back and looked up at Winry.

"Can you feel that?" it came out more like a statement of fact that she should feel something rather than a question.

Winry shook her head, "Feel what?"

Ed mulled her response over, "Must be an alchemist's thing, but it's… like static," he explained, rising to his feet again, "it's transmutation energy and it's really faint. I've felt it before when I was here… Dad said it was caused by the Gate doors being open back home – the transmutation circle is recognizing a source of power."

Winry's eyes narrowed at the statement, "I thought you said this thing didn't work? No alchemy and all."

Ed nodded in agreement that the transmutation circle didn't work, but, "Alchemy is possible here, it's just our bonds aren't connected and the power flow only goes one way; that's what makes it impossible," his hand slipped into his pocket and Ed took a few slow steps over the surface of the sigil, "think of a transmutation circle like a mediator between the alchemist and his power source for altering matter. The circle establishes the power source so it can relay the energy to the alchemist for a transmutation, from there it's up to the alchemist to control it and transmute things with it," golden eyes slowly drifted upwards, looking into the high, stain glass dome above their heads, "and Dante's got the Gate doors open right now, that's how it's sending us feedback – the transmutation circle is reaching for the Gate, recognizing the power source," Ed's hand reached up, curling his fingers and clawing the air, "the circle is clawing to get a power source because it's designed not to mediate the energy properly and ultimately rebound, but since the power flow is only one way, it doesn't actually draw power, but we can feel the residue energy from the futile effort."

Winry looked at the ground beneath her feet warily, "It's not gonna like, come alive and bite me because Dante's there, is it?"

"No," Ed laughed. He took a slow glance around the stone fringes of the room, following the lines of the pillars up to the roofing, through the dome, and beyond the windows to the sky, before pulling himself down again. Edward's gaze landed on the circle they stood on and his eyes cut grooves deep into the fissures already carved. His brow knotted, "Wonder if I could get a message to go through…"

"To Dante?" Winry squeaked.

Ed shook his head quickly, "Not to Dante specifically," his feet suddenly moved along the floor, the cold soles of his boots clapping off the cement with each step. It wasn't a measuring tape or written formula being used to plot the floor piece Ed walked on, it was the lengths of his steps and the speed at which he took them that helped Ed's thought process map itself out as he moved sharply around the transmutation circle carved into the stone, "I wonder if I could send a message through with the open doors like this," the faint echo of his feet came to a stop and the eldest Elric squared himself off in a section of the circle, "get it to ride on the transmutation circle's draw to the Gate, and power it with the residue."

Epiphanies were sometimes like the moment a child realizes the power of their accomplishment to stand on their own for the first time; it was always a bright, wondrous, and proud feeling.

"Could I use the feedback energy to piggyback a signal along the draw to the Gate and send a message home?" The fascinating idea tumbled through Ed's thoughts wildly.

"What kind of message would you send?" Winry tilted her head thoughtfully, looking around the room as Ed had done, looking up to the same sky he'd questioned, and then looking over to him as his mental gears began to run faster, "S.O.S.?" Winry offered her own answer with a smile.

The response brought a laugh out of Ed, a sound that echoed lightly off of the frigid stone walls. Ed wandered over to the belongings Winry had placed down on the circle, rummaging through a bag until he found the package of white chalk sticks. Though the chalk sticks were for marking their measurements, it had been a long time since a stick of chalk had been in Ed's hand for any purpose. He stared at it for a few moments, rotating it around in his fingers.

As he looked up, stern, thoughtful Elric eyes cut through the room sharply, expertly picking out his most crucial points, stopping when the gaze hit the apex of his mental map on the floor. With a few steps to meet the target, Ed came down to his knees, "If I drew the transmutation circle here… literally overlaying it on the Thule's circle…" the white chalk stick snapped properly into his grasp and the beginnings of a white insignia from his youth was drawn over the stone – never skipping over the carved lines of the Thule Hall sigil, always digging into the groves of the floor, making sure his circle never broke form or lost shape, "get a message to the Gate without actually activating the master rebound transmutation."

As the final stroke of Edward's chalk lifted from the ground, Winry knelt down beside him, eyes looking over the transmutation circle he'd adopted as a child. She asked him again, "What kind of message can you send?"

"I can't," it was a surprisingly abrupt answer from Edward, given how seriously he'd taken his task of plotting the circle he'd just drawn, "I don't know what I'd use to trigger it to go through, but if I could, I'd do it with this."

Edward had plotted, orchestrated, and drawn the whole thing out – a message home that he'd known had no chance of being delivered to anyone, since he had no trigger to start it. Yet, Ed let himself live out the experience of wrangling out a successful and complicated double-layered transmutation that he could have done if his circumstances had been different. Winry looked at the accomplishment drawn on the floor, her heart sinking as she realized it had no more value to either of them than a piece of a child's sidewalk chalk art.

Ed glanced at the white stick in his hand, then at the transmutation circle he'd drawn; he'd nearly tucked the stick away and stood up to get to work, but Winry stopped him. Ed's gaze turned to her as Winry's hand came down on his shoulder and her eyes on the floor.

"If you could have sent a message, what would you have sent?"

Ed paused, glancing to his work while trying to figure out an answer, "It wouldn't be a normal message. It wouldn't advertise that we're here… it'd be more like a knock on a door, or a gust of wind that I'd made to blow a window shut, or something like that," the chalk stick was turned over in Edward's hand and finally slipped back into his pocket, "if I could make it work, I don't know how anyone would know it was me," golden eyes fixated on the stubborn, uncooperative floor, "It'd still be a message home though… I'd send something home."

Winry pushed to her feet, deliberately bumping into his arm as she rose, trying to draw his attention out of the impotence of the world they were in, "Let's get to work. You don't want Dante knowing you're knocking on the door anyways. Better this world be in your hands than available to hers."

He glanced up as Winry straightened herself and smoothed out her coat, grinning down to Ed and extending a hand to help bring him to his feet. He took the offering and stood up, questioning whether or not he would give up part of this world to Dante if the exchange meant they'd get home.


The east was almost secured. Everyone under Brigadier General Mustang understood that the east was a triumph to secure, but it was going to be the north and northwest that would be the most challenging – the upper class existed there, and the upper class supported the government that pampered their cozy lives. It was hard for Mustang to get a feel for the mood of that district; however, that was a bridge they'd all cross at a later date. Right now the vast majority of the population in Central City was in the streets – they continued their protests over anything and everything they could think of, growing angrier with each passing day that the government refused to acknowledge their presence, let alone their cries. Mustang watched the uproar, a few of his closer men ribbing the officer for the growing number of people in the streets calling out their support for him, before Mustang moved himself up a floor to a mostly emptied office in their building and gave himself a few moments of peace at a window.

"Bradley told me I'd never get support if I attempted a coup…" Mustang's thoughts were spoken aloud.

"When it's those in charge of Central who shoot innocent people in the streets, common sense emerges," Hawkeye joined her superior officer at the window.

Roy's brow rose, "You think this has anything to do with common sense?" he glanced to Riza, "common sense would have the government stepping down and my name on an election ballot."

"Common sense tells people who will protect them and who will not," Riza withheld her grin, even if it did shine through a touch, "if you look out for people in their darkest hours, they'll know who to turn to when it's light."

Roy's expression loosened and he gave a twisted grin to Riza, "That was incredibly profound, Major."

"It was a line from the book I read last night," she responded promptly, snapping up a file folder thick with papers, "reports for our stance in the northern portions of Central, sir."

Taking the file folder from his officer, Mustang turned his nose up at the paperwork and dropped it on the floor, "I'll deal with that when the east is entirely secured. I won't get ahead of myself."

Before Riza could at least tell her superior officer to pick up the file from the floor and put it somewhere safe, both officers were sent stumbling off their feet, falling to the side – a portion of the far exterior wall suddenly blew in with an explosive bang, throwing debris through the room and sinking the occupants beneath a thick grey cloud of dust. Hawkeye's gun was drawn and Mustang's glove was on before either of them had gathered their bearings.

A shrill scream raged through the room, neither officer able to see what was coming but clearly able to hear it charge. From the floor, Hawkeye fired four bullets towards the sound in the smoke, at least one connecting if the screaming animal's sound was any indication. The noise grew wild again and the major scrambled to get up off her backside, only to be blindsided by Mustang – his arm reaching around the back of her shoulders and throwing her face first to the floor.

"GET DOWN," he curled to the floor with her, right hand snapping out and igniting the dust cloud. As quickly as the dust had burst into flames, it vanished – burning off almost instantly.

Both officers looked up from the floor, rising up to their knees, Hawkeye's sidearm readied and Mustang's fingers poised. Slowly they stood, the midday sun leaking in from not only the windows but the gaping hole in the wall as well. They looked around the singed room sharply, trying to find what had attacked them.

"That hurt…"

Mustang and Hawkeye snapped their focus to the voice, brows rising as they looked at Wrath standing in the middle of the room, a little burnt from the momentary fire and poking at the wound on his chest.

"… Wrath?" Mustang asked carefully – the last time he'd seen the homunculus it wasn't in this state.

The wild violet eyes of the homunculus looked between the two officers, focus landing on Hawkeye and the gun she'd shot him with. Wrath rolled his AutoMail shoulder and moved like he'd planned to run the woman down. Hawkeye's weapon locked on and Mustang's fire was ready, but before Wrath could make his first move he was blindsided by a body that struck him, sending him flying into the far wall. The officer's defences lowered quickly as Izumi landed on the floor and dropped to her knees, hand to her mouth.

"Mrs. Curtis?" Mustang stepped forward in alarm.

Izumi's forehead hit the floor and blood from the woman's mouth spilled through her hands.

"I told you to leave me alone!" the homunculus screamed, retreating from a barrage of bullets shot at him from Hawkeye's gun. Before anyone could act on Wrath further, the creature gave a disgusted look to them all and broke out of the room through a far window.

"Get a doctor!" Mustang ordered, crouching down next to Izumi as Hawkeye rushed by.

"Don't bother!" Izumi coughed out the response, breathing heavily as she held herself hunched over, "it'll pass."

"Are you okay?" Hawkeye turned back, sweeping a collection of napkins off a desk and bringing them down to Izumi who'd begun to straighten up.

"I'll be fine," the teacher wiped her hands and face down with the napkins, "it's normal, it'll pass."

"This is normal?" there was no way in the world Mustang would believe that. The officer's good eye looked Izumi over, attention veering from the blood she'd coughed up on the floor, to the burns down her sleeveless right arm, "what happened to you?"

"Doesn't matter," Izumi's eyes glanced to the white gloved hand that grabbed her shoulder.

"Where's Alphonse?" Mustang demanded.

The teacher's hands came up and rubbed her face down, "Out of reach for the moment."

"What is that supposed to mean?" the impatient question escaped Mustang.

"Don't get your panties in a knot," A very bitter and disgruntled tone echoed in Izumi's words. Quickly and without warning she snatched Mustang's hand from her shoulder, firmly holding him at his wrist, "This pyro-mitten you've got? If you get anywhere near the heart of Central and find Aisa, don't start using this, it won't end well."

Mustang's good eye narrowed, taking back his hand, "Why?"

"There's a damaged building and a lot of broken windows that explains why," Izumi's eyes narrowed back at him.

That certainly confirmed that it was Izumi who had fallen out the window with Aisa. Mustang's shoulders fell as he looked to the hole in the building Wrath had created. The officer's ears perked when the clap of Izumi's hands was heard and he watched as the hole in the wall was repaired. Mustang ran his hand through his hair, rising to his feet, "We were discussing that Aisa might have been used in Red Water experiments and been used to crystallize red stones."

"Yup," Izumi didn't even bother padding the truth as she stood up, "and not just that…" the teacher's words vanished suddenly while she pushed her hair off her shoulders and let it fall down her back. Examining her thoughts, Izumi's eyes snapped through the room, "I picked up something about Dante trying to bring Ed home."

Both officers couldn't help but find Dante's actions suspicious and Hawkeye stepped into the conversation, "What motive would she have for bringing Edward home? I thought she wanted to obtain knowledge from beyond the Gate?"

A thoughtful hum spun through the room as Mustang mulled the concept over, "Ed buries himself in books and texts. If the world he's in – the world that Dante wants – has knowledge on alchemy that we don't, he'd seek it out," the officer nodded to himself slowly, swallowing the terrifying idea of just how much knowledge Ed would come home with, if they could get him, "he could have a dangerous amount of knowledge if he was brought home," a very bizarre thought struck Mustang that he spoke aloud, "Edward himself could be dangerous."

"He certainly wouldn't tell Dante what he'd learnt," Riza shook her head, finally re-holstering he sidearm, "he'd know better than anyone the power of the alchemy he'd learnt beyond the Gate."

A light pop echoed in the room as Izumi's lips parted. Her hand came to her chin, her eyes moved between the two officers, and a very solemn voice emerged, "Dante seems to have been working on a trick with human transmutation," she watched the seriousness darken the two officers eyes, "one that works like behaviour modification; like brainwashing. I watched how a seven-year-old controlled the thoughts and behaviour of a room full of adult men… and that's incredibly hard to do."

Mustang's arms folded as silence settled onto the room; human transmutation required the transmutation of the mind, body, and soul. Though all three elements were unfathomably hard to transmute, transmutation of flesh qualified as the easiest, transmutation of a soul appeared to fall second if all the examples of extracted souls attached to armour or other people were any clue, but transmutation of an active mind? He couldn't imagine even attempting that… and perfecting it to a science where it could be manipulated? A person would end up as a vegetable if there was even the slightest misstep.

"Look," Izumi finally snarled, "I got out of the underground city by the skin of my teeth a few hours ago and came up to find myself face to face with Wrath. I don't have time to stick around and entertain you - Wrath's hopped up on red stones and I need to stay on him before he kills someone."

"No, wait," Mustang ordered an end to Izumi's pursuit, "you don't just burst in through my wall—"

"This isn't your wall."

"—and puke blood all over MY floor—"

"That is none of your business," Izumi barked.

"—chasing some rogue homunculus," Mustang's voice began to boil, "after running away with Alphonse Elric, then coming back without him, and expect me to think that is just fine —"

"Yeah, I do!"

"I want an explanation!"

Hawkeye raised a finger, "Excuse me."

Both sets of narrow eyes snapped to the third person in the room.

Hawkeye's gaze shifted between the two of them abruptly for a few moments before she finally cleared her throat, "Havoc's team is out that way," she motioned to the escape route their little terror had taken, "Wrath is hard to miss because he draws so much attention to himself, so I'm sure he caught the lieutenant's eye. Our men can keep watch over him, I think Ms. Curtis needs a breather…" again the major glanced between the two of them as things seemed to deflate, "when was the last time any of us had something to eat?"

That was a longer time than Izumi could count if she included all her time at the Gate. The woman's lungs emptied, her head hanging with the sigh as her hand slapped over her forehead, "Fine."

"And we'll get that looked after," Mustang grumbled his statement.

The teacher gave a flat stare to the officer, "What looked after?"

One finger at a time, the Brigadier General began to remove his white glove, "You think don't know what a transmutation burn looks like?" he made a gesture to the burns and sores marring Izumi's right arm, "that needs to be looked after."

Izumi flipped her focus from the wounded arm to the man whose hands sunk firmly into his pockets. She snorted and shook her head, "You went from bitching me out to offering aid pretty fast."

Mustang shrugged – the longer he kept Izumi around, the better chance he had of getting answers, "I'm a really a nice guy."

The alchemy teacher frowned, rolling her shoulders and gingerly rubbing the sore arm, "Do you say that to all the girls?"

"Yes."

Izumi rolled her eyes, "I'll remember to tell my husband to kick your ass."


Ed put his cheek down onto the cold stone floor and his eyes again scanned the level of the floor – was it flat from this angle? Did it slope? Did it have hills? Did it dip in the centre? If water were spilt on the floor, which direction would it drain? It could have all been important.

By this point in their day, Edward and Winry had mapped out the transmutation circle and the Thule Hall down to the depth of the grooves dug into the stone.

Ed shook his head to finish off a conversation that had been going on for some time, "Naw, I only opened a Russian dictionary so I could try and read Tsiolkovsky's work."

"But you never went?" Winry flipped her pencil and took an eraser to her sheet.

"Hell no," he wrinkled his nose at the suggestion, "after the Romanovs were killed, that country had more issues than Germany… didn't need to deal with that."

Winry took a few steps forward, opening her mouth to speak, but her words, motions, and actions suddenly froze like her world had been paused. Edward watched her stop and chilled over as well. Neither spoke, neither moved – both of them listening… hearing the sound of the hall's ground-level entry door creak and crack open. A rush of winter air flooded down the stairwell and blew into the hall; neither body moved nor breathed. They both waited with pounding hearts, listening for a footstep or a voice.

The ground level door slammed shut.

Ed burst to his feet, sweeping his spreads of notes into the shoulder bag they'd brought, Winry doing the same. The sound of footsteps from the intruder made their way down slowly, casually, and uninterested. In a flurry motion, the bag was thrown over his shoulder and Ed rushed to grab Winry as she tossed her notepad and loose sheets into her own shoulder bag. With a yank on her arm, Ed brought her to the edge of the transmutation circle closest to the exit and they turned to face the wretched symbol – their backs to the hall entrance.

They had not wanted to be interrupted; Ed was hoping to high hell that they would not get interrupted. He was so close to getting this finished, why couldn't he have had another thirty minutes of peace? At least there was a plan to deal with this and Ed took a deep breath. Winry glanced nervously to him and they stood, facing the centre of the room, waiting for the visitor to arrive.

Footsteps slowed and echoed clearly as the final few steps into the lower floor came to pass. Ed turned over his shoulder casually, watching as the moving feet and legs belonging to the footsteps came into view.

"Hello?" Ed called out in German.

"Good afternoon," was the German answer. Like he'd ducked under a curtain, Rudolf Hess dipped his head as he slipped into the light falling in from overhead, "what in the world are you doing here, Edward?"

Of all the people Ed had not wanted to encounter – he could see the subtle inserts of propaganda coming from miles away and Edward had pretty much had enough of it. Despite that, Ed's response was deliberately slow and casual, "Winry and I came by to pay some respects," he answered.

Hess gave Ed an odd glance for his answer, "That's surprising. I didn't think you were the type."

"It was Winry's idea."

"Ah," the visitor nodded and the answer became acceptable. Hess moved forwards, coming to stand next to Winry's open side and he looked down at the girl hopelessly lost in the German conversation. When she didn't even acknowledge his presence, Hess reached out and swept away the hair that framed her face, ringing a finger around Winry's ear and tucking her hair behind it. He mused over the frown she gave him and the appearance of Ed's hand firmly on her shoulder.

"How'd you two get in?" he asked.

"I still have dad's keys," Ed glanced down to his pocket, "What are you doing here? Aren't classes in until three or something?"

The man gave a nod, "I normally have class until three, yes…" Hess took a hefty breath and gave a forceful sigh, "but I've been out since my first class finished; business and things to tend to. It's been a long and boring day."

Any fledgling thought Ed had about dotting the Is and crossing his Ts on the Thule Hall map was erased – Hess would probably be here for a while. Ed mentally filed away their day's task and decided it was time to leave.

"What's that?" Hess raised an eyebrow at the white markings drawn on the floor.

Ed looked at the transmutation circle he'd drawn with white chalk and his thoughts seized up on him. He'd completely glazed over his circle even being there and suddenly found himself floundering for an excuse, "I… Dad enjoyed alchemy…" Ed began, "that was something I learnt from one of his books when I was a kid. Kind of a uh…" Ed's mouth went dry. Shit.

Hess saved Ed from his failed recovery, laughing and shooting him a grin, "I learn something new about you each time we meet. You're far more sentimental than I'd pictured you, Edward."

"Yeah…" Ed glanced away; sure, whatever satisfied Hess was fine with him, "Um, I'll find a broom or something to clean that up. Sorry."

"No, don't worry about it," Hess waved his hand dismissively, "I haven't done anything all day, I can take care of it for you."

Ed brow rose at the statement, "Thought you'd been dealing with business all day?"

"I have," Hess nodded, slipping his hands into his pockets, "I've been upstairs all day… waiting for whenever you decided to come up."

The room somehow managed to turn white to Edward's eyes, and all he reacted with was a lengthy blank stare, the darkly dressed silhouette carving into his mind amidst the bleached imagery. Ed had never experienced a more simply spoken statement that had turned the dynamics of his heartbeat, lungs, and stomach inside out so quickly.

"So it seems you've spent quite some time paying your respects," the words came out as smooth as running water, "it makes me wonder what you were actually doing."

There weren't too many times in his life where Ed had wanted to completely abandon an engagement and run, but this was one of them. Rudolf Hess unnerved Edward in a way Adolf Hitler could not – Adolf was proud, controlling, abrupt, and abrasive; when Hess wanted to be, he was powerful, stern, cold, and calculating. Ed had seen this man kill without the slightest flinch more than once.

"Why the hell have you been waiting for me? How'd you know I was even here?"

"We've been observing you since your father died."

Ed swallowed the answer slowly. His arm secured around Winry's shoulder and Ed slowly pulled her away, "What for?"

"Curiosity," the man gave a shrug. Hess turned away from where Ed and Winry stood, slowly walking along the precipice of the light within the hall. His hands sat in his pockets, posture casual, interest in them appearing aloof. Each step he took through the hall sent ripples through the air, "I've been told you've been here since quarter to nine, what have you been doing?"

A hesitant pause came through in Ed's voice, "You've been observing us…" something snapped in the back of Edward's mind at a sickening realization and Ed's left arm unlatched from Winry as he took a step forward, his pointed finger flailing about. "You knew who attacked us… you've known all along! You fucking asshole, you've known who's attacked us the whole goddamn time and you played me at the Haushofers!" The ire in Ed's voice rose and the calm conversation came to an end, "Were the Haushofers in on it too? Were you all in on this for shits and giggles to see how I'd take it?"

"No, the Haushofers don't know," Hess shook his head, his words remaining flat and stoic in behind Edward's rancid outbursts, "but I am glad they listened to me when I suggested they retrieve you for your birthday and I'm glad you stayed with them when it was suggested, because your alchemy materials were catalogued over the nights you stayed," the man gave a moment of silence, deliberately allowing Edward's raging storm to flare; the look in the older Elric brother's gaze was incorrigible.

The daylight from above crashing in heavily from overhead as Hess's hand slipped behind the front fold of his jacket and produced the thick, leather bound book Hohenheim had written out for the Theory of Beyond the Gate.

"Everything your father and you kept in that house, tucked away in shelves, shovelled into drawers, or hidden under the couch was all carefully documented. I had this collected while you've been out today and I've been reading it while I've waited. But, for everything else, we did our best to be as unnoticeable in the house as possible. If we did leave anything slightly astray, you had been too out of sorts at the time to notice," from behind sealed lips, the man's tongue ran along his teeth, watching how the presentation of the book unnerved Edward further. Hess' footsteps came to a stop and he looked pointedly at the pair, "In fact, you had so much information I needed to send you away to that concert because there were a few things we wanted to double check." The book was rattled in Hess's hand.

The chilled air of the underground domain surged through Edward's lungs; if he had two good hands to rip this man to shreds with… "You people had no right to go through our house!"

"You have no right to that house," Hess's words continued to be firm and unwavering, "You have no rights in this land what so ever. You aren't German, you aren't even British, you are nothing to this world," there was finally a show of interest and a spark of life in Hess's words, and with weak joviality, he nearly smiled at Ed, "You are something called the FullMetal Alchemist, who has no right and no claim to anything in this world."

What Edward Elric wouldn't have given to be able to burst at the seams and show this other-world man exactly what it meant to be the FullMetal Alchemist, because he obviously did not understand.

"You are a liar, a snake, a magician, and above all else: you are a sinner. As I have come to understand it, you have committed acts so astoundingly vile that I can't even begin to fathom what punishment still awaits you," Hess's words rolled off his tongue with a touch of revolt, "and this 'manuscript' further exemplifies the depths of your family's greedy, sinful desires."

The longer Hess spoke, the more Edward became aware that the amount of danger being forced down his throat was unfathomable. His heart thundered in his chest; they needed to leave – now.

In one quick sweep of his arm, Ed secured Winry's hand and began a hasty march away from the circle, out of the sunlit hall and towards the blackened exit; even the thought of attempting to retrieve his father's book from Hess wasn't entertained. Staying in the hall, with those kinds of words flying around, couldn't possibly be worth it, "I'll save you the effort of kicking us out."

Edward's eyes looked ahead to the darkened stairwell that even the sunlight couldn't reach. As his footsteps stormed along the cold floor, the dark shadows hiding in the stairwell moved. Ed's grip around Winry's hand tightened and his next steps retreated backwards; watching as the darkest points of the shadows swayed and rose, breathing like they wanted to be human. The darkness developed slow footsteps that echoed with strength and echoed with a voice that spoke with crass hate and malicious amusement, "Before you encounter the company we have waiting for the two of you upstairs, could you tell us about the FullMetal Alchemist… in your own words?"

Ed took another step back into the room, securing Winry behind himself, watching Adolf emerge from behind his dark veil in the stairwell, "He's retired."

Hess began a slowly paced circle around the outer most portions of the room, his footsteps clapping down like the powerful pendulum in a grandfather clock.

"A simple answer," Adolf nodded, sweeping each step he made towards them emphatically, "Now, would you recount for us the circumstances that you've shared to everyone here in Germany, and 'home' in London, regarding the cost of your arm and leg? So we may all hear it in your own words."

"I…" Ed's voice vanished as he stared horrified at the very first lie he'd had to take on to exist beyond the Gate. He saw the cataclysm coming and had no idea how to free himself from it, because Envy had undoubtedly told Adolf the truth. His grip on Winry's hand tightened, "You asshole."

Adolf's voice exploded, bursting like he carried the power to blow the stone walls out of the earth, "You lost them attempting to resurrect your family and you failed! You defied God: you attempted to take something from him that was no longer yours. You were greedy and selfish; a stupid child. While you served your ultimate punishment here, to hide all those perverse sins you had the nerve to tell any and every ear that would listen that you lost them in an air raid – a German air raid on the streets of London!" the man's arms flew out to his side, each movement of his body and point of his fingers emphasized by a snap in his body, "You dared to place blame on Germany to hide your true filth? God punished you and now you tell people that you are not at fault? You have people believe that we Germans are at fault for your decrepit form?"

Ed felt the free fingers of Winry's other hand curl deep into the fabric at the back of his coat, his hand still held tight, and Ed took a heavy breath – how was he supposed to get out of this? His heart raced madly, "I've never told anyone I wasn't at fault for that and I've never blamed anyone but myself for my arm or leg. Putting a wrinkle to your glorious German rise wasn't something I was doing."

"But you still let every man believe that an innocent German pilot was responsible for you. Every time a person looked at you with undeserved pity, you let this nation shoulder the blame to hide your sins," Adolf's words boomed in his chest, "Shameful cowardice seems to be one of your many detrimental companions."

Edward's jaw clenched, trying to take some solace from the hand that rubbed in between his shoulder blades, trying to keep him calm. Winry had no idea what this ragingly loud German conversation was about, but Edward had quite enough of this world's verbal bullshit.

His voice began to rise.

"Your country has killed millions of people. They went to war. They shot them in cold blood. They threw bombs and killed more," each sentence spoken drove Edward's voice a notch higher and his enunciation that much stronger, "This world created gasses that killed people slowly – you let people suffer to death. You tortured them. You flew in from the sky and killed innocent people without seeing their faces, and once the ammunition was gone the planes fled like cowards. Everyone on both sides, not just Germany, but everyone terrorized everyone else and when it was all done there were four million… four million people dead. FOR WHAT? What could you have possibly gained from four million deaths?" the inability to comprehend the world and the rage Edward felt for it echoed in the dome of the hall, "you kill people in droves because they aren't who and what you like! This world is nothing but death and you do it to yourselves. Why aren't you the coward? Why isn't everyone in Europe a sinful coward?"

A question posed for the entire world beyond that no one besides their non-existent God could answer.

Adolf's response came out sounding absolute, "It is the British and the French who are the sinful cowards, Edward Elric; both nations are run by the Jews. You have to fight a coward with coward's means."

Edward's jaw dropped, "You are fucking crazy."

Rolling his eyes, Adolf straightened his jacket with a sharp tug, "As your carcass has been deposited on our soil and your sorry existence has been brought in front of my eyes to clearly be seen, the ongoing sentence delivered to you from a world beyond shall continue to be administered at my discretion," his brow rose as his gaze strengthened with a thought, "we have established that you have no right to valuables or wealth from this land, so I will allow Envy the opportunity to see you lose everything."

Edward's eyes widened at the proclamation. As he searched the man's words for understanding, Edward's heart stopped when he realized he'd lost the location of Hess in the scene. Ed didn't use the moment he needed to place him, he didn't take the seconds needed to fully comprehend what Adolf had meant, and he didn't waste the time needed to determine the severity of everything. While Adolf Hitler stood unmoving before him, Edward Elric choked on his own breath and he spun on his toes, capturing Winry as she shrieked at the sound of two gunshots that burst deafeningly within the confines of the stone hall.


Crying hadn't been something Alphonse had expected to do.

The Gate was quiet again, so was Diana, and more or less so was he. The status quo of the Gate before Izumi had arrived had been reset, though Alphonse certainly didn't feel status quo, but the situation around him was.

The little Elric had cried for hours; just curled up on his side like a distraught young child. He wasn't in any physical pain, or excruciating circumstance, he just simply wanted to cry for so many things so badly… it felt like he hadn't cried in years.

When Alphonse had been in Resembool with Izumi, Winry, Pinako, and everyone, he'd been told by Izumi that his memories had been part of the sacrifice Edward had used to bring him back.

That wasn't entirely right.

It hadn't been that Alphonse's memory had been sacrificed, it was what Ed had left out of the transmutation he executed to reclaim his brother.

Al had sacrificed himself first to save his brother's life and then Ed did the same to reclaim him. However, with the resurrection of Alphonse Elric, the transmutation had been a fundamentally incomplete process. While Al had been the Philosopher's Stone, Dante had instructed Gluttony to devour a portion of his metal body, because within Gluttony's stomach the Philosopher's Stone would crystallize. Since he'd been partially eaten, Al himself hadn't been whole when he'd vanished trying to transmute his brother, and the fact he had been the Philosopher's Stone drastically skewed his essential makeup. So when Edward had tried to bring his younger brother back through human transmutation, Ed had the formula complete, and everything was right, it was just the Gate didn't have enough material for Edward to wholly recreate his younger brother, because a portion of Al's existence remained attached to the Philosopher's Stone in Gluttony's stomach. Rather than leaving out an arm or a leg from the equation, Ed offered a chunk of Al's memory to make up for the deficiency. Memory carried more weight than physical form, so the Gate willingly accepted the deal and allowed Alphonse to be restored at his eleven-year-old state.

Now, that crystallizing chunk of his metallic Philosopher's Stone body – extracted from Gluttony's perishing form – was within Aisa. The moment Alphonse touched her he'd known it was there; he'd known instantly that it was Aisa's body now, infused with these Red Stones to preserve her flesh and human state, that was being used to continue the agonizingly slow process of crystallizing the Philosopher's Stone Gluttony had eaten. The wary feeling he'd perceived from Aisa as they stood at the Gate was a culmination of the emotional sense that missing five years of his life had been – a life that had been preserved as an imprint within the remaining Philosopher's Stone Al had once become.

Because of that, Alphonse Elric reclaimed every memory once he'd touched Aisa.

Being so close to the mouth of the Gate, the pinnacle point where all sacrifices are negotiated, a window had opened for Al to reach into and the boy ripped out his missing memories of from his imprint on the stone inside of Aisa. The reclamation of his memories had actually been easy, if not terribly uncomfortable.

Al had gotten something back for nothing, a lot of something: five years worth of memories. He'd completely bypassed the laws of Equivalent Exchange and the rules of the Gate. He hadn't used the Philosopher's Stone to take something; he'd taken something from the Philosopher's Stone itself.

Al spent the next several hours in tears on the ground – he'd been 'alive' for the last nine months, but from the perspective of the suit of armour he had just woken up. Al didn't have any one particular thing he was crying over, just a number of different things that made up to one big thing that was five years of his life and nine months of memory-less frustrations.

If Alphonse could look at himself as two different people, he could see the joy from the memory-less boy getting his memories back and also the sadness of what the whole of those memories were. He understood a little better why his family had been so reluctant to tell him so much of this information. From the boy who'd been armour for so long, he wanted to scream with joy or pass out from exhaustion. Every fear he'd had, even the lingering thoughts that Barry the Chopper had put into him, they had all been abolished because now Al was existing again as flesh and blood. He'd been actualized. The feeling of actualization was one of the things Al cried over – it was such a relief to feel free from the insecurities of the armour's inhumanity. Now, he wanted to do so much. He'd been doing things for nine months already, but Al's missing memories wanted to feel like they were now finally part of the process of sleeping, eating, drinking, showering, brushing his teeth, dressing, undressing… oh he could do that!

In a flash, Alphonse had himself undressed and twisting around in all sorts of ways to show his lost memories what it was like to be restricted by flesh and bone again and to know what it was like to move and not make a sound. The limitations of muscles and ligaments were nice to feel - he could stretch and feel the pull. The sight of his wiggling toes was fun to see. The general understanding over how his own human body looked, felt, and moved was wondrous to experience. Alphonse threw his clothes back on, savouring the feeling of how his head just popped through his t-shirt and his hair puffed up because of it.

Of all the things the little Elric wanted to accomplish, first and foremost he wanted to find a way to get his stupid older brother back, which was still the exact same plan as it had always been, he was just acutely aware of the whole situation now. He couldn't exactly scold Ed for sacrificing himself – Al had done it first, but he hadn't brought Ed back just so he could go and literally throw away his life! Brigitte even described Ed without a normal right arm or left leg, what the heck did he do with them? Scolding Ed for performing a human transmutation was hypocritical given their track record, but he wanted to give his older brother a good shot to the head for it anyways.

Al let himself fall back onto the ground and lay about, wishing the surface area of the Gate had some kind of texture to it, or sensation – hot, cold, pebbled, rough, smooth, something… really it had nothing.

Neither set of his memories did Al any good for his current situation at the Gate. Nowhere in the extra five years of his life did Al have any information about what the heck he was supposed to do about this situation. He was still stuck at the Gate with no idea how to get out of the situation and he suddenly worried about Diana's after the thrashing the Gate had given her as it tried to break her hold. The poor child was certainly the most innocent victim of them all.

Another string of questions struck Alphonse out of the blue and the new golden eyes looked around with concern. From the right shoulder he laid on, Al rolled to his stomach. He shuffled a twitch through his face before coming to the abrupt realization that his cheek, pressed into the sensation-less surface of the Gate's void space, could feel the surface!

Al picked his head up, pulling his face off the ground with a strange slurp.

A dark sludge, the deep red colour of blood, flowed from the base of the Gate and filled the clear space where Al had laid. The young Elric looked down at himself – the slick had stained his face, his hair, his hands, and his clothes. Al stood up, watching the liquid slowly fill in the space he'd laid, a sick feeling catching in his throat while he looked on. Brushing his hands off on his pants, Al walked through the mess, looking back at the impressions his shoe prints left before they smoothed away. He stopped nearly nose to nose with the black Gate and looked up to Diana; she lay silent.

Al crouched down to his knees again and skimmed his fingers through the liquid. It smelt like blood, and yes, when he put a dab down on his tongue, it tasted like blood. With a deep breath, Al put his hands down to the surface again and slipped them along the ground, pushing into the heavier resistance he felt beyond the Gate. When he cupped his hands, Alphonse successfully pulled a light swell of the red substance back to his side.

"Okay, so it's on both sides," Al sat back on his knees and looked up to the towering structure. There was no rumble that seemed to be forthcoming… not like last time – just the running of blood and silence. It was a lot of blood too; how many people would need to have died to create an expanding, shallow lake on both sides of this Gate? The number Al dreamt up was astounding and the thought made him queasy.

When Al picked his attention up from the substance spreading out around him, his eyes widened and he sat back, focus trained at the front of the Gate. An impression began to show in the black tar – it protruded towards him, like a stamp being pushed in from the other side. Amidst the overwhelming silence at the mouth of the Gate, Alphonse watched the impression strengthen in spots and begin to unevenly develop form. Shaking himself from the stupor of witnessing any substantial activity within the Gate, Al stood up again and stepped away to get a clearer look at the imprint.

Alphonse's heart raced the further back he stepped and the stronger the imprint became – he knew this image.

The youngest Elric brother soon stopped moving and stood silently, the bloody residue on his hands dripping from the tips of his fingers as he watched the scene unfold, his posture more rigid than the Gate had been at any point in time. The impression wasn't as big as the Gate, it might have only been the size of his arm span, but the longer Alphonse watched, the clearer the image became. He finally shook off his hands, wiping them on his shirt, eyes never leaving the activity of the black Gate. Breaths sounded heavier, eyes grew wider, his shoulders became tighter, and Alphonse Elric watched the impression of his brother's transmutation circle become clearly stamped into the black surface of the Gate's opened doors.


To Be Continued…


Chapter 39: The Crimson Charm - Part 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Two shots sounded before metallic silence was reengaged. Ed fell forwards with Winry's weight in his arm, hearing her scream as they landed in a heap; it was one of the most horrid sounds he'd ever heard someone make. She flailed frantically beneath Ed as he scrambled off, the piercing shriek of her voice rippling through the hall. The sound was muffled when Edward grabbed Winry again and buried her face in the front of his jacket. For the brief few moments Ed was able to smother her screams, his wide, panicked eyes shot around frantically – he saw, only for the moments needed to understand Winry's uproar, a set of red holes in her left calf. The sight froze Ed where he sat, body aching while everything in his mind inexplicably derailed and came crashing to a stop in the form of a burning, mangled train wreck.

"Would you deal with your garbage, Envy," Hitler looked to Hess, speaking like a parent instructing a child, his hands firmly clasped behind his back, his chest large and his shoulders stiff, "and Rudolf, if the Envy creature in your head asks for your fingers, let him feel them. He certainly enjoyed being able to touch the world properly again when he killed Hohenheim."

Hess's hand grabbed Edward's ponytail, holding tight near the elastic band as the man yanked Edward backwards, "On your knees."

The command hadn't a hope of being obeyed.

Ed roared to life in a world where value was in death and the Elric brother beyond the Gate turned on a ghost from his past. With a raging clenched fist, Edward rose and spun around, slamming his knuckles heavily into Hess's cheekbone, attempting to plough his entire arm through the man's face. Hess was thrown back, not given enough time to yelp before Ed struck him again, and then Ed sent the firearm flying out of the man's hand with a swift kick of his right boot. Hess staggered again when Edward crashed the base of his foot hard into the man's stomach. He finally drove the terror off his feet, rushing Hess backwards when Ed's left shoulder slammed into the monstrosity's chest. Edward rammed their bodies into the immovable stone wall encasing the hall and the enclosure spat dust back at them in protest of the assault. The pair bounced back from the wall, Hess taking a wild swing at Ed that connected only with air. With all the pent up, indelible rage in his eyes, Ed's left hand grabbed the face of Envy's new flesh shell and slammed Hess into the cement wall. Ed reared his left arm back, his fist quickly flying in and charging through Hess' face, throwing him aside. Ed reached out and grabbed Hess by his shirt before he could fall away and returned him to an upright position against the wall, his fist striking again but not registering that the combatant had become unresponsive. Edward's arm reared back once more. The unplanned attempt to destroy the man Adolf had addressed as Envy with his single left hand was spoilt when an auxiliary gunshot rang out.

Ed felt his left ankle slip out from beneath him at the force of the shot and he heard the mechanical joint crack. Staggering to regain balance, Edward collapsed with a frustrated wail when his left ankle broke beneath him. Both men collapsed in separate heaps on the floor.

"That's poor sportsmanship, Edward."

Adolf stood at the precipice of the room lowering his own firearm. As Ed lifted his head and looked at the scene at the centre of the hall, Adolf's shoes began scraping along the floor and he walked up to the edge of the transmutation circle. Edward's brow rose and his eyes widened, watching as the commander of oppression produced the doll Ed had given Winry for Christmas from within his coat. With the tilt of his head, Adolf compared the little thing to the reeling girl on the floor, before letting the gift carelessly fall from his hands and land limp on the ground. Adolf gave the doll a light kick along the floor as he walked towards Winry, setting his revolver.

"NO," Edward screamed, stumbling to his knees, unable to rise to his feet on a shattered ankle, "Don't touch her! Don't fucking touch her!"

Adolf stopped Ed in mid motion and looked at him hotly, pointing his firearm at Winry on the ground. With an abundance of smug prowess in his eyes, Adolf made an effort of keeping Edward in his vision as he knelt down beside Winry, "I'm a little torn, Edward. Though I am disgusted with the kind of plague you've besieged my Germany with, it is quite fascinating to converse with Envy when he's not literally talking in my ear. He's as good a conversationalist in words as he is in thought. Imagine my surprise at his sheer audacity to seek me out after what he'd done to me." Adolf moved with precise calculation and the man's left hand came down over the bloodied wound on Winry's leg.

Digging the heel of her good leg into a groove on the floor, Winry tried to push herself away. She choked and stopped when Adolf's hand put pressure on the wound and then tapped the tip of his weapon on the floor as a reminder. Even after she'd stopped, Adolf still took a moment to stare Winry down, before lunging in and crashing his grasp down around her throat – pinning her to the ground.

"Adolf!" If Edward could fly like the wind, Adolf would have never touched her again.

"Envy understands the ways of man so magnificently, as much as what you've done repulses me, the fact I'm allowed access to such a resource… well… it is an asset." Adolf caused Ed to tense as his right hand took a secure hold of his weapon. The man's heavy eyes dug into Winry, watching her breathe frantically as his oppressive presence pinned her to the ground. The left hand at her throat moved and pushed heavily through Winry's face, brushing through her hair, and prying her eyes open. The world moved at his command, controlled by the rhythmic metallic sound made every time Adolf's thumb tapped the poised revolver. "Envy had two burning things he wished to accomplish while he was with me, Edward. One was to see your father dead – and I must say I have never encountered any sort of animal with such a desire for wicked vengeance. It was as terrifying as it was fascinating."

The conductor of this nightmare sat back from Winry abruptly and Adolf's arm tore out, sinking his hand into the front of her jacket. Winry's fingers snapped to Adolf's wrist as the man hauled her upright.

"Secondly, he wanted to watch you lose everything," every word that Adolf spoke drove the rotation of the room, and he spun it wildly around Edward, leaving him nauseous, "I don't disagree with that, since I'm of the opinion that you deserve nothing. A man as disgusting as you – born to a sinful family, guilty of sin himself – doesn't deserve anything of value. You somehow found the gall to use this nation as a shield to hide your sins to further your efforts to escape this world."

The air had become so cold that Ed found it hard to breathe in, "That is not what I did!"

Adolf scoffed, his breath leaving a white puff in the chilled air, "You are nothing more than a disease ridden parasite on this earth, eating the food that some far more deserving German child should have eaten. Criminals and sinners and others like them lose their right to privileges and have to relinquish items of value, but this appears to belong to you," Adolf shook Winry, watching Ed's teeth grind; words were delivered cold and emotionless, without a sneer or glimmer of satisfaction, "Is this something that has value to you from a life you're not permitted to have?"

Edward Elric had clapped his hands to revive his younger brother, and for this act he'd deprived himself of his family, his friends, people he could trust, and a safe place to be. He'd given up his home, everything he knew, and all the things he valued. He felt himself drown in this world he couldn't stand, felt himself choke on their morals, watched himself become a shadow of the person he'd thought he was, and exist as a figment of the person he wanted to be. Yet when Edward could see himself at the bottom of the abyss this world was for him, those times he felt himself dying in the shadows, Winry still looked at him, spoke to him, and treated Edward Elric like he was still the person he thought he'd sacrificed. He didn't believe he could qualify that with value.

"My answer's not going to matter; it won't to change your reaction, will it?"

"Ultimately I want to know what a man will do to keep what little he has and how his morals change to accommodate preservation. I'd like to find out how to control that," Adolf glanced to Winry as the cold explanation filled the room and again Winry was rattled, "Edward Elric, you must answer the question: is this something that has value from the life you are not entitled to?"

Ed's pinpoint eyes stared at the firearm in Adolf's right hand; no matter what he did, he was nowhere near close enough to prevent it from firing at anyone. The mere seconds that began ticking by were not enough time to find the wherewithal to breathe in the cascading horror that crashed down around him, let alone begin to compose an answer.

Before those first few precious moments even finished passing by, a sick sensation lurched into Ed's throat. He broke free from the distance Adolf held him at when the monster disengaged his weapon and flipped it in his hand, grabbing the gun by its barrel. Edward scrambled forward on hand and knees before he even realized he was doing it. Adolf's arm snapped to his backhand and swung to strike Winry with the butt end of the gun. The attack derailed when Winry's arms flew out and she grabbed Adolf by the wrist before he could land a blow. The tips of her fingers dug sharply into his flesh and Adolf jerked his arm, unable to free himself from Winry's grasp. Edward hit the scene and slammed his right foot to the floor, quickly rising up onto the one good leg. His body swung with all his forward momentum and Edward put the left knee Winry had constructed into the side of Adolf's face with a loud crack. The wretched man fell back on impact and Ed came crashing down between the pair.

Flying to his knees, Ed turned to face Adolf, balancing on the fake left knee and anchoring himself with his right foot. Edward's eyes caught Adolf re-grip his weapon and Ed lunged forward, grabbing hold of the barrel of the revolver before it could be properly pointed at anyone.

With no interest in fighting his way through Edward's strength, Adolf made use of Ed's one-armed handicap and he grabbed his opponent by the throat with his free hand. There was nothing Ed could do to fight it off, all options relinquished control of the firearm to Adolf, so Edward was forced to close his eyes and deal with the nearly intolerable sensation of this man's one hand attempting to strangle him. The struggle swung sharply Adolf's way when his left thumb dug into the hollow of Ed's throat.

Without warning the captor hastily threw Edward back. Ed opened his eyes with enough time to see the pencil Winry brandished barely miss the stab she'd taken at Adolf's hand. Discarded by Adolf and weakened by the chokehold, Edward fell back onto Winry in a heap.

The man who looked mightily down upon them straightened himself and stood up, rising over everything like a cataclysm. Furious golden eyes looked at him from below as Edward came around on his backside between Winry and their predator. Winry compacted herself behind Ed while he tried to tuck her away, the still-bleeding wounds on her leg smearing across the stone flooring each time she moved. Adolf tilted his head a little and cocked his gun, watching Ed tense and expand his chest with a deep breath. The monster gave a laugh at the effort, pointed his weapon, and shot the little plush doll lying harmlessly on the floor.


Once the imprint into the Gate had been fully set and shock of seeing the transmutation circle appear wore off, Al was frustratingly left to his own devices. The last time the Gate had filled with blood, Diana cried and the rumble passed through; now there was blood and an alchemy sigil. None of it made any sense. Left with only sleuth techniques, Al wandered around the spill of blood, which by now stretched as far as the eye could see. It was also upgraded from a skim to a slick; Alphonse shut down the part of his brain telling him the stench he smelt and surface he walked on was litres upon litres of spilt blood from the world beyond.

What needed to be focused on was how his brother's transmutation circle had become stamped into the backside of the Gate. Alphonse inarguably concluded it was his brother's, because the chance of it being someone else's, or even entirely random, was laughable.

"How could something like that show up?" Al asked himself aloud. From everything that Alphonse Elric knew, from everything that Brigitte's information from beyond the Gate had taught him over time, what did he know and was any of it important?

Al's thoughts turned first to what Wrath had said after Alphonse had left the comforts of Mustang's protection and gone chasing after him on his own: Dante had severed his father's bonds, which would make alchemy impossible. If Al tied that together to the absence of his brother, it would make sense that if both his dad and his brother were beyond the Gate that they'd be in the same situation - completely unable to perform alchemy, explaining why Ed hadn't brought himself home. Obviously, they hadn't befriended anyone beyond the Gate who would assist them in getting home, so Ed and his father would be flying solo.

The youngest Elric rubbed his eyes, trying to think – his head swimming with what felt like answers on the tip of his tongue. Alphonse drew his thoughts back to the imprint on the Gate; how did this happen? What would trigger the transmutation circle that was sent? Who would do it?

"Probably my brother," Al answered his question aloud – it was the most logical answer considering what the symbol was. If his brother's bonds were separated, then how would he accomplish this? Al didn't know.

The boy's next train of thought turned to their visitor from beyond the Gate. From what Al had gathered, Brigitte was alchemy illiterate – she showed no aptitude for it or understanding or even interest in the materials she had in her possession when she'd come over. She never once attempted it, which Al thought might be a little strange for a girl who came from an supposed alchemy utopia. From Brigitte's pictures that they'd looked over while in Maria Ross's lake cabin, there was a dangerous transmutation circle carved into the stone floor – if this girl from beyond the Gate did not have any interest in alchemy, why would she photograph it? Why would anyone let her get close to it? Why would utopian alchemy allow something so bastardized to be created in the first place? Al questioned the world beyond the Gate – shouldn't they know better than that? Brigitte obviously had ties to his brother, so maybe it wasn't that it was Brigitte who was actually interested in the circle, perhaps her photos were taken because of his brother.

If that was the case, the younger brother had to seriously wonder what his older brother could possibly want with a transmutation circle that gross… beyond mock it or keep a safe distance from it. For some reason, a young girl with ties to his brother thought the rebounding transmutation circle was important enough to be photographed and let herself get close enough to it to photograph it. Didn't Brigitte realize the danger? Surely, Ed wouldn't have allowed her to go to this location – he would have recognized how badly something like that would rebound if anyone took a single misstep around it. He couldn't possibly have encouraged it, since Ed knew better than anyone the kind of damage the rebound would cause.

Alphonse's voice suddenly aired out, his words escaping him before his thoughts fully came together, "Wait... it rebounds…"

A little light lit brightly within Al's thoughts.

Oh.

Oh.

Al examined some fallen mental dominoes and stepped up closer to the Gate, "A rebound is caused by an improperly constructed transmutation that cannot be balanced because a part of the equation is wrong – a portion of the alchemist is used to make up for the discrepancy. It rebounds to the Gate because that's the power source, attempting an exchange…"

A single eyebrow fell heavily and Alphonse stared intently at the open Gate. Transmutation circles are the mediator between an alchemist and the power source for alchemy, so if the Gate doors were open then transmutation circles on both sides had access to the power. So, how did this new bit of knowledge explain why a transmutation circle would be stamped into the Gate? Al folded his arms. What did he know so far about the Gate? The power to perform alchemy came from the Gate, it was a source of knowledge for alchemists, its doors opened towards his side, and there was a back side of the Gate for the other world. There were angry black creatures within the Gate that were greedy and devoured their offerings without equivalent exchange or any remorse. Then there was the Gate itself that refused to facilitate communications between the two worlds, like they were forbidden to meet.

Tightening his arms at his chest, Al searched his mind for what might be missing. He had to be missing a connection. His face scrunched, arms fell apart, and the heels of his hands pushed through his eyes as he tried to think harder; Al could feel some kind of answer sitting right there.

"Got it!" Al right index finger flew out, "when we perform alchemy and draw power from the Gate for it, the doors crack open and allow the power to be pulled through. Alchemy is a power draw from the Gate, we PULL power, we can't push it. But if I was standing on the other side, I can't draw power from the Gate because I'd have to push open the doors first because of the direction they open, then do a transmutation! They don't open the right way beyond the Gate to draw power. You can't get to the Gate without alchemy so you can't open the doors and you can't do alchemy!"

But a rebound would push 'material' to the Gate.

Al's hands fell and arms slapped down at his side; stubbornly he hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and returned to glaring at the Gate. Al's theory explained why no one beyond the Gate had attempted to access his side of the Gate – they couldn't. Unless the doors to the Gate were opened from his side, the world on the other side couldn't do alchemy. At all. The realization left Al feeling a little sunken, turning his entire impression of the world beyond on its head. That mean the alchemy utopia couldn't practice alchemy. Dante's motives were flawed. The entire Theory of Beyond the Gate, what Dante's entire motivation was based off of, was flawed.

Taking a deep breath, Al stood at the Gate with the doors open for everyone. He had to swallow this information and move on. The breath was exhaled swiftly and the younger Elric brother shook his head – if the doors were open, energy should be allowed to flow back to the other side of the Gate… shouldn't it? Obviously someone was trying to do alchemy beyond the Gate, since his brother's transmutation circle was printed right in front of him. There had to be more that was flawed.

"If the doors only swing one way, maybe the energy current only goes one way too?" Alphonse's thumb rubbed his left eye as he looked at his brother's sigil.

What was the energy an alchemist took from the Gate anyways? What kind of energy was he taking from beyond the Gate that allowed the people of Amestris, heck his whole world, the power to perform alchemy? Why did it seem like the Gate structure only allowed for a one-way flow of that power?

Al's brow rose as he began to slowly pace in front of the Gate, "Maybe the flow really does only goes in one direction – like a river." Like the slow flow of blood at his feet. With everything the young man knew, that made a surprising amount of sense. Why bother having a Gate with doors swinging both ways when there's no reason for the doors to open in both directions. What Alphonse Elric wouldn't give to know just what exactly that power was that they were taking from beyond the Gate, it would certainly help him a lot. For some reason, the world beyond the Gate had no way of recalling its own pool of power, yet his side could draw from it.

"So my brother's symbol was able to recognize the Gate, get to the Gate, but it has no way of getting power from the Gate. That's why it's stamped like that; it's trapped on the other side like he is."

That still didn't explain how it got there. Something else was missing. The young Elric sighed, taking a moment to mentally sort his thoughts so far. Not only were his father and brother's bonds disconnected beyond the Gate, but there was no energy flow as well. If this was his brother's sigil, he would have had to find some way to take a minute amount of power and then initiate a transmutation.

How in the world would Edward Elric have done that?


The pile of Envy's new flesh on the floor finally stirred and Edward shot his focus over to the scene. With a lengthy groan, a curse, and a careful rub to the back of his head, Hess's body slowly rose to his knees. Ed watched with uncertainty, fallen on his backside and propped up by his only arm with Winry behind him as the man picked his head up.

"Hess, you ignorant son of a bitch," Ed's voice found an outlet, "did you just let Envy walk right into your head?"

"I had to do a lot of convincing to get Adolf to consider this situation," pulling to his feet and dusting off his pants, a calamity with the face of Rudolf Hess gathered his bearings, "Despite his drawbacks, the gift you describe as Envy is a wealthy source of information and knowledge we would be foolish to simply discard…"

The bitter and resentful sound of Ed's sarcastic laugh cracked into the cold hall, "The gift…"

Hess moved about the hall silently for a few moments, forcing everyone to listen to the clap of his shoes on the frozen ground before finally locating his weapon. A smile peeked back into the room, "You're trying pretty damn hard to take care of your own little gift, HalfMetal."

Edward paled at the sudden onset of clear English words coming from Hess' tongue.

The man's arm swept down emphatically, catching the ring around the trigger in his index finger, "But you don't get to have those kind of things here."

Ed stiffened, his shoulders rising, shifting his position to keep between Envy within Hess and Winry as her fingers again curled into the fabric at the sides of his jacket, "You can fuck off."

"Gonna need soap for that," Envy's borrowed eyes rolled as he sauntered his way back to the sigil's outer ring. The influx of Envy into the persona that had been Hess completely transformed how the man came across – Hess stood square, evenly balanced, strong and proper; Envy was loose, casual, slouched and nonchalant. The sin's eyes were emphatically flat and uncaring towards the scene of two people on the floor and, without a moment's notice, the firearm dangling from a finger snapped cleanly into Envy's right hand and a deafening gunshot sailed past Edward's left ear.

There hadn't been time to gasp and Winry's shriek sounded as though it came long after the fact; Ed sat trapped in mid-reaction, unable to fully realize the fear of looking down the barrel of a gun and unable to release himself from the shock that it had been fired without thought or hesitation. His left ear rang and the stalled reaction crumbled as Envy laughed, echoing in a new voice saturated with cruel delight.

"I love that look on you, HalfMetal. Did you piss yourself too?" Envy had a sneer that could rip any man's grin wide, "I'd love to see what other faces I can get out of Hohenheim's bastard kid." The satisfied grin grew through Envy's new face, feeding off of the reactions invading Edward's eyes. Moving to stand at the elder Elric brother's feet, Envy abruptly dropped to his knees causing Edward to lean back, though not far or quickly enough to escape from Envy grabbing hold of the front fall of hair framing Ed's face. Envy yanked him forward, forcing Ed to sit up tall. Envy's eyes fell contently and he put himself nose to nose with his new Elric toy. The new face of man's oldest sin smiled, "Not much left of you, eh?"

Edward's left hand charged in, taking Envy by the throat. The amount of force Ed had desired for his grip was never realized; the cold, circular tip of the firearm in Envy's right hand touched down on Ed's temple to dissuade him.

"Imagine what happens to things of value if you force me to make sure you're not able to take care of them."

Edward took a few moments to breathe before his hand cautiously withdrew from Envy's neck and the satisfied sneer that sat nose to nose with him beamed.

"As I see it, the reason you are here is because you offered yourself in exchange for your baby brother; that's really the only conclusion I can come to. He went poof when he used that Philosopher's Stone on you, am I right?" Envy grinned as the question went unanswered, "So you gave it all up just for him, aren't you the hero," the cold metallic weapon slowly traced down from Ed's temple, crawling along his jaw line, pushing harshly into the bone behind the flesh, "Now you're here because you have become nothing, you get nothing, and you gave up everything. You made a decision HalfMetal; sure, you might have saved your kid brother, but you did that and the consequences deprived you of the right to anything you used to be," a single brow peaked in Envy's expression, examining the raging golden eyes drilling through him as the weapon traced Edward's facial features. Envy tapped the revolver on the bridge of Ed's nose, "Oh that's fun, but what I want to see is how fear eats you alive."

"I hope you start to rot in this hell someday," angered words rumbled deep in Ed's chest, and his eyes stole a glimpse of Adolf casting his dead gaze over the unfolding scene.

"Rotting was that old bastard's problem, not mine," Envy returned the tip of his weapon to Edward's chin, pulling the path down slowly along his throat – his words continued, "Let's see let's see… so, you gave them all up. You don't get those discarded things back, HalfMetal. You don't get your little brother back, you don't get your little family back, and you don't get your little world back," the course of Envy's gun stopped at the centre of Ed's chest and the creature holding him in submission watched while the deep and heavy breaths swelled through his plaything's body. More delicious than watching how Ed fought against showing fear was watching Winry's arms wrap around his waist from behind, fingers gripping tight into the fabric at his midsection. Envy peered around from Ed's open right side, eyeing the girl clinging tight with her face pushed into his back. The round tip of the revolver pushed harshly into Edward's chest and the only reaction Ed gave was the tightening of his jaw. Envy grinned, reaffirming his grip in Edward's hair.

The monster leaned in close, the elbow of the arm holding his prey by a fist-full of golden hair hooked around the back of Edward's head, the weapon digging into Ed's chest was removed and the wrist controlling the trigger came to rest lazily on Ed's good shoulder, pointed who-knows-where behind him. Envy's amusement at the situation was ecstatic by how Edward stiffened and tensed the closer the sin came and the more invasive he asserted his presence. Envy abolished Ed's entitlement to personal space, drawing in tight and putting his right cheek against the side of his toy's head for a moment, able to feel Edward's jaw clench, before the voice of sin filled the alchemist's head and Envy made sure Ed could feel the movement of warm lips against his chilled ear when the nightmare whispered.

"You aren't entitled to anything like that here, not even gifts that fall through the Gate; and you know what, I think even you know that."

The trigger on the firearm was pulled a second time, a deafening noise at Edward's left ear. Ed's body jerked sharply at the sound, abruptly locking his motions and losing his breath. Golden eyes flew about madly while Envy kept his presence tight to ensure Edward remained still. The subtle sound of the giggling sin remained pressed against Ed's ear, clearly feeling the full extent of how the grin tore into the monstrosity's face. Ed found distraction to Envy's invasion in the claw of Winry's fingers into his abdomen, knuckles surely turning white, and the push of her forehead into his back. The bullet had found a home somewhere in the far reaches of the hall.

Envy picked his head up suddenly, "How ya doing back there, princess? Still bleedin' all over my floor?"

"Shut up," Winry's voice rattled.

"Hurts like a son-of-a-bitch, doesn't it?"

"SHUT UP."

Ed threw his shoulders and upper body forward, pushing Envy away and out of any conversation with Winry. The grip the sin had in Edward's hair became fierce and Ed was jerked back into place, the firearm returning to perch on his collar bone. Everyone with ears could hear the anvil of the weapon being set in the ice cold silence. Ed forced himself through a dry swallow as his heart raced faster than his breathing could keep up. He grit his teeth again as Envy returned to being nose to nose with him; the sin's hungered eyes devouring the panic, nerves, and fear breaking free into Edward's eyes.

"Well, that's more like what I want from you, that's good… but you can do better than that," Envy's excitement began to bubble happily in his words, "we're just getting warmed up, I want to see you absolutely terrified of what I'm going to do to you, because despite what you might think, you aren't a superhero here, kiddo. When I know you're aware of the kind of pathetic man you are, I'll make you tell me how it feels to be some useless, helpless human all beleaguered and broken and shit," Envy mused playfully, refocusing from his current entertainment to the longer term plan, "since you're all that's left of that bastard's blood, I'll let you live long enough to watch how I take everything that you have left," Envy's gun slipped quickly down, the tip of the weapon deliberately catching Winry's fingers and giving a half hearted effort to pry them off, "then if I feel like it, I'll keep your shell alive to live with the consequences. How's that sound?"

Ed jerked quickly – Envy had leaned in so close that there wasn't time for him to react against Ed's movements, and the blonde cracked his forehead against Envy's. The creature reeled back in surprise, releasing Ed's hair as his hand came to his face. Edward fell back and was able to lean far enough away that Envy missed the wild swat his armed hand took at his rebellious toy. Lunging forward, Ed went to capture the firearm locked in Envy's right hand, but his fingers missed the flesh wrist as the sin moved, only catching the ends of the shirt sleeve. Though he saw it coming, Ed had no way of defending himself against the heavy backhanded strike of the metal weapon Envy slammed through his cheek bone. Winry shrieked at the sight and sound, losing her hold as the attack threw Ed aside, leaving him hunched over his left arm on the ground. A quick stream of blood ran through his face from a torn gash, dripping to the floor as he tried to breathe.

"Save your energy HalfMetal, the sun hasn't even started to set, so we still have all kinds of time to play," Envy's heavy feet stomped on the floor as he stood up, "First game we play goes to Adolf here – he's got a little somethin' for ya. I have a hefty bet riding on the outcome, so don't disappoint me, a'right?"

Edward rolled his jaw, eyes peeking out from beyond the hair fallen in his face. He watched as Adolf popped open the revolver he carried and dumped out the remaining bullets into his hand.

For this purpose alone, Adolf ensured his spoken language was entirely German, "Here are three options, please teach me something useful about yourself, Edward. We have company waiting upstairs, so let's not have them sit idle for more than fifteen minutes," Adolf requested with a chill in his words and stare. He glanced at Winry as Ed struggled to reposition himself as her shield, knowing full well that she would have no understanding of his words, "if you come up those stairs to the church, within the walls of our God's place of worship, you two will be put out of your misery. Quick and simple: one shot for each of you to the back of the head."

"Are you people fucking insane?" Edward's sharp voice finally re-surfaced.

Adolf paid no attention to the outburst, "However, if you do not emerge within the fifteen minutes, our company will come down here to retrieve you," his emotionless eyes sliced into the golden Elric, "what is done to you, how long it lasts, and what becomes of you from it will not be my concern. Ideally, both of you will survive."

Before Ed's voice could rise again, Adolf took to the mastery of show once again and held out his hand with the five bullets. With sharp and precise movements to every motion he made, three of the five bullets were slipped into his pocket. Like a magician showing his magic trick, the remaining two bullets were returned to the chamber of the revolver, clicked shut, and Adolf placed the weapon down at the edge of the transmutation circle.

"And if you choose neither option, then I leave you the option of taking your own lives. You have fifteen minutes to make a choice, use it wisely."

Hitler's words burned like acid spilt over raw, open wounds, destroying the flesh and corroding the golden Elric as he watched the two men turn to walk away. Envy's smile peeking back at them brightly, no matter how far into the darkness the men ventured.


Alphonse glanced up at Diana. The infant lay silently and motionless up in the stone hands of the Gate. The thought that a defenceless infant was being used for such a diabolical purpose was beyond maddening. Disgusted wasn't quite the word Alphonse was looking for, but he didn't think there was a better one out there. Diana had cried last time the Gate space had filled with blood; she'd been unsettled and upset, yet for some reason Al couldn't identify, this instance didn't upset her. He was quite thankful that there was no rumble.

Walking up to the front of the Gate, Alphonse sunk his finger into the black tar and pulled them out again – no new red stains, no black remnants; they came out exactly as he'd put them in. He submerged his entire hand to do the test again and came up with the same result. Al tried it twice for argument's sake and again got nothing for his efforts. He sighed.

The youngest Elric, now with sixteen years of life up his sleeve, gave the Gate a twisted look. With a glimmer in his eye he thought of something new and Alphonse wrote his name in the black tar of the Gate, and then watched as it slowly vanished. The twisted look became a stubborn frown – he was kind of hoping something would happen; this Gate was bleeding and had a transmutation circle printed on it, there had to be something going on or something he could do about it. The last time this had happened, the rumble had come through and his eyes had changed colour. Dante had even mentioned a prior time when a rumble came… which ultimately had been Brigitte. So if the Gate rumbled when something was coming through, why had the Gate rumbled and bled the last time? What came through the last time? Did anything come through at all? Maybe something did and that's what took Dante? If so, what caused all the blood?

There were a million impossible questions for Alphonse to sort through and he was going to have to narrow them down to the ones most relevant to the here and now.

Alphonse's ears picked up a strange sound. His thought process stopped and he listened to the sound, almost certain he thought he was hearing raindrops. That couldn't be right. Al looked around quickly, looking down to his feet to see tiny particles hit the blood at his feet, plop into the liquid like a raindrop and then vanish. Looking up, Al had to shield his face when a few small pebbles hit his cheeks. A crack tore through the silent space at the Gate and a chunk of stone from above crashed down to the surface. It had landed so close to Alphonse that he'd felt the breeze as it went by and found himself covered in the red splash up to his waist. He scrambled back as he watched the top ornament of the Gate's magnificent structure begin to crumble and break.

Alphonse's eyes flew wide in alarm, "NO STOP!"

Diana was cradled by the crumbling structure.

"NO, YOU CAN'T," Al yelled at the Gate as though it were responsible for everything, realizing that he was simply dancing in circles, completely unable to get anywhere near the front of the Gate as the entire stone ornament atop the massive doors began to come crashing down, infant and all.

"STOP!"

Helplessly, Alphonse was forced to turn away and cover his face, wishing he'd covered his ears instead, because he received an earful of sound as the stone hit the red ground with a bang.

The young Elric stood with his hands over his face for some time as the silence reasserted itself, afraid to turn back and see the consequences. No sound came from Diana – she gave no cry, no wail, no sob, not even a peep. Of all things in the world, a dead baby was not something Al wanted to see, and the simple thought of it twisted everything deep inside his chest. Though, once Alphonse wrangled his thoughts together cohesively to begin to rationalize what he'd just seen, he realized that he hadn't heard Diana at all – she hadn't cried as the structure crumbled or while she'd fallen either. Alphonse's hands slid slowly off his face, pulling his skin tight as he did. With nerves and trepidation on high, he turned around and looked at the mess at the foot of the Gate.

Something squawked.

Alphonse froze where he stood, eyes wide. It was a strange sound that was too coarse to the human and was accompanied by the strangest echo. Diana was an alchemically engineered child, a victim of bastardized human transmutation techniques. As Alphonse believed it, she was a 'hermaphrodite' mix of a human child from his side and some infantile creature Dante had managed to scoop out from within the Gate. Diana hadn't been fused with something from beyond the Gate because Dante couldn't reach that far, so Al's theory was that Diana was part Gate creature, which would explain why she kept the eyes and arms of the Gate from appearing.

Al finally moved closer, peering over the fallen chunks of stone, listening to the horrid sound, and he finally caught sight of the baby squirming beneath the unravelled blanket she'd once been wrapped in. The noise the baby made amongst the mess was like fingernails on a chalk board. Alphonse ordered his stomach to stay calm as he reached down for her. Cautiously uncovering one of Dante's most heinous crimes, Al scanned the child that no longer bore any resemblance to the human child she'd once been. Her skin had turned midnight black and her features had warped from head to toe. The tiny distraught existence wiggled unhappily on the ground and told Alphonse's eyes that he had indeed been correct - Dante had used some kind of creature from the Gate to fuse with Diana. The more Al thought about it and the more he stared at what Diana had become, the more it seemed as though the Gate creature fused with Diana had either taken over or her humanity had died off.

"I'm sorry," Alphonse let the statement slip softly. Stepping around and moving aside the fallen debris, the young man knelt down and collected the remaining portions of Diana that had been stolen from the Gate, re-bundling her body in the blanket.

"I honestly don't know what happened to you, but I'm sorry no one ever gave you a proper chance," he wrapped the baby blanket tight around Diana, begging his nerves to stay focused on the task at hand and not sink into the concerns he had for the blackened infant – he would mourn the baby later when everything wasn't literally falling apart, "and I'm sorry if what happened between me and Aisa caused this. I had no idea it would." With a tight jaw and stiff upper lip, Alphonse took the baby into his arms and stood up. He kicked aside some of the debris, took the few steps needed to be standing toe to toe with the Gate, and came down to his knees. With a deep breath Al put Diana on his forearms and secured her with his hands, he slid the remains along the surface of the Gate, and Al pushed her darkened body back beyond the Gate, "and thank you if you've helped keep me safe all this time. Now, I think you should go home."

In the thickness beyond the Gate, Alphonse slipped his arms out from under her and returned what was left of the infant to the darkness a part of her had once come from. He sat back on his knees for a number of endless moments, trying to ensure he remained composed – this wasn't a good time for him to lose his composure – before the younger Elric brother finally infused enough strength into his veins to stand up again. His feet kicked aside some fallen chunks of stone, his hands throwing the larger pieces, before Alphonse boiled over with frustration and he turned to face the Gate.

"Goddammit Dante!" his soiled hands clenched and his voice scratched, "what have you done? How can you live with yourself after doing things like that? I just…" the tightly gripped hands came apart and fell loosely at his sides, "I just don't understand how someone can do these things to people. To innocent people! This is wrong! This is all WRONG."

Golden eyes fell distraught to the mess at his feet, eyeing the red stains saturating his clothes, looking at his hands that he had nowhere to wipe clean. Al again tried to breathe and calm himself from the situation that was growing overwhelming.

"Why are the doors still open?" Al voiced the thought as it hit him and he looked up to the Gate once more. Minus Diana positioned as the Gate's crown, everything was exactly the same as it had been before she came tumbling down. Why was the Gate still open and calm? The Gate was held at bay by Diana, but now Diana was out of the equation – where were the eyes or reaching arms? Al's eyes glanced from side to side; there was too much information to sort out. His hands scratched feverishly through his hair.

Something had to be causing this situation. From what he'd heard of the Gate and what he understood about Diana, what element present now was different than any other point in time if Diana was removed from the equation?

The blood.

The blood flowed in from beyond the Gate and it was still flowing, making it a constant element linking both sides. It was nearly up to Alphonse's ankles now, a fact he tried to shove out of his mind as quickly as he'd recognized it. So, the blood was flowing in from beyond the Gate; perhaps it was acting like a doorstop of some kind? Maybe the infusion of the red swell had locked down the Gate to a moment in time where both sides could share this material – which meant if it ever stopped or went away, at that point the Gate would reset. For Alphonse's situation that would have to make sense. Which meant when whatever was causing the run of blood ended or dried up, so would this relative peace at the Gate.


The long, dark shadows in the hall vanished before the sound of footsteps did. Edward's eyes remained on the darkened escape Hitler and Envy had taken, but heard Winry shift on the floor. Cautiously, Ed looked back – uncertain which was more frightening, taking his eyes off of the vanishing point of their predators, or facing the wounds and damages left behind. Ed's stomach sat at his collarbone as he turned to the veil of long, soiled blonde hair Winry was behind. Her left leg was stretched out awkwardly at her side, stained in crimson red, and her upper body turned away from it. Winry's breathing shivered, but other than that, she was silent. The heels of her trembling hands pushed in under the messy veil of blonde that fell everywhere and Ed reached out, sweeping the hair out of Winry's face. Watered-down blue eyes eventually looked up to the muted golden gaze as Edward's hand held her hair away, neither one saying a word. Both sets of eyes shifted when Winry's fingers came down onto the deep, bloody gash high on Edward's cheek.

There was only fifteen minutes to work with to undermine a dictated future, but a precious sixty seconds of that was stolen by Edward – he hid his grip in the mess of Winry's hair, brought her forehead into his shoulder, and sat silently with her as he attempted to regain some kind of control.

Though Ed wasn't sure if he was meant to feel relieved or sick that she wasn't crying.

Trembling fingertips slowly curled into the fabric of Ed's coat and the sound of Winry's shivering breaths were hidden as he held onto her. A wounded voice eventually sunk into Edward's jacket, "My leg really hurts."

"I'm so sorry," the most inadequate three words he'd ever voiced.

He couldn't be in this place in his head; Ed had to get out – now. There wasn't time to succumb to the catastrophe unfolding. He couldn't look at Winry and see failure, he couldn't continue to hear Envy and feel worse, because the bar of failure was set for them: now fourteen minutes into the future. There wasn't time to feel remorse and regret. Edward couldn't let himself feel anything that would take up more of their time. He abruptly and hastily worked on shutting enough of himself down to pick his head up and begin creating a way to move forwards.

Ed turned and glanced to the wounded leg that Winry had extended as the emptiness set in and then sat back when Winry picked her head up off of him. The words out of his mouth were taking longer to be voiced than his teetering jaw was prepared for, "We should look after your leg."

Ed fumbled around on the floor, collecting a scarf from the winter wears they'd discarded earlier in their day, and Ed slipped one end of the garment into Winry's hand, asking for her to hold it. Ed glanced over to Winry as he began to wrap the leg, watching fragments of blue eyes peek at him, trying to find their own level of composure. Ed pulled the scarf tight, cringing when she flinched, but had to ask Winry to help him tie it off since he couldn't do that on his own with only one hand.

The most unbearable silence preceded Edward's subsequent attempts at composing sentences.

"I need your help," Ed waited for Winry to look at him. He hesitated before sticking out his own left leg and taking the shoe off, letting the broken shards of the shattered ankle fall out of his footwear while the foot hung ajar, "I need you to take off the foot piece."

"Okay…" she neither asked what for nor why, though to Ed's relief she showed moderate disgust at the sight of her broken work. Winry slowly reached out, stretching herself along the ground, the tips of her fingers snagging her discarded bag – it always had tools in it.

"Do you have a screwdriver I can use?" Ed rolled up his pant leg. A screwdriver abruptly landed in his left hand. Edward straightened his leg, eyeing the crack he'd put in the kneecap, but finding no other functional damage. The screwdriver head slipped into a notch and Ed began to tighten his knee joint amidst the sound of Winry's cutters as she set to work. From the corner of his vision he watched her fumble between cutters, pliers, and a second screwdriver as she fought with the mangled foot piece. Ed glanced up when Winry reached hastily into her bag, watching in concern when she produced a hammer and slammed it down one handed, then two-handed on the joint, dumping the wooden handle from her fingers once she was done. Winry feverishly attacked the mangled ankle with her cutters once more, finally discarding her tool upon hearing a definitive 'snap'. She swept the mess away, folded her arms, and looked back at Ed with an unsettled flush through her face.

"It's off," she announced hoarsely, "now what?"

Ed sat silently, the seam of his mouth undone, poised to speak and finding it hard to choose what words to say. His eyes shifted away, "I'll find a way out for us."


What happens to Alphonse when this stops? The last occurrence of anything at the Gate stopped fairly quickly, so how much time was he running on right now? Would the Gate swallow him? Would it send him away? If he got back to Amestris, how in the world would he get back again to retrieve his brother if Diana couldn't hold the door? Al began to walk himself in a circle. He had to calm down, he had to think on his feet, and he had to act in the now; there were too many divergent futures to approximate multiple choices based on a mountain of unknowns.

What was he trying to do?

Al's finger flew out again, "How'd that get there?" he pointed at the transmutation circle, "and why is it there?" The youngest Elric grabbed all of his thoughts tightly and threw them out before his mind's eye, "I need something from beyond the Gate that would reach for the open Gate, that could send something to the open Gate like this – what do I know about the world beyond the Gate that can send something to the doors?"

Brigitte's rebound transmutation circle could do that.

Alphonse thought up that sigil with an abundance of fear in his heart. The inherent rebound in Brigitte's photographed transmutation circle would be the strongest thing beyond the Gate that he knew about to connect back to the doors. If he looked at it from a design perspective, as opposed to an alchemy perspective, the circle was designed to throw information at the open Gate to compensate for an incomplete transmutation. A reaction beyond the Gate wouldn't be able to do that if the doors were closed, since that world would have no way of accessing the Gate at all - they needed to be opened first in order to draw any kind of power. How would one transmutation circle 'throw' another to the Gate like this?

"Wait a minute."

Alphonse drilled his thoughts through the design perspective of everything available to him from beyond the Gate.

"Brigitte's rebound circle was a permanent marking engraved in stone… which means it'll always reach for the Gate if it senses the power at the doors," Alphonse's brow rose and the light glow in his golden eyes brightened, "so if you superimpose something…"

A single eye narrowed at Ed's sigil upon the Gate.

The young man's arms dropped limp to his side, his jaw fell slack, and the boy gave his brother's transmutation circle his most astounded stare. Had his genius older brother just hopped a transmutation off of the rebound and let the broken circle toss his sigil against the backside of the Gate? The rebound must have thrown Ed's transmutation circle against the backside of the Gate like a child flinging mud on a window. What an absolutely astounding feat.

Withholding praise until he'd worked it through, Al needed to figure out two things: one, the power needed to initiate the transmutation would be very minimal, so where did it come from? Two, the circle needed to be activated in some way – what had he done to activate it? Better yet, Alphonse wanted to know how his brother had managed to activate it and not wound up with something like a gust of wind blowing through instead. Something was wrong with the transmutation because it left the sigil slapped onto the Gate and no alchemical reaction had taken place.

"Maybe because the doors are open, that rebound is able to pull some kind of energy runoff, but not enough to do anything. It is possible to swim upstream if you try hard enough," Alphonse narrowed his eyes and thought aloud.

If the young alchemist accepted a theory that there was a very minimal amount of power reversal, what was the trigger? An alchemist needs his mind, body, and soul to be linked in order to perform a transmutation, so how would a broken alchemist half-ass one like this? Alphonse looked around the reddened horizons on his side of the Gate then looked down to his feet submerged within a substance. Al was trying desperately hard to tell himself that he could not possibly be sinking into a sea of blood.

His heart suddenly dropped like a rock into the pit of his stomach as he looked out into the reddening world. Amidst the crimson sea Alphonse watched the memory of two young Elric brothers each take a knife and slit their fingers, offering drops of blood to the transmutation of their mother – components for the soul.


Ed picked up the hammer Winry had discarded and extended his left leg to his side. What remained of the leg Winry had constructed had been transformed into a long peg leg and Ed hopped up into a crouch on his right leg and rose up to stand. His focus trained in on the area farthest away in the hall – three thick wooden doors existed deep in the complex, each with a heavy lock on it; at least one of the doors went deeper than all the others. Ed made his way to one of the doors, moving with an odd step-and-clunk on the shortened left peg leg. He knocked on the first door, then made his way to the next, trying to gauge the depths of the hollow sound each wooden plug provided.

Winry watched as Edward found a door of interest and began to attempt to break off the lock with her hammer, remaining silent as he fought with it. With a deep breath, Winry pulled to her hands and knees, crawling to the edge of the circle and cautiously picking up the firearm Adolf left behind. She turned it around in her hand before popping open the bullet chamber, eyeing the two bullets that remained.

With a frustrated roar, Ed smashed the hammer down against the lock and continued to find no success. He threw the hammer aside and looked back to the circle, brow rising as Winry snapped the weapon back together and turned it over in her hands again.

"They're a bunch of idiots for leaving a loaded weapon behind," Ed called out, making his way back to the circle. Coming in next to Winry, he dropped down to his right knee heavily, though Ed made sure he was careful when he took the revolver out of her grasp. Ed looked over to the dark stairwell as he tucked the firearm into the waistband of his pants.

Winry washed her cold hands over her face, breathing deep, trying desperately to hold back the panicked chord ringing out in her voice, "How do we get out of here?"

"We can't go upstairs, but there should be a tunnel out of here," Ed looked to the sealed doors, "this is an occult society and Germany is only a few years removed from the war. There should be an escape tunnel we can get out through down here," he spoke unequivocally, "I'll find it," and he had to find it quickly.

Edward watched Winry's focus on his statement drift away and fall to the floor. Her cold fingers settled along the lines of the circle, catching fragments of white chalk and red blood.

"I wish this thing could work so we could go home…"

Ed sat on his right knee for a moment, looking at Winry's downcast gaze examine the floor along with her hand; he'd lost track of the number of times he'd wished something would work so they could get home. Ed reached out and carefully lifted Winry's fingers from the grooves in the stone, watching them curl around his hand. "You don't want this thing to get us home, Win," the thought of being alchemically deconstructed, even if they would supposedly be reconstructed at a later point, was astoundingly dangerous, profoundly terrifying, and couldn't possibly feel good.

Ultimately, all Edward Elric had wanted to do was return home and see his younger brother again; that was where he had started out, but not where he was ending up. It was a struggle to survive let alone find a way to get home, and now Ed was in danger of losing a whole lot more than just himself. Ed looked into a pair of pure blue eyes that this world was trying to crush, ravage, and destroy; so many unimportant words had come out of his mouth over time that the important ones never really found their way. He'd never wanted so badly for someone to believe the poor things he had to say.

"I promise I'll get us out of here. I'll take care of you... better than this, I promise. Then I'll get you home to Resembool, I'll get us home to everyone; to see Al, see your grandmother, see everyone… I promise I'll get us home, just not from here."

Potential success in that task hinged on the waning belief in himself amidst a world falling apart around him, making the few short seconds Winry stared back at him before squeezing that hand and answering absolute agony.

"Okay."

In a single motion, Ed swung back and perched on his right leg, sending himself abruptly to his feet with a deep and determined scowl; a sharp breath was released from his mouth sending his bangs flying. The bottom of Ed's right shoe scraped on the floor and the wooden left peg clunked along with each step. Ed stopped and looked at his choices of escape, pulling the revolver from his belt. The door on the left had the most hollow sound and, if memory served right, that was the door he'd gone through when he'd first found Winry curled up and terrified of the reality she'd have to face.

He took a glance back to Winry on the floor, hearing her move. Ed watched from the corners of his eye as Winry collected the wounded doll from the ground, sweeping up the white stuffing that began to fall away as she moved it, placing the beleaguered trinket down on his chalk transmutation circle. Ed breathed deeply and ran the sleeve of his coat through his face.

Sharply, Edward's arm ripped up and he pointed the weapon strong and straight, his thumb setting the hammer, and he trained his sights on the lock sealing the door.

"Ed! What are you doing?" Winry called out, "They're going to hear that!"

A dark golden brow fell as far as it would go, eyes trained on a target, jaw became firm, shoulders strengthened, and the light tremble of tension inexplicably vanished for the only moment he needed it to; Ed narrowed an eye, "I'm saving you."

He shot the lock off the door.


It would be impossible to attach the mind, improbable to break down flesh and attach a body, but the soul of man was heavily intertwined with his blood. Add that to a transmutation this unpredictable and who knows what might happen. Alphonse's hands scratched over his face. Did that mean his brother was still there? He was standing there… spreading blood over his transmutation circle? Al looked around the Gate space frantically – why the hell was there SO MUCH here? One person couldn't possibly cause all this. His attention snapped back to the Gate; actually, he didn't care about the ocean of blood anymore. There was a message coming through the Gate from his brother and Al didn't know what he was supposed to do with it.

Al ran with the assumption that his brother was trying to get someone at home to know that he was there, so how was his younger brother supposed to reach in and get him? He couldn't just step through and grab him, Al had already stuck most of his body through the Gate and there was nothing but black. How was he supposed to get his brother to the Gate?

Alphonse Elric so dearly hated how things kept falling back to Brigitte's defective transmutation circle, and this time the young man realized the disastrous symbol honestly did have a purpose.

Edward's sigil embedded on the Gate would link back to the rebound in the hall, as long as his brother stood on or near the circle feeding it the ingredients of the soul, Alphonse would have a link to the other side of the Gate. He had a link to his brother and that made his heart race. Because he had a link to the transmutation circle, if Al could figure out how to reverse the flow of energy at the Gate, he could turn on the core transmutation.

Al shuddered; he could activate the rebound circle.

He could activate a transmutation that would completely deconstruct his brother right down to the very fibre of his being as the transmutation frantically devoured everything it could touch for power and then slingshot him to the Gate's open doors. Alphonse would then be responsible for safely putting the pieces back together once the rebound released him to the Gate. That was terrifying. And it wasn't that Al didn't think he could do it; the Gate would be handing him all three parts on a silver platter, all he would have to do would be connect A, B, and C together. That task wouldn't be hard.

But…

To put someone… anyone through that… the thought alone was going to give him nightmares. Al stepped back from the Gate – there had to be another way.


Winry winced at the sound of a second gunshot echoing from the depths of the open tunnel, hearing a heavy metallic clank and then the unmistakable step-clunk of Ed's unbalanced movement. From beyond the dark doorway, Ed re-emerged, hobbling over to Winry, "Found it!"

"Do you know how far we have to go?" Winry looked up, reaching to take Ed's hand, only to have him grab hold beneath her arm and find the strength to hoist her onto her feet in one motion.

"No, but as long as we keep moving forward, they'll still be behind us," Ed's arm slipped behind Winry's back while she grappled and fumbled with a poor display of balance on her good leg, "are you doing okay?"

"This hurts like hell," Winry grit her teeth.

Ed's eyes slipped down to his foot and peg leg, shifting his balance between one limb and the next, "How strong did you build this leg, Win?"

Her brow dipped at the question, "I don't make shitty products."

With the pull of his arm, Ed drew Winry behind him, "Get on my back."

Winry grabbed tight at Ed's shoulder, hopping around and firmly gripping the back of his coat. Winry gave a tug on her coat to pull it up and let Ed's hand reach back and grab her left knee, the wounded leg hang from his grasp. With a few awkward steps and bounces Winry jumped to get onto his back, wrapping her arms around Ed's neck and her right leg wrapping around Ed's stomach to balance against his missing arm. Before they'd been able to move next and before they finally took their escape, both Ed and Winry hit a simultaneous realization and Winry felt Ed's posture collapse just a touch beneath her weight.

They stared back at the ruined doll laying on the floor, its stuffing falling out from the exposed bullet hole in the lower part of its face, stained with the blood it had picked up from the ground, and dusted by remnants of the chalk.


What other way was there to find?

Who knew much longer Edward Elric would stand in one identifiable spot that Alphonse Elric could not see and had no potential hope of seeing beyond the Gate. If the older brother finally moved, what would become of the younger brother once the Gate was allowed to return to normal? Would he be taken through the Gate or something worse? If Al managed to escape, how in the world would he get back to the Gate and reclaim his brother without Diana? He couldn't even use the Philosopher's Stone, because he would certainly react to it again.

"Dammit…" Al's hands slapped to his forehead, cutting through his hair harshly, soon escaping his head and slowly coming down to his sides. He had to make a decision and make one now.

"How do I send a reverse charge through the Gate?"

Just saying it aloud was terrifying enough, but how on earth would he accomplish something like that?

What did he know about drawing power from the Gate? An alchemist draws a circle and it mediates the power for the alchemist to control – a transmutation occurs. His teacher, his brother, and Dante could all clap and pull the power into their hands, using their body as the circle, and cause a transmutation to occur.

But he had nothing to draw with and the surfaces he could write on didn't hold any kind of form.

Al looked at his hands.

He was standing at the Gate, wasn't he?


"It's okay," Winry said quietly, "it can stay with your transmutation circle."

"You know…" Ed began hesitantly, shifting a little to adjust Winry on his back, "when I was a kid staying with Shou Tucker," after the events in Resembool, but still before the silver watch was his; after he'd first met the sweetest little girl in braided pigtails with the biggest dog, but before her father ravaged the innocent child's life; when there was still fragments innocence left, "I drew that circle in the snow for Nina."

Both sets of eyes looked over the impotent white lines of chalk Edward had drawn when they'd arrived, now smeared but unbroken, stained with dabs of crimson like everything else, holding the ruined replica doll that had first been created by the circle it lay on.

"She asked me what it was," it had been a transmutation circle: an alchemists tool to take matter, break it down, and reconstruct it as another object of the same mass, "and I told her it was a charm that made wishes come true."

Beneath the afternoon sun falling in from overhead, putting deep shadows in the room and little else, Winry's weight on Ed's back collapsed against him and her arms tightened strongly around his neck as Ed pulled his focus over to their exit.

"Heh..."


Alphonse Elric clapped his hands and tried something he was almost certain Dante would never have been brazen enough to attempt. As his hands separated, the sharp blue sparks of the raw transmutation power initiated so close to the source of the Gate stood the hairs on his arm on end.

"One way or another…"

His fingers splayed as the palms of Al's hands turned to face the black Gate and the younger brother's brow came crashing down. The human voice rang out like words bellowed from a massive suit of armour.

"I'll bring you back!"

Alphonse sunk his empowered touch into the stubborn black Gate.


Two existences lost in another life watched the extraordinary instance of a glitch in time. The blood from Winry's leg and even the traces that had dripped from Edward's face seeped cleanly into the veins of the transmutation circle, as though it had never begun to dry. Residue ran off their flesh, it was extracted from their clothes, and all the spilt crimson gathered in the sigil's veins.

It lit like an electric, angry, and hungry red serpent roaring to life.

Winry clung to Ed, feeling his hand grip tightly around her knee. Ed only managed to take one step to the side before no further movement became possible amidst the flailing red energy, both Edward and Winry becoming ensnared within the raging power of the active alchemical rebound.

 


To Be Continued…


Notes:

I don't recall if the English line was the same, but from my Japanese DVDs Ed's line to Nina regarding the circle was "make wishes come true".

Diana had a very limited lifespan for the way Dante created and used her. Her 'death' was inevitable.

All of Hess/Envy's 'nose-in-their-business' actions and involvements between Ed and Winry since Hohenheim's death was Envy trying to determine Winry's 'value' to Ed (or to encourage a higher value, or to raise Ed's awareness of the value) so he could get maximum results when he threatened Ed with Winry's safety.

Chapter 40: The Crimson Charm - Part 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

I saw it.

I got to see what was beyond the Gate.

I saw the world, the country, the people, their knowledge, their lives, and their deaths. I saw everything that there was to see at that moment on January 25, 1922 – a date five and a half years into somebody else's future. I could have looked all sorts of ways, forwards or backwards through time, I knew I had those options, all I had to do was think of what I wanted... but I couldn't have told you how I knew I could do it.

My starting point was this date for a reason, this was the date I answered the only call that had made it home. So, I went to the starting and ending point of this world and I saw my brother, and I saw Winry, who shouldn't have been there at all. It was her life and her blood that had triggered the crimson leak through the Gate – what I'd stood in was the shoreline of all the blood spilt by the dead souls used from the other world for our transmutations. I don't know why I knew that. I know the explanation for why and how that works and to me it makes sense, but it would be really hard to put into words to tell someone else. It was part of the knowledge I had for a brief period of time.

Even though they couldn't hear me unless I actually stepped through the Gate, I told Winry and my brother I'd help get them home.

I activated the transmutation circle.

Then the Gate told me I had to leave its space – it told me without words yet somehow it made sure I knew. I told it no, I wanted to see my family come home, but the Gate told me I couldn't. It overwhelmed me while I tried to hold on, forcing me to sleep, and sent me away to Dante's ballroom. The Gate was able to do that to me because my arms were still inside of it.

I still managed to bring my brother closer to home than he'd ever been before. I made sure the journey was as safe as it could be. I brought my brother and Winry to the other side of the Gate and watched as the rebound forced the Gate to reconstruct them before I had to go.

I'm not afraid that I've lost anything because Gate wouldn't allow my family to leave with me. I trust and believe whole-heartedly that, after everything that's happened to us, if my brother has managed to come this far, he'll find a way to make a path all the way home.

 

Chapter 40 – The Crimson Charm, Part 3 (of 3)

 

The side of the Gate where Alphonse had unwillingly frequented, where Izumi feared going, and where Dante wanted to play God was a world submerged in light. It was a place with endless light and a bright vastness that stretched on forever without depth, width, or height. Yet this seemingly peaceful white space had a nightmare at its centre, and it was almost impossible to get to.

The opposite was true of the reverse side of the Gate. It was a world submerged in darkness that went on forever – a dark pool of dead souls waiting to be used by alchemists as fuel for transmutations. Yet, this other side had something bright and desirable at its centre, and it was a place that every soul in the other world would journey to once their life had ended.

As far as Ed was concerned, the light that came from the other side of the open Gate was as good as any glorified after-life. Home was not utopia, was not a perfect place to be, and was not even all that great sometimes, but it was exactly what Ed wanted. He'd recognized the light of the Gate in his first journey home years ago, but for this second trip the light had vanished before he'd arrived.

Whoever had run the terrifying transmutation to bring them this far had not been able to hold the doors open any longer.

When Edward finally opened his eyes again there was as little to see as there was to hear; the world was pitch black. Ed lay on his side, body sore, and he slowly realized he felt sick to his stomach. Edward tried to move and his body responded erratically, so he lay on the ground silently like everything else around him.

There was some poor resemblance of a memory in Ed's mind that looked like himself and Winry standing on the Thule hall floor when the circle activated. The current had hit him with more ferocity than his pounding heart could manage and Ed had thought his body might burst. His mind had begged for it to stop, but he'd passed out shortly after it started and thanked everything in the world that he had.

Ed tried again to pick himself up from the ground and nausea hit him the moment he moved; Ed's hand came to his chest to force it down. With a deep, exhausted breath, Ed put his hands to the surface he lay on, ordered his muscles to function, and pushed himself to his hands and knees.

Edward's heart stopped. Wait. Wait.

"WHAT?" the rip of his shrill voice was swallowed instantly by the darkness.

Wide golden eyes stared disbelievingly down at two hands and two arms holding his chest off the ground, jaw quivering as words struggled to find his voice.

"Wh-what the hell is this?"

A sudden wave of dizziness struck him from nowhere and Ed was forced back to the dark surface; the muscles in his forearms and shoulders quaked so hard they were useless. Ed's forehead pushed into the black surface he was on, trying to shake the nausea. He clenched his hands as he tried to figure things out and then Edward stretched his left leg.

What was this all about? Why? The limbs were numb and felt no sensation of any kind; he likened it to AutoMail but without the weight of metal.

This ridiculous game the Gate played with his body depending on if he was 'coming' or 'going' was getting frustrating – why in the world would he once again wake up after some insane transmutation and be whole again? The rebound would have broken him down and half-heartedly sent his deconstructed remains to the Gate – there was no catch in that to put him back together like this. In fact, it was the Gate that was responsible for putting him back together, because his remains needed to be extracted from the energy stream and there was no way this vicious monstrosity would voluntarily give him back his limbs.

Ed forced himself to think – something must have happened with the re-transmutation the Gate had performed, but what? Both he and Winry would have…

A sudden realization caused Ed to shelve the questions for his limbs – some thing else became far more important. A flurry of golden hair flew out and wide golden eyes slashed through darkness; the trembling assault from Ed's body was ignored.

"WINRY?"

Panic turned Ed over his shoulder in search of colour amongst the black. A body lay behind him, back towards him, curled up like an infant, blonde hair scattered everywhere. On unsteady hands and knees Ed stumbled to Winry, putting a hand to her shoulder and another to the back of her head as he nervously rolled the curled figure onto her back. Winry didn't respond to the movement and lay motionless in the dark. Edward's hand went to her neck and another rested on her chest, frantically searching for signs of life. When he found Winry's pulse and Ed realized that she was breathing, he sagged a little in relief.

The eldest Elric brother had to say he absolutely detested the alchemy Gate by this point in his life, because while Edward sat on two knees and moved Winry with two hands, the bullet wounds marring Winry's leg were still there. Ed eyed the scarf that had unwound from around Winry's leg and it took his unsettled nerves a few minutes to re-do it.

Ed glanced to the pile of supplies and things that had been on the transmutation circle and had followed them through the Gate before drawing up onto hands and knees. Ed leaned over Winry, putting a hand down on her cheek, tapping it lightly to see if she'd wake, "Hey… hey come on. I need you to wake up."

It wasn't Winry that Edward woke.

Slowly, one by one, sets of eyes began to appear in the black void; leering, lecherous, devious, hungry, purple sets of eyes.

"Oh great…"

Fear hit the bottom of Edward's stomach like a boulder crashing into a canyon. For what he could manage with so many wayward nerves, Ed's shoulders stiffened and he held his ground over Winry. Air was forced through Ed's nose as he watched interested purple eyes endlessly appear, littering every angle of this monstrous black space with malicious gazes. Slowly, Ed slipped one arm behind Winry's shoulders and the other behind her head to he sit her up – golden eyes ordering all of the purple gazes to stay back as he put Winry's forehead down on his shoulder.

More sets of intrusive eyes appeared, prying in from above, below, behind… in all the places Ed was not looking.

"What the hell are you assholes staring at?" Edward suddenly yelled, fraying quickly around his edges at the invasive presence. It was very obvious these eyes were visually dissecting them both and few things in any world frightened Edward Elric like the eyes of the Gate did. He clenched his hands to fight the mounting tension.

Winry gasped – a sound that came from seemingly nowhere. It wasn't a normal sound for a gasp for air, it sounded more like a man's final gulp before drowning.

"I can't breathe!" she choked, eyes flying wide and pupils at pinpoints, breaking out of Ed's grasp as her hands reached for her neck, "I can't breathe!"

Ed scrambled to settle the nerves Winry's outburst had frayed and he quickly took Winry's fingers away from where they had begun to claw at her neck, "It's okay, you're breathing just fine."

"But there—" the panic-stricken girl took a breath that told her she was wrong. She took a second breath that confirmed it. Reality sunk in and Winry slowly sat back, her jaw loose, trying to piece together her chaotic thoughts, wide eyes drawing in the scene around her of a black space loaded with invasive purple eyes, "… Wha… what?"

Ed's hands landed at her ears, settling high on her jaw, pulling her focus forwards to him, "You're okay."

There were no words in the world that anyone could have spoken to express how thankful Ed was for that. He'd revel in the feeling if there wasn't a whole new set of problems literally looking at him.

"What is this?" Winry's exhausted question contained more air than sound, the terrified look in her eyes painfully obvious, "where are we?"

"We're at the Gate," Ed answered, an uncharacteristic tremor to his voice. He didn't know who had done it and he didn't care.

The world sat on pause as the situation sunk in, nothing beyond air breathed and heartbeats spent gave any indication that sound existed in this space. Ed watched while Winry's eyes slowly widened again and she abruptly stopped throwing her attention around the space at the Gate. The girl's focus captured Ed and his left hand felt all the tension in her jaw vanish. Gold eyes witnessed the flabbergasted emotions in the blue gaze staring back at him begin to swell as Winry's hands rose up, gripping the two wrists at her face and pulling them away.

Of all the times and places Winry could have chosen to give Edward such an astounded look and it had to be this one, at the Gate, and it made him smile.

"It's numb," Ed said of the right wrist Winry turned over in her hand, flexing his fingers for her, "I can't feel anything in it."

Edward was usually the one stricken with tongue-tied responses, so it was somewhat relieving to watch Winry struggle to bring her voice out, "But… but how did you…?"

"Um…" Ed paused, wondering how to give an easy interim answer until he did actually theorize a reason for why. Ed didn't know why the Gate had taken his limbs in the first place, since the offer for Alphonse's transmutation was an all-or-nothing transaction. The consolation answer beyond the Gate had boiled down to something unscientific simple like: the Gate simply didn't like him and had taken back what Al had given him out of spite.

"I, uh, think I caused the Gate to malfunction."

An answer that became his most unscientific response to date.

"Oh," Winry did nothing more than sit and stare at the hand she held, her thumb running through Ed's palm slowly, watching how the pressure she placed moved each finger, "about time it screwed up in your favour."

 


 

Amidst Central City's late afternoon sun, Brigadier General Mustang stood back and admired the new accommodations Havoc and Hawkeye had commandeered. It was actually a hotel – Mustang was quite impressed. The last building they'd set up shop in had been a half-occupied office and the commanding officer was more than happy to have a proper bed to sleep in again. When they'd first walked through the front doors, Mustang figured out quite quickly that Havoc must have charmed his way in to see the manager or the owner through the two lovely 20-somethings standing at the check-in. He took a mental note to talk with them later.

The change of scenery was a welcome sight after an earthquake had struck Central that morning and driven everyone from their last place of operation when the building had threatened to crumble down on them. Mustang had never experienced the earth shake beneath his feet before – no one in Central had. It was a strangely powerful occurrence that made everyone utterly powerless for the minute or two that it had lasted. On the whole, the city had held up pretty well structurally against the earthquake, though he couldn't say the same for the mindset of the people. It was unfortunate that Mustang's last point of conquest was in the eastern quarter, because that was the oldest part of the city and it took some of the worst damage – mostly emphasized by the mess Old Central had been turned into. The historical district had the unfortunate fate of being in the farthest reaches of the damaged eastern quarter.

Mustang wouldn't acknowledge the fact that they'd lost track of Wrath in the chaos, but frankly he didn't care. Maybe the annoying little twerp was trapped beneath some fallen building – Mustang was okay with that thought. For the brief time he'd had Izumi around, the forthright woman had given him just enough information to be useful before Mustang had lost her again; she'd ran off into the city to help people dig out from the wreckage. Mustang figured that just meant he didn't have to let her berate him about losing the little homunculus.

In the new hotel, the first knowledgeable person Mustang encountered was kind enough to point him towards a room on the third floor. What Mustang found up there was a plain room, nothing fancy or even remotely close to the kind of place officers of his rank were normally given – though it beat living in an office hands down. It had a single large bed, a night stand, a dresser, a lamp that was lit, two chairs, and a table. Mustang ignored the call of the bed, flipped the deadbolt on his door, and took a long shower instead.

Some point in time after the shower had ended and Roy had passed out on the lovely, lovely bed wearing only a towel, a knock came to his door. Since the commanding officer was too deep in slumber to hear it, a key was inserted and rattled around noisily, as though to make sure any prying ears were aware that no one was breaking in.

"Sir?"

Roy didn't hear Riza's voice. He didn't hear a whole lot of anything until Riza threw his damp dress shirt over his chest – the man had been wearing it for days and it got washed in the shower along with everything else. Roy shivered and was unwillingly taken away from his sleep.

"You have a phone call," she sounded far more gentle than she normally did.

"Take a message," Roy grabbed one of the pillows his head wasn't on and stuck it over his face, wrapping his arms around it to hold it down.

"Mr. Tringham sounds a little desperate to talk to you."

The last time Russell had called with information the twerp had tried to tell Mustang he had to pay for it. Roy swore to everything he believed in that if what this kid had to say wasn't incredible enough to win him the entire city of Central he would personally march in on Xenotime just to ring Russell Tringham's neck.

"Fine," the pillow was thrown aside, the damp shirt was snatched up, and Riza exited the room to let her superior officer get dressed in his damp attire with some dignity.

When Mustang had emerged from the room, he did so with a yawn and followed Hawkeye blindly down the stairs. They didn't take to the rotunda or the main floor of hotel room doors. Instead, they slipped down a corridor behind the staircase and into a quaint little hall that had five rooms with A1 through A5 marked on the doors.

The door to A3 burst open almost immediately, startling both officers.

"Sir!" Fuery called, "I'm so glad you're here, I was worried I'd have to tell them to call back again."

Mustang kind of wished Fuery had, "Thank you, Sergeant."

Stepping into the room, Mustang came to realize that this was not a hotel room – it was a conference room.

The white room with beige patterned curtains had a square table with eight chairs, two to each side, a desk with a wheeled chair, and a notepad, dip pen, and a pile of paper stacked thick enough that he wouldn't be able to one-hand it out the window. Mustang cringed; he hated paperwork – how did a plague of paperwork manage to follow him around even in a government overthrow? There were wires and cords that snaked through a hole drilled into the neighbouring room; the hole was fresh because the dust was still caught in the baseboards. A telephone sat on the desk, the receiver on off the cradle and resting on the wooden veneer.

With a deep breath and a tired scowl, Mustang marched over and snatched up the phone up.

"What do you want?" he gave his greeting.

"It's about time you answered me!" Russell chirped into the phone, "I was worried the earthquake scrambled your brains out there a bit too much."

Mustang was a few poorly chosen words away from hanging up on the teenager, "You have ten seconds to make this conversation worth my while."

"Have you checked on Old Central yet?"

That was not what Mustang was expecting to hear – Russell Tringham was a fountain of information on red water, red stones, and other bullshit that came out of Xenotime.

"… Why?"

"We need you to check on Old Central and make sure it's not damaged at all."

Mustang's tired thoughts continued to be stuck on 'why' – he glanced to the clock to find out it was almost 10pm. Even if the officer felt like it, he was not going into Old Central after dark, "Old Central took the quake the hardest. There's a lot of damage in there Mr. Tringham, so I don't need to go gallivanting out there to tell you that whatever you want from there is probably damaged."

The mouthpiece sounded like it came away from Russell's mouth, though Mustang could still hear bits of a distant conversation. The teenager told whoever was listening that Old Central was damaged, and then asked what they should do. A female voice answered, but it was too faint and distorted for Mustang to hear clearly. He pushed the earpiece tight against his ear, trying to pick up the entirety of the conversation, then had to pull it away quickly when Russell's voice came back loudly to the phone.

"We're going to give you directions to a building in Old Central – you need to make sure it's not damaged and seal it off if it is."

Oh, Mustang dearly wished this boy was standing in front of him so he could strangle the 'why' out of him, "Why, Mr. Tringham? And who's 'we'?"

"Me and Roze."

There was that name of the woman from Lior again; Roze'd given them all nightmares from the story she'd told of a woman who tried to seduce her with alchemy and then followed that up with stories of a city that once existed. He wasn't sure if 'Roze' fascinated or frightened him.

"There's a um… church Roze paid homage to in Old Central when she was still the Holy Mother of Lior. It's in the heart of the district, just off the main road. It's the oldest thing there, it towers over everything and all the windows are stained glass designs – you can't miss it. It's sacred and important. It has something that nobody should want… we need you to make sure that it's still intact."

"And if it's not?" Mustang asked.

A long pause came before Russell gave an answer, "Burn it down and bury it in dirt before you leave."

"Why?" the brigadier general would not let that go.

"You're gonna have to trust us on this one, you don't want to know why. But it needs to be done."

Mustang's good eye twitched - even the defective one beneath the eye patch twitched. Maybe he'd break the phone instead since Russell wasn't handy to strangle, "You're going to have to do better than that."

"Show a little faith in us out here Mister Brigadier General and we'll talk about it more later."

The phone line went dead. Mustang had a nearly uncontrollable urge to just rage on the poor telephone. He hated how cryptic everyone was with him about 'important' things he knew nothing about. It made him feel like a pawn and Roy Mustang was so sick of being people's pawn – it was on the list of reasons why he was taking over Central City. He threw the phone down in disgust and stormed out of the room.

 


 

"This is the other side of the Gate…?" Winry sat back and looked around once more, "I don't see a gate." She didn't see anything other than the prying eyes and their collection of things.

"I don't know what's wrong," even if Ed couldn't exactly remember it, he knew he'd been here before and there had been Gate doors to push through.

Ed questioned his knowledge of the Gate – something wasn't right, there had to be some reason the doors wouldn't appear. Something had to be different from before. Edward's brow slowly stitched together; the last time he'd been here, albeit briefly, his host body beyond the Gate had died and his actual mind and body had waited for him at the doors, detached from the journey his soul had taken. Ed's soul connected with his remains and he'd pushed his way back into Dante's ballroom. This time around, the whole of Edward Elric had been sent beyond the Gate with nothing left at the doors, and now he was attempting to return.

The seam through Ed's forehead was cut and his brow rose, "I'm going to have to make the doors appear."

"What?" Winry found it difficult to distract herself from all the prying eyes visually suffocating them, "how?"

Ed's face twisted with a thought and he looked to Winry.  As the idea was mulled over, a grin flooded life back into his face, "Heh."

"What?" under any other circumstance Winry wouldn't have been as concerned as she was for the look he gave her right then and there.

The grin didn't leave, but Ed still gave a disgruntled shrug of his shoulders and a thoughtful 'hmph' while his hands came up and unbuttoned the top five buttons of his dress shirt. Ed flared it open with a swift tug on the collar.

"What are you doing…?" a deep alarm began to ring in Winry's voice.

Ed glanced to the pile of things that had come with them in the rebound, "You took that foot off with cutters, right?"

"… Why?"

"Hang on."

Ed rose to his feet and stepped away from Winry, moving swiftly through the darkness. He easily uncovered Winry's cutters amongst the mess and Ed snatched the tool up emphatically, catching it in his left hand. Golden Elric eyes looked between the two hands he had available, the worn left hand that had helped him on his own for so long and the new right one that still gave Ed no feedback that it even existed. For all he knew it was a loaner and he wouldn't get to keep it when he finally got home.

So… since there was no feeling in it…

Ed flipped open the cutters and placed the sharp tip of the tool down into his right palm, clamped his hand around the tool, and swiftly tore it out of his own grasp, slicing his hand open.

"ED," Winry squawked, "what are you doing?"

The eldest of two impulsive brothers dropped the cutters, held his numb right hand out like a cup, and let the blood from the cut pool in his hand. Ed gave a nod to the blood forming, glad to know that his right arm was attached to his circulatory system at least. With the thick red liquid available, Ed dipped his left pinky finger into his right palm and took the finger to his chest.

"EDWARD ELRIC, what the hell are you doing?" Winry scrambled forwards on her hands and knees, "STOP. STOP RIGHT NOW."

The drawing on his chest was finished before Winry arrived and Ed knelt down to meet her – spilling his hand and wiping off his palm on his pants before grabbing Winry's wrists as she reached out to beat the image off of him.

"Let go of me! What are you doing?" The panic in her voice tightened the tension in Ed's shoulders, but didn't cause him to let go.

"Win… remember I told you once…" his thoughts caused his eyes to glance away while he wondered how to word this, "that a transmutation circle has no direction; as in it has no top, no bottom, no start and no end, because it's constantly flowing with energy. It can never be upside down or right side up. It picks up the material provided and flows within the natural energy of the world," he eyeballed Winry who looked like she was going to tackle him if he didn't let go, "but, when you put a transmutation circle on a life form that already has a flowing circuit, like a circulatory system, it's properties can change, depending on what you want to do and how you draw it. You can establish that up and down, because you can move with or against a natural flow."

Winry gave him a heavy, wary eye, ready do everything in her power to attempt to overwhelm Ed if whatever he was getting at gave her no choice but to stop him.

"An encircled, five-point star, when presented with a single point upwards, can be used to represent symmetry of the human body. Head up top, two arms at the side, two legs at the bottom – never ending and constantly flowing. But, when you turn it and have the two points 'upwards', you invert the connection to the body's systems, go against the flow, and the transmutation's properties change to something else entirely."

Ed watched as Winry stared wordlessly at the symbol drawn on his chest; he'd drawn the same symbol on himself that Dante had drawn on Diana: the encircled 'upside down' pentagram – exactly as he'd just described.

"It connects the 'here to there' and the 'there to here'."

"No, no… no…" Winry gave a sharp yank on her arms, but it was a futile effort – Ed would not let go, "what does that circle do?"

"Alchemy," Ed narrowed an eye in thought, "when I clap my hands. The Gate had to stitch us back together to bring us here, so I should be able to open the Gate from this side, since this is where all the power is stored."

"Yeah right," Winry glared at him, "what happens to you when you do that?"

"We go home."

"Bullshit," she snapped, not liking that he was so calm and collected over this. Winry again fought to get Ed to release her wrists to no avail, "you have a chronic problem of doing inherently stupid things with alchemy, so you are going to tell me what will happen to you."

"Winry, it's not important," Ed protested, his tone hardening as he held Winry at bay, "I need you to trust me on this one."

Ed was surprised to find she actually did calm once he'd spoken, but he quickly came to realize her relaxed body and fallen shoulders didn't come from calm, they came from resignation. Ed peered in uncertainly, watching Winry's head sag forwards as he gingerly began to return her wrists. He took a breath to speak, but Winry shut Ed's voice down when her arms were abruptly snatched from his grasp.

"The last time I trusted you and Al to do the right things for yourselves with alchemy, you did something that meant you would never come back. If the Gate didn't think you were fun to play with, if it just didn't happen to be this way, you'd be dead. We wouldn't be having this conversation."

The weight of the other world's incarceration chains crashed down over Edward's shoulders and they pinned him to the side of the Gate where he sat. How strange it was for Ed to be told by Winry that he had done that.  When he'd woken up alive on the other side he'd been able to negate responsibility for his actions. It had been a long time since he'd had to look at the frame of mind he'd been in that day.

"Winry…"

She looked up at him abruptly.

"You didn't sacrifice yourself for your brother knowing you'd end up in this alternate world and be able to fight to get home.  You sacrificed yourself; you did what you did for Al knowing you would die. You decided your life would be over. There'd be no more. You wouldn't come home. Ever. Regardless of who or what it was for, you were okay with being dead and not living anymore."

There wasn't a set of purple eyes in the darkness that could look at Ed and reach in so far, grab hold so hard, and twist so angrily like these blue ones did. The feeling was like a clenched fist that had been lodged in his throat; Ed felt himself choke on it.

"That's great for you, if you're dead you don't have to deal with not having you around anymore! Yeah, what you did gave us Al back and that's a miracle in itself and I cannot… I cannot wish that you hadn't done that, because if I did then Al would be dead instead. I can't pick your life over Al's or Al's over yours… so I just think what you two did was wrong." Winry's words paused for a moment, the look in her eye imprisoning Edward's ability to put any of his thoughts into the spaces within her statement. "What I see from you isn't always that you think so much of everyone else around you, but that you think so little of yourself in the process. You're the only one who doesn't seem to think you have any value to the people around you and you make yourself dispensable."

There wasn't anything in the world Ed could have done against painful words spoken by a moderately trembling voice that fought on, beyond listen to what they had to say.

"I trust you with a lot of things Edward Elric, but I don't trust you to always make the right decisions for yourself when it comes to alchemy… and that's your fault."

Winry left the verbally crushed feeling as a jagged piece of shrapnel in Ed's throat when her voice let go and he was forced to swallow down no matter how badly it hurt. Uncertain golden eyes fell to the wayside, shoulders collapsing, head bowing, sitting on his knees. Like a weary soldier slumped at the bottom of his biggest hill to climb, Ed looked into the two flesh hands that he opened, palms up, comparing the clean but journey-worn left hand to the bloodied opposing palm.

"I don't regret what I did for Al. I've never looked back and wondered what my other options would have been and I'm not going to. That was my decision and I have to live with that, so I can't ask you to trust me with this," The thing Edward had found about talking with Winry was that, unlike himself, she rarely looked down or away to shield what she was feeling. Winry always looked right at him when she spoke and that somehow managed to make it impossible to doubt her. Ed swallowed hard and picked his head up to look at Winry, "but I don't have any way of telling you how badly I want to go home, be at home, live at home, do everything I do and don't at home, and do all of the things in life that I haven't let myself do because I wasn't home. Right now I know what I can do to get us home like I'd promised – both of us – and I've tried for a long time to get there, so I just… want to go home. Whatever you're afraid of isn't going to happen. Really."

A hesitant pause preceded Winry's quiet voice for her last concern, "Will you be alright?"

"Yes."

Winry's lower lip slipped into her teeth, "Okay then."

Ed pursed his lips and exhaled slowly, rebuilding his posture as he straightened himself, feeling a little short of breath while he spoke, "Your leg doesn't hurt that much here, does it?"

"No," Winry admitted, eyeballing the wrapped damage on her left limb, "it feels kinda gross, and it does hurt, but not like it did."

"That's the Gate – being here is like a blip in time," Ed pulled to his feet, ignoring the intrusive eyes that continued to watch them. He reached down and pulled Winry up to her feet, "It's gonna hurt when we're back."

Winry gave a slow nod as she worked her balance onto the one good leg, holding onto Ed's shoulders as he turned and offered his back for her to climb on to.

"And you'll be pretty nauseous," Ed gave Winry a bounce on his back to settle her in place once she'd wrapped her arms around his neck again, "this isn't going to feel good when we get back… at all. It's probably going to feel like how we're supposed to feel after going through the rebound."

Even though he had two hands this time around, both of them were needed, so Winry wiggled around uncomfortably until her legs wrapped around Ed's waist as best she could, "But we'll be home, right?"

"Yup," Ed nodded.

Winry's arms tightened around his neck and she put her chin down, "Then I'll be fine."

Both weary travellers journeying between this world and that looked around, staring back at the countless sets of eyes that bore down on them. Winry's scowl at their lecherous invasion was tainted with nervous concern, but was protected by Edward's glare assaulting whatever dared stand in his way. The hungry eyes hardened at his challenge and Ed chose to offer a cocky, triumphant smirk in return, inviting them to watch and see what he had in store.

This time Ed stood on two good legs with Winry on his back, the idea of running in fear no longer part of the equation. Giving a few sharp shakes of his head to clear it, Ed shifted with Winry on his back, slapped his palms over his thighs, straightened himself up, and threw his hands out to his sides amidst the pitch. His chest expanded with a deep breath and Edward Elric let the prying purple eyes eat his provocative sneer.

"This side of the Gate can KISS MY ASS."

Ed clapped his hands.

 


 

Mustang stood beneath the clear sky and 9am sun, arms folded, brow lowered, and gaze as cross as ever while trying to stare down a church in shambles at the heart of Old Central. He'd found a mess like he'd expected; the church steeple had fallen off, the windows had shattered leaving glass everywhere, and part of the west wall had crumbled down bringing half of the roof with it.

"It's busted," Mustang announced flatly.

"Maybe we should look inside before burning it down and burying it?" Havoc offered, like the idea of desecrating one of the oldest buildings in Central was a little beneath the three of them, "someone might have been inside."

Mustang sighed and relented to the suggestion, though he remained beyond unimpressed with why they'd bothered venturing out in the first place. If something in Russell Tringham's words hadn't continued to tickle Mustang's curiosity all night long they wouldn't have shown up.

The trio entered through the collapsed side of the building, since the steeple blocked the front doorway, and the three officers stepped around broken glass, fallen chunks of stone and debris as they made their way carefully through the mess. The collapse had taken out half of the wooden seating, a good portion of the front stage, and had buried the centre alter.

"Yeah, this is busted," Havoc conceded.

Hawkeye's hands took hold of one of the pews and with all the strength she had to give, she shoved it aside to open a path down what had once been the centre aisle, "Mr. Tringham didn't give you any reason for this?"

Mustang walked along the aisle beyond the far reaches of undamaged pews, each step he took crunching down on broken glass, his voice as sharp as the shards he walked on, "He just said 'trust me'."

It was a shame that the Tringham brothers hadn't really given them any reason not to trust them since being drawn into the fray, otherwise Mustang wouldn't have bothered with this journey.

The senior officer made his way up onto the front for the building as Riza pushed aside another pew, stepping around a mangled pile of debris that had once been the front podium.

"Guess we oughtta prep her for the cooker," Havoc gnawed lightly on the end of his unlit cigarette.

When Havoc turned to see if his superior officers had a response for him, he stopped to watch as Mustang crouched down to the floor and peered under the planks of fallen roof.

"Is someone one under there?" Havoc asked.

"No," Mustang grabbed hold of some debris and pulled it out from beneath the layers of roofing, "there's a draft coming out from here."

Both Havoc and Hawkeye exchanged a glance.

"A draft?" Hawkeye questioned – there was no wind today.

"Help me dig," Mustang ordered.

With what little they had to aid their bare hands, improvising with planks of wood to break other planks down, the trio worked diligently over the following half hour in a day that slowly grew hotter the higher the sun rose and the longer they worked. Shirts were loosened and un-tucked, jackets were discarded on the floor, and Havoc even went so far as to pluck his pants out from his boots and roll them up to his knees. With an emphatic grunt, Mustang stood on a stubborn collection of wooden planks, jumping up and snapping it in half beneath his body weight. A portion of the debris shifted, allowing Hawkeye and Havoc to throw it aside while Mustang came down to his hands and knees – finally finding the source of his draft.

There was a vent blowing cool air out from beneath the debris of the collapsed podium that had once been front and centre in the church. Grabbing one of the planks of wood that they'd discarded , the senior officer jammed it into the hole on the floor, jarring it around to widen the vent. Havoc and Hawkeye dusted their hands off and watched the hole crumble open until Mustang made it a good foot-size wide.

All three officers were soon on their hands and knees trying to peer in.

"Where the hell does this go?" Mustang frowned.

"Basement?" Havoc offered.

"I don't think it's normal to get a draft coming up from a basement like this," Hawkeye qualified.

"Okay," Mustang stood up abruptly, searching for the sturdiest plank of wood he could find, "let's force it open as wide as it'll go."

A wooden clatter escaped into the hot day as debris was taken into three sets of hands. The exercise of widening the hole was pretty much a display of how much brute force could be put into their poor digging materials – no one had shown up with anything close to a shovel. The wooden planks were rammed against the edges of the hole, weakening and breaking it down. What was more astonishing than the black hole they were opening was that it was not made of any type of construction material – the hole they opened was made of dirt. All three of them worked at the gaping hole for another twenty minutes, watching in astonishment as the hole continued to widen, exposing the top rung of shallow steps that appeared in the final five minutes of work. When Mustang finally called for an end to their efforts, the officers looked into a dark cavern that they'd opened up wide enough to fit a body through.

They all stood back and stared silently at it, glancing around occasionally to see if anyone had come to investigate their noise.

"I'm going down," Mustang announced – the bubble of excitement in his stomach told him this was what Russell Tringham had sent them here for and he wanted to know the secret. Suddenly the trip had become worth the effort.

Crouching down on his hands and knees, Mustang slipped into the collapsed hole feet first, sliding along his stomach against the dirt and shallow run of stairs until his shoulders popped through. He shuffled back from the entrance on his hands and knees, feeling the evenly carved stairs in the dirt begin to offer a steeper decent. When the remnants of the collapse had stopped littering the steps, the officer rose to his feet. Mustang stood up straight, realizing there was enough clearance for not only his height, but his arm reach as well. He jumped, reaching above his head and feeling that the cold earth against his fingertips. Despite the uncertainty, Mustang had to admit the cool breeze coming up from below was nice on his sweaty back. The light from the entry way suddenly vanished and the senior officer looked back to see Hawkeye slip through the hole.

"Stay up there," he ordered, his voice echoing off the walls of the tunnel.

"You need back up in case there's trouble down here," Hawkeye answered, slipping her way down to a point in the tunnel where she could stand as well.

Both Mustang and Hawkeye watched as Havoc slid in last, the sounds of his rustling body echoing off the walls.

"You can't leave me behind while you go venturing off into a dark tunnel. Just who do you two spelunkers think you are?" the lieutenant stood up, dusting off his pants.

A pause came to the group while they stood in the breeze of the cavern, letting the cooling air dry the sweat from their brows and backs of their necks before shoulders finally stiffened and expressions tightened. Without a word, the sound of marching feet erupted as they made their decent. When the light of the entrance vanished, Mustang dawned his glove and snapped his fingers to light what little moss graced the walls, each time re-igniting portions of the wall when the previous light had either been lost or had burnt away. The three walked for what felt like forever in silence, and the deeper they descended the stronger the wind became. Their journey downwards became engulfed in the dark when the wind wouldn't allow Mustang to light anything any longer. The wind in the pitch-black tunnel had noise, like the sound of a howling, crying, and dying animal; it was an unruly, inhumane cry that sent chills down their spines.

At the point where the descent into the earth had begun to feel endless, a faint light began to fill the tunnel from up ahead. The winds terrorized their clothes and hair, blowing dust and sediment into their faces, forcing all advancing parties to shield their eyes. When the end of the tunnel was bright and clearly seen, weapons found their way into hands. Cautiously, carefully, and slowly the trio of officers emerged from the stairs and into a new light.

The blowing winds ended, like their exit shut an invisible door behind them.

Where the light source so far down into the earth came from was anybody's guess, but the massive cavern the three officers had walked into was brightly lit and exploded open for miles before their eyes. The massive cavern sent nerves into a frenzy, hearts racing, and stomachs churning. Weapons were lowered from their readied positions, shoulders collapsed, and mouths fell open as three officers stood on the dirt ledge looking out into the Empty City beneath Central.

"Good god…"

It was a magnificent, overwhelming, and terrifying sight to behold, more than enough to make the strongest knees weak. The three officers stood frozen by horror, standing at this terrifyingly high perch overlooking a kind of sin that had been so unimaginable none of them could have dreamed up the sight no matter how many times Roze's story was replayed.

This was the Empty City – the city Central had once been before it was re-established hundreds of years ago. It was intact and it was standing for all of them to see. Tens of thousands of people – possibly hundreds of thousands of people had once lived here… an entire civilization had once lived here and had vanished in a single night. Entire genealogies were wiped from existence in a selfish massacre caused by two people and their unfathomable mountain of sins.

Havoc's hand cut through his hair, "This… this is massive."

"This is a graveyard," the words tumbled out of Mustang's open mouth.

The empty underground city was the skeleton of their nation's worst catastrophe – sealed away in an underground closet and coveted by its keeper. It was a sight that was beyond overwhelming.

"Do you hear that?" Hawkeye forced her quieted voice out amidst the visual nightmare.

Voices were hushed, heartbeats were tamed, and the officers stood listening with ears as wide open as their eyes.

"There's music coming from somewhere," Mustang qualified Hawkeye's question, stating a fact of truth that felt like impossible fiction. He couldn't imagine why, or better yet, how the sound of music could be in this-

"Dante's down here," Hawkeye's sidearm was firmly gripped as she derailed her superior's thoughts.

That was the only answer and Mustang re-fitted the glove over his right hand. He hadn't shown up to Old Central with expectations of finding anything remotely close to this, so the matching glove for his other hand had remained at the hotel. Mustang's left hand carried a hand gun instead.

After the burns on her arm had been tended to in the days prior, Izumi had confirmed Dante's newest form was the tiny body of Nina – another flesh trophy for the woman to add to her collection of faces. Strangely, that left Aisa as their biggest mystery, though Dante would remain their biggest obstacle. Mustang was forced to look at his reflection in the mirror and ask himself: if he ever got the opportunity to take on the woman in the body of a child, would he be able to look beyond the physique? He told himself he'd have to. This body-snatching alchemist wasn't an immortal creature – she was a human woman who'd lived hundreds of years through the manipulation of her life and the destruction of countless others. Even as Mustang looked out into the cavern, he couldn't comprehend how one person, or even two people, could be responsible for so many deaths. And it wasn't just this city – there was Ishibal and Lior and who knows what other crimes they hadn't uncovered yet as well. Dante wasn't an alchemist, she was a mass murderer, and she could be shot and killed like any other flesh creature. Mustang glanced between the two best shots he had in the entire nation; if anyone could strike her down…

But this was her turf, not theirs – who knew what this world had in store for them. All of its secrets and mysteries were Dante's to do with as she pleased. A thought of returning to the surface and grabbing backup shot through Mustang's mind, but then who else would he bring? He wasn't going to bring a legion of supporters down into this catastrophe and expose what had been done to the entire world. This city needed to be forgotten and remain forgotten, otherwise the people of Central might never be able to move on. Brigadier General Roy Mustang reached back and snapped his firearm out from its holster.

"Let's find out where it's coming from."

Or at least, find out where in this catacomb Dante had set up her home; it might be their only chance to pin her down. Worst case scenario – they could always come back.

 


 

There were a number of things that unsettled the trio of officers about walking through this empty city, most predominantly was a lack of skeletal remains. Massacres on this scale left bodies behind – but this city had nothing. It was like a ghost town, except ghost towns had run-down feelings because they become abandoned over time. This one was up-kept, but its colours had dulled and became buried beneath hundreds of year's worth of dust. Mustang found it very unsettling that his mind kept expecting to find a mountain of bones around 'the next corner' at some point. There weren't even a cob webs to be found.

The empty city beneath Central was nothing more than an underground, oversized, filthy, and forgotten dollhouse and everyone felt on edge as they ventured through it.

Then there were the remnants of a magnificent transmutation circle that looked as though it had once been carved into the cavern ceiling. At least that was something they could all avoid looking at, unlike everything else.

Their journey towards the music pulled them through the dusty city, luring them to somewhere near the centre of town, to a building Mustang could only refer to as 'magnificent' once they'd reached it. It was a gorgeous, ancient building with hand crafted pillars, heavy etched doors to each room, marble flooring everywhere, crystal candlelit chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, and draperies hanging from the walls. Hundreds of years ago, anyone who was anybody must have come here in their finest gowns. Portraits of people who'd been expunged from their history books hung in the halls amongst the fabric art. This monumental building was the only place they'd encountered that had been maintained, which caused heart rates and tensions to rise. Then there was the faint odour to the building that did not exist anywhere else in the city – it was like perfume, only it didn't seem all that pleasant.

Mustang wished for the dust to return, because it dampened the sounds of their feet on the floor and now every step they took had to be more cautious and carefully placed than the last. He also wished for the music to end – it was the same four-minute piece playing over and over and over…

Eyes spoke to each other without the need for words, heads motioned in directions when arms couldn't, and feet slid along the marble surface that waited desperately for one of the officers to miss a step and announce their presence. The entrance to the grand ballroom was obvious; it was etched in gold upon a plaque attached to the door. Rather than force the heavy doors open, the three officers slowly made their way up a wide, winding staircase, taking themselves up to the balcony level of the grand centrepiece. The hall was long, curving around the ballroom, each balcony jetting out over the dance floor from behind a heavy, purple velvet curtain. The officers walked to the end of the hall where the lighting was the dimmest, hoping they'd be able to duck under the curtain and not have anyone notice its movement. Mustang crouched down and made the cautious slip onto the corner balcony.

The music was coming from somewhere in the ballroom, but where exactly was unclear. Keeping himself as low to the floor as possible, the officer's good eye cautiously allowed more and more of the wide ballroom floor beyond the balcony rails into his sights. It became more than apparent to Mustang that there was nobody in this ballroom for them to see – no voices and no movement; just the endless music grinding on his nerves.

Mustang squinted, trying to examine a curious sight on the ballroom floor. There was a black transmutation circle that had been drawn, something Mustang had seen maybe once or twice before in Ishibal – he'd never bothered to take note of it. There was a red 'splat' at the centre of the room and it smeared along the floor unevenly and eventually vanished into an archway adjacent to the entryway doors and beneath an overhang. All of Mustang's experiences told him that it looked like a bloodied body had been dragged or thrown along the floor by a person not willing, not strong enough, or not big enough to actually pick up their victim. Mustang swallowed and slowly ducked back behind the curtain.

The officers came down from the balcony level without a sound, trying unsuccessfully to tune out the music that wore on them, and headed for the ballroom entrance doors. With glove on and weapons poised, heartbeats flying and adrenaline pumping, Mustang carefully pushed down on the left door handle, opening up the expansive room to their eyes and flooding their ears with the sound of unwanted music. Without a sound each officer entered the ballroom, weapons readied and eyes flying about, seeing nothing and no one within the ancient hall. They did not emerge from the entrance area, choosing instead to admire the grand hall from a distance and allowing their eyes to follow the smear of dried blood into the archway, watching it vanish into the unlit hallway on their left. None of them knew where that hallway lead and the darkness dissuaded them from finding out.

Havoc caught his senior officers' attention and mouthed 'we should go' clearly, receiving nods in response. Both Havoc and Hawkeye began to back out before Mustang, the senior officer's head sharply looking left and right to let his good eye absorb all there was to see of the room, burning the image of a bloodstained trail into his mind. Surely Dante wouldn't drag her own victims and leave such a mess, would she? She must have numerous people to do that work for her.

It was a preposterous idea, but Mustang's next step did not go backwards, it went sideways, and the man inched himself towards the hall on his blindside, curiosity eating at him so badly from the crimson trail that vanished without answer into the darkness. He would only stray along the blood's path as far as the light would allow him to see and no farther; if there was nothing to be found, no further lit path to take, no pile of Dante's sacrificial bodies to examine, then he would retreat.

Mustang had to wave away Hawkeye, whose glare could have killed him under any other circumstance. The officer continued to inch himself along, his right fingers poised for a snap, his left hand poised to fire, and his nerves wishing he could ignite the machine causing all the music.

The point where the light from the hall became useless was meant to be the point where Mustang turned back, but it was also the point where the hallway opened up on his left and broke off into another unlit hall on his right. The officer figured this had been where the ballroom hosts poured their drinks, readied their food, and prepared themselves for their onslaught of guests. Mustang's attention veered curiously into the opening space at his left, taking a step into the darkened expanse.

A 'click' sounded at Mustang's left ear – he froze. The sound had been right at his ear and his stomach sank like a lead anchor had been dropped in, quickly feeling it heave into his throat. There was a gun pointed at his head on his blind side and Mustang didn't know what he was supposed to do next beyond curse himself for taking on this dark hall in the first place. He would have to terrorize the man who coined the phrase 'curiosity killed the cat' in his afterlife. The weapon holder was too tall to be Dante, which made his subjugator either Aisa or any one of the manipulated pawns Izumi had described Dante working with. Wouldn't it be ironic if he turned around and saw Prime Minister Mitchell, Mustang mused. The person holding him motionless gave no orders or commands for what he should do, did not give instructions for him to drop his weapon, remove his glove, or lower his arms… nothing was said to even validate someone's existence behind him beyond the cold tap Mustang felt of the weapon's tip behind his ear.

The man's mouth was too dry to swallow, "Are you going to shoot?" he asked harshly.

No answer was given.

"Or are you just going to fucking stand there like a zombie?"

Apparently that's what was going to happen, because all Mustang got for an answer was silence. It wasn't just any silence; it was endless, nervous silence. The officer stood frozen for minutes that lasted forever, locked motionless by the oppressive sensation of a weapon against his head. But the longer it went on, the more Mustang didn't understand why the situation did not progress. In a ballsy show of frustration and defiance, he allowed himself to move, completely lowering his arms, and Mustang turning around over his left shoulder, hearing the definitive sound of a single footstep adjust as his captor moved.

He was permitted to turn around far enough that his good right eye began to take in the scene.

A solid arm pointed a weapon at his head. Mustang blanched, feeling his blood chill at the sight; its wielder was pale and looked sleepless, had eyes that appeared sunken, bloodshot, and heavy – they couldn't hold their focus. Lips that were brittle, dry and dehydrated were licked, swallowing for nothing.

Roy's mouth fell open, finding it almost impossible to pull the air from his lungs that he needed to speak, "Ed…?"

The name had come from his mouth and Mustang couldn't believe he'd said it. Was this even possible? This person, standing taller than Mustang, didn't respond to the name; it was like he hadn't heard it. Was it even Ed?

Ed had been trapped beyond the Gate; Mustang had known that much about the older Elric brother's plight and Brigitte had all but confirmed it… so when had this happened? How had this happened?

What in the world had gone on in this underground city that had brought Edward home?

"Edward…" Roy found his voice again, bringing up his right gloved hand and placing it atop the gun, putting his pinky finger between the hammer and the chamber so no bullet could be fired, "Ed, it's me."

This person was a tall boy sweating buckets with mangled golden hair falling everywhere, escaping wildly from the tie on the back of his head. His shirt was unbuttoned and Roy could see how heavily Ed breathed behind it. The rotation of Roy's world was suddenly spinning in the opposite direction and he began to add pressure to the rigid left arm that Ed was using to hold him back, soon forcing Ed to lower his guard. The gun in Roy's left hand was hastily holstered and once the revolver Ed held was peeled from Ed's grasp, one finger at a time, it was slipped into the Roy's belt as well.

The only way Roy could process what he saw, or didn't see, in Edward was to describe him as being overwhelmed – like everything and anything had tried to crush him and he'd managed to crawl out of the rubble.

"Ed, you need to sit down," Roy looked him over once more; there were a million questions to ask and even more answers to be had, but for this moment Roy more concerned about making sure Ed didn't pass out on him, "come on."

The older man's hands reached out and came down onto Ed's shoulders, an action that derailed all of Roy Mustang's impending actions. The officer's hands clenched the eldest Elric brother for a moment before Roy frantically had the open shirt thrown off of Ed's shoulders. The man's jaw teetered around wordlessly, the good eye devouring what little could be seen in the depths of the building, unable to come up with something to say at the sight of Ed wearing both flesh shoulders. Roy abruptly grabbed the soft right arm and hauled it out from the shirt sleeve. This was it, with flesh, blood, and bone; it was really here – Edward Elric's flesh right arm. He couldn't believe it. The man's dark eye narrowed at the sight of a nasty raw and open wound in the palm of the right hand. Throughout Roy's abrupt examination the golden blonde spoke no words, put up no fight or protest, and moved like a ragged doll. The right arm had been limp as it was admired. Before the part of Roy's mind kicked him for not picking up on any signs, Ed collapsed.

"Woah," Roy caught him, dropping down to one knee and snagging Ed under his arm before Ed hit the ground completely, "easy… easy." All of the alarm bells in the officer's head were going off telling him that something was seriously wrong and a million worst-case scenarios began playing out. Ed was warm to the touch and when Roy checked for a pulse, he found one that rocketed along. The officer had no idea what exactly it was that was wrong and didn't want to imagine what could be wrong with Ed inside Dante's stronghold.

"Come on, we need to get you out of here…"

"No," the refusal sounded like it had been strangled out of his lungs.

Looking around the darkened room, holding the fallen Elric gingerly against his shoulder, Roy's right arm flew out and he set a momentary flame alive in the palm of his hand. Movement erupted in the far corner of the room, and before the light vanished Roy heard a girl's voice squeak and saw a body curl away.

"Borrowing this," Roy relieved Ed of his shirt entirely, tossing it emphatically into the centre of the floor and setting it ablaze with the snap of his fingers.

In the flame-lit room, Mustang's eyes widened, the trail of blood ended in the corner of the room, and the officer watched – no, he heard – the panic in Winry's breaths, watching her arms wrap tightly around the unmoving, blood-soaked body of Alphonse Elric cradled in her lap. Her face, her complexion, everything gave off the same sickened, sunken, exhausted look that Edward had before he'd collapsed, but the sight of Al bloodied, limp, and cradled in Winry's care changed everything.

"What in the…" Roy gasped, releasing Ed as he tried to climb past the defensive elder brother. The man made it nowhere, falling to the floor when Ed's left hand flew out and grabbed hold of the front of Roy's shirt – the two of them hit the ground with a thud. Frantically Roy picked his head up, watching the Elric brother move like a fish out of water, trying to balance on the elbow of his right arm and finding no success in the task. The dark eyes of the officer shot to Ed's grip.

"Ed, you need to let go."

That just made it worse, and Ed's knuckles began to turn white.

"Let go, FullMetal," Roy deepened his voice, watching Ed's brow twitch as he tried to see if an authoritarian officer's command would do the trick, "I'm going to help, but you need to let me."

The subsequent few seconds caused Mustang to hold his breath. Amidst the devouring sound of the flame eating the sweat-soaked shirt Ed had worn and illuminated by the flickering light that was created from it, the older brother's fingers loosened and fell down from Roy's shirt, echoing with a light slap when it hit the ground.

"You t'take care of'm f'me."

The response locked Roy's existence down and left him seated stunned on the floor. It was an audible request that barely sounded human. Whatever was wrong, Edward was fighting through it, and Roy watched both the new and old flesh hands move, digging through the pale face while Ed growled at who knows what.

"I'll take care of them, trust me."

Roy Mustang had no idea what was wrong with these three that he needed to take care of, but he would find a way to do it.

 


To Be Continued…


Notes:

- I don't believe Ed has ever regretted what he did for Al. He may have wished for other things, but Ed has always taken the decisions he's made and lived with them, whether he liked it or not.

- The gun Adolf left behind for Ed and Winry had came through the Gate with them – Ed had kept hold of it, rather than ditching it after he'd used the two bullets in case it came in handy. Everything on the transmutation circle came through.

Chapter 41: From Sunset to Horizon

Chapter Text

Something in Al's mind's eye snapped, like the flash from a bolt of lightning, and the young Elric woke up with a start. With free arms swinging and legs swimming beneath bed sheets, Al threw himself upright and his wide eyes were quickly staring into three surprised female faces he didn't recognize.

In the middle of an unknown situation, Alphonse froze.

Where was this? Al's eyes darted around like a startled animal – he was in a large bed, in a room with dimmed lights, furniture, equipment of some kind, wearing plain clothes that weren't his, and in the company of people he couldn't identify. When the boy's eyes snapped to the table covered in equipment and he realized it was medical – instruments and needles and who knows what else – Al's concerns grew by a tenfold. One of the women approached him and Alphonse kicked the sheets off, scrambled along his backside over the mattress, and he thumped his back against the headboard.

"Alphonse, it's okay."

Somebody had spoken to him and Al hadn't listened her – who were these people? What had they been doing to him? How long had he been here like this?

The last place Al remembered being was Dante's ballroom and those memories were fairly unclear. Quick whispers happened between the women, and Al watched with terrified concern as the nurse standing furthest from him picked up a syringe. For a moment, the entire room was encased in ice, frozen in time, and then the two closest nurses bolted forwards to catch Al. What none of them had been prepared for – not even Al – was how the younger Elric brother quickly clapped his hands and the brilliant blue alchemical sparks sent the women scrambling away. Without a moment's hesitation, Al escaped through the hole he'd made in the wall.

Barefoot and in a white shirt and grey shorts, Al stumbled into a hall, staggering on his feet before coming to a stop. Closed doors filled the dim hallway Al stood in, but there was a lit stairwell at the very end and the moment Al recognized the escape route he sprinted towards it.

"ALPHONSE!" One of the women burst into the hall after him.

Al's head lowered and the boy's feet pounded on the wooden floor as he ran.

"Somebody stop him!"

Al's arms flew out to his sides when a door swung open ahead of him. Like he'd seen his older brother do a thousand times before, the younger brother put his palms together again. A body emerged swiftly from the room before Al could even think up a transmutation to perform and it had only taken milliseconds before Alphonse had his arms forcefully thrown apart amidst useless blue sparks and a second arm jerked up under his chin. The young Elric's legs flew out from beneath his body and Al was flat on his back before he could take his next breath; a much more foreboding presence than any of the three women was pinning him down.

"Hold him!"

"Since when could you do that?" the looming body growled, a heavy knee came down on Al's chest and two strong hands held his wrists far apart.

Al's eyes flew wide to engulf the figure pinning him to the floor, "Mustang!"

Mustang's gaze shot into the hall as he heard the scampering of women's slippers along the floorboards, "Where's the goddamn tranquilizer?"

"WHAT?" Alphonse shrieked, jerking his body beneath the knee Mustang had on his chest, unable to break from the hands securing his wrists. Al's voice tore out again when two of the women hit the floor next to him and pinned his thrashing legs, "No. NO! My brother and Winry are in trouble! Let me go! I have to get back to the Gate and help them."

The last woman – the one with the needle – arrived at the scene and her knees thumped on the wooden floorboards next to Al's head. The panic rushing through Alphonse was overwhelming and it peaked when one of her cold hands grabbed his wrist.

"NO! They're at the Gate!" all he could do was scream, "You don't understand what happened! Ed and Winry are at the Gate, I don't know if they've come through! We have to save them!"

Mustang's left hand snatched the wrist of the woman readying a needle destined for Alphonse's arm. To everyone's surprise, and Al's overwhelming relief, Mustang held the woman's arm away.

"I got them to the Gate…" the boy breathed.

Al's chest surged with frantic breaths and a pounding heart despite the pressure of Mustang's hold on him. The darkened hallway slowly lit as more doors opened and bleary eyed men and women poked their heads into the hall to see the commotion. Al wasn't allowed to let his eyes drift away long enough to pick out a recognizable face in the crowd; Mustang snatched Al's chin and the boy found himself nose to nose with the officer's interrogative stare. The younger Elric brother stared right back at him, slowly adding a scowl to the look.

Mustang's only eye narrowed for a brief moment, "Let him go."

"But, sir!"

"Let him go!"

All the hands that pinned Al down released him, but Mustang made sure the knee he had on Al's chest came off last.

"All of you go back to bed," Mustang ordered the lingering eyes out of the hall, "I need you rested, not gawking at nothing."

Slowly, Al sat up amidst the sounds of voices grumbling, doors shutting, and one prominent sound of bare feet walking towards him. Al rubbed his wrists and looked up when an exhausted-looking Lieutenant Havoc walked up next to him, then bent down and picked Al up, putting the boy down on his feet.

"You seem lucid enough," Havoc patted Al on the back, "one outta three ain't bad. Don't need you going postal on us too; Ed was enough of a handful."

It had been an incidental statement and spoken carelessly, but Havoc's words numbed Alphonse's body from toes to fingertips. To the new golden eyes, the entire room vanished and all that remained were the people who could offer words that mattered – Mustang and Havoc. The youngest child of a broken family that had fought so hard to regain what was left to them stood silently for eternal seconds before a painfully exhausted but gleefully excited sound came out in his voice.

"My brother's here?"

If someone had initially answered the question, Al hadn't heard it; the boy's own statement repeated itself over and over in his head until it was no longer a question, but an overwhelming statement of fact. Havoc's few words were definite and concrete; 'Ed' was spoken in present, current tense.

His brother was there.

"Ed is here," Mustang's words found their way into Al's ears, "and Winry."

"He did it…" Al felt a tingling wave sweep through his body as feeling returned and the younger brother's knees suddenly seemed weak.

His brother was home. Edward Elric was home.

They did it.

Al's heart was ready to burst at how fast it was moving.

Yet, even as the overwhelming joy swelled up, a flood of panic swept in and it replaced his euphoria with concern. Al had left his brother behind at the Gate and he had no idea how much time had passed since then nor did he know what had happened to get them both home.

Al refocused his thoughts and shot verbal bullets at Mustang, "Is my brother okay? Where is he?"

Both Mustang and Havoc exchanged glances.

The concern in Al's voice rose when no one responded, "Where is he? Is my brother okay? I want to see him! And Winry!" the words kept stampeding from his mouth the longer the two officers stayed silent, "Is Winry okay? Are they both okay?"

Mustang cleared his throat and stepped forwards, "Edward and Winry are in the rooms behind us," the man's hands came down to Al's shoulders, stopping any sudden movements the young Elric might make, "but they're sedated and they're staying that way for now."

The statement brought so many of Alphonse's questions and emotions to a standstill. Al looked between the two officer's faces, trying to translate the stern look on Mustang's face and relate it to the restrained concern Havoc was showing, "Why?"

"We'll discuss that later…" Mustang began.

"No!" Al sharply looked to the higher ranking officer, trying to step back, "We'll discuss my brother now!"

"I need answers, Alphonse," Mustang's voice grew harsh and deepened as his grip on Al's shoulders tightened.

"Me too!" Al hands clenched fiercely at his sides, "I don't know what kind of answers you need, but mine will all come after I see my brother!"

Stern, stubborn words shut down the actions of all parties in the hall. Curious ears that still tried to listen from their partially opened doors didn't move while the new golden eyes fighting with sword and shield did not back down. If it had been any other person, any other child, boy, or young man, Mustang would never have given in. After a few moments of hesitation and a few more full of careful thought, Mustang's shoulders fell reluctantly.

Al would get his wish.

 


 

It was the middle of the night after a ghastly hot summer's day. While the sun was absent, windows and curtains were open wide to allow the cooler evening air free entrance into the rooms. A fan hummed along near the window of this particular room to spread a weak draft around – it was a valiant effort that didn't do a whole lot of good.

Alphonse's fingers touched a purple and blue cheek with six black stitches in it and Al again brushed away the golden blonde hair that shielded his brother's face and stuck to his sweat-dampened forehead. The younger brother just couldn't help himself – Al continued to stare at this person lying in the bed; it was almost unreal. Over and over Al told himself this was his older brother, but it just wasn't sinking in. It wasn't quite disbelief, Al wouldn't go so far as to say that, it was simply surprise and shock.

For years he had looked the same: Edward Elric was short, he was nimble, he was strong, and he wore AutoMail – Al's older brother matured mentally during their adventures, but not physically. But this man

Ed's head lulled to the side, his hair spilling over the pillow, resting on the cheek that wasn't sewn together, with his eyes lightly closed and a sliver of space between his lips for air. This face was obviously the face of Edward Elric, but it was different and Al had to touch it to convince himself whom he was looking at. Ed's face had been moulded, trimmed and defined with lines, then set like some pottery master had gotten a hold of him. His brother's shirt was off and Al could see the marks on his chest where AutoMail anchors had left scars. Strangely, they weren't in the same locations; Al had seen his brother's body dressed in AutoMail for years, but these scars were in different locations from the points on his body where Aunt Pinako and Winry had once installed everything. Al followed the flesh right arm down his brother's body – both his brother's arms were atop the dark green sheet that was across his chest. Al reached out and picked up the bandaged right hand and pressed it between his two palms. Al's eyes examined his brother's body beneath the sheets – Ed filled the bed! Ed never filled a bed; he was tiny and compact like a cat, and no matter how hard he tried or attempted to sprawl out, Edward Elric was never big enough to fill a bed from head to foot.

'This' brother was the most astonishing thing Al had come upon in ages and even the twenty minutes he'd spent standing there in silence wasn't enough time to fully connect his 'old brother' to the new one. Every time Al tried to cement this person into his mind, the younger brother felt a twinge of disappointment – he'd missed seeing his brother 'grow up'.

"Why did you drug him?" Al asked.

"Ed has been suffering from the effects of alchemical shock," Mustang's statement gripped Al tightly enough that the boy pulled his focus off of his brother and gave it to the officer, "both Edward and Winry were, so we're giving them enough time to come out of it. It's too much stress on the body not to sedate them."

Each breath Al took sucked in a million questions, each exhale he gave let out only a few answers. Al had no doubt the rebound transmutation he'd initiated was what caused the alchemical shock; it was a short term mental 'short-circuit' that could hit someone after surviving a rebound. Alphonse could understand and accept the fact his brother was recovering from this, but why in the world had Winry been with his brother in the first place? And why had she been shot? Who'd shot her? Wasn't Winry supposed to have been kidnapped by Dante?

The questions Alphonse had continued to mount – how old was his brother now? How long had he been gone? What had been happening beyond the Gate? What had his brother done to get them through the doors? The Gate hadn't just refused to let Al bring his brother and Winry home… it was more than that. It was so much more than that and Al couldn't begin to find the words to explain it. The youngest Elric found it frustrating that he had clearly understood so many of the Gate's messages while he'd had his hands inside of it, but he had no way of verbalizing most of it. Al was still trying to find a way to explain why the Gate had adamantly refused to let him bring his brother all the way home – Al could feel the answer, he just couldn't explain it.

"Do you know what Dante's done to him?" Mustang's voice finally re-entered the boy's thoughts.

Al straightened up with surprise, "Pardon?"

Stepping away from the wall, Mustang's arms folded and he stopped when his knees touched the foot of Edward's bed, "We didn't know what was wrong when we found you three, so I had the doctor conduct examinations when you arrived. Other than what we could immediately see and tend to, they found a number of old wounds and aged bruising on Ed. I'd like to know what Dante's done to him and how long she's had him."

Al blinked and looked to the wound on his brother's face and then to the one on his hand, "When I saw him beyond the Gate, he had the cut on his face already…" the cleanly bandaged right hand was still captured in the boy's two smaller hands and went unmentioned, "a-and Winry'd been shot beyond the Gate… so, if the injuries are older than that, then they happened on the other side. Dante didn't do any of that to them."

Alphonse hadn't realized the air in a room could get thick so quickly.

"… Winry?" Mustang questioned.

Slowly, gingerly, carefully, Al began rubbing the limp hand between his hands; the facts made him angry, "Winry was beyond the Gate."

The abhorred sound that Mustang choked out from his throat made Alphonse's angered feelings inexplicably worse, "She was where?"

"Dante must have done it… but I don't know when," Al didn't realize he could despise any one person as much as he despised Dante right then and there. The boy pulled his lower lip into his teeth as his head began to shake, realizing that Mustang must have thought that Dante was responsible for the injuries that they'd suffered, "is Winry okay?"

"Yes," Mustang's head slowly nodded, "the bullets were removed and her wounds were cleaned and tended to."

Al's brow tightened profusely as the boy looked down at his brother sleeping soundly.

"Alphonse…" Mustang turned his focus onto another issue, "Brigitte described Edward in her drawings as someone who was missing an arm and leg—"

"I got them back," the absolute authority in Alphonse's admission silenced Mustang and the younger brother put down his older brother's unresponsive hand, "I brought my brother and Winry home and I made sure that when my brother arrived at the Gate he would have them back."

Because Alphonse Elric had made a promise years ago to get his brother's limbs back.

Al turned his palms up at himself and looked into the story they had to tell, "When I reached into the Gate, my brother and Winry were standing on the transmutation circle Brigitte had taken pictures of. I realized if I activated it, I could use the rebound to bring them home," Al glanced away in thought, trying to figure out how best to explain things trapped mostly in feelings, emotions, and understandings, "and when I reached into the Gate, I found that there is an energy stream that flows from the other world to ours… it's where the power that we use to perform alchemy comes from. Brigitte's rebound circle would deconstruct them into that energy and send them into the stream towards the Gate, but the Gate isn't designed to process so much information, so they needed to be extracted before reaching the doors," Alphonse looked up at Mustang and took a breath that made so many other actions in his life feel insignificant, "for the mind, body, and soul, the soul is the thing that binds everything together… it makes you a person. So after I started the circle, I picked out their souls as they came to the Gate and pulled the rest of them together, using the souls like magnets. It was easy to do at the Gate and everything that was 'Edward Elric' and 'Winry Rockbell' was drawn together, including my brother's arm and leg – the Gate was forced to give those up as part of the process. It would have choked on their materials if it hadn't."

Deep down, someday Al would acknowledge the perverse pleasure he'd taken in forcing the Gate to sacrifice something it had so rudely taken away from his brother.

Alphonse stood in the wee hours of the morning before the sun had begun peeking out from beyond the horizon, staring at a man who looked so firm, so steadfast, and so completely overwhelmed by the information he'd been given. Silence devoured the pair, Mustang offering nothing to further Alphonse's statement, simply standing and staring, trying to comprehend the mountain of details Alphonse had given out in such a short span of time.

"I brought them to the Gate doors and then it was up to my brother to continue on home from there," Al's open palms closed, his fists clenching, knuckles turning white the harder he held on, "and now they're home and safe."

An uncertain pause preceded Mustang's response, "It's beyond commendable." The man's praise sounded distant and withdrawn, like the officer had spoken because he'd felt he had to, but honestly didn't know what he should really say. Mustang stepped away, his arms stiffly folded across his chest, and he made his way out of the room, "Come downstairs and see me when you have a chance."

 


 

Sometime in the hours after sunrise, during a surreal morning where Alphonse's family lay asleep in the care of the man who'd enabled so much of their journey, the younger brother glanced around a room Roy Mustang had taken him into.

"This is what we found with you, Ed, and Winry," Mustang walked deep into a room full of tables littered with unrecognizable things, his index finger directing Al's attention around the menagerie, "their clothes, your clothes, their bags, the contents of their bags, whatever was on the floor, anything that had blood on it…"

Al walked through the room slowly, his attention sliding away from the bloody scarf to the scattering of tools and then over to a heavy brown overcoat and a heap of clothes. Next to the pile of clothing was a table covered in crumpled white paper as well as two empty sacks. Al approached that table first and picked up a few of the top sheets of paper, his eyes dissecting what he read. This was his brother's writing – words printed in the nearly unreadable scribble of Ed's left hand. But Ed's alchemy was always legible; it had to be, alchemy was too important to him to be sloppy, and alongside the mess of Edward's printing were strings upon strings of alchemical theory that piggybacked off of one of many depictions of Brigitte's rebound circle.

"Brother was trying to find a way home…" Al narrowed his eyes at the sheet, "he was taking the diagram and the room… and thinking if he could alter something then maybe he could make this work," the younger brother's shoulders fell as the sheets were lowered. Alphonse swallowed a hopeless feeling that invaded his throat at the idea that returning home had become so impossible that his brother would actually study something like this.

A familiar sound of chain links came into Al's ears and atop the pile of papers from Ed and Winry's adventure Mustang lowered a nostalgic silver watch.

"It was in your brother's coat pocket."

Carefully Al picked it up, cradling it in his hand. The watch was pristine – kept nicely polished and cleaned through every crevice on the device and it looked like it had managed to withstand the wild ride home. Alphonse popped open the lid with the pinch of his thumb. The younger brother had to scramble to get his hands over the table as shards of glass spilled out from the watch. Standing like the rest of the watch might fall apart in his grasp Al waited and watched as the shards glass once protecting the hands of time finished falling away. The second hand continued to tick around the clock face despite the broken shield; the watch hadn't stopped.

"What time is it?" Alphonse asked, shaking out his hands and looking to Mustang who produced a brush and dustpan to sweep the glass into.

"It's eight thirty in the morning."

The hands on Ed's otherworld watch read ten after two. With the shake of his wrist, Al discarded the remaining specks of glass into the dustpan and snapped the lid shut. Al glanced around the tables covered with mystery pieces of an unfathomable story; everything was tagged, labelled, and sorted. Al looked for the spot that the watch had come from – perhaps somewhere near the pile that was his brother's dusty brown, blood-speckled coat? Al headed to that table but the young golden eyes were captured unexpectedly and Alphonse carried the silver watch in his hands over to a little white tray on a table next to a pile of Winry's clothes.

The watch was put down silently and Alphonse's two hands collected a very familiar but very dirtied and damaged little doll. Al stared at the trinket wordlessly, his thumbs brushing the torn fringes of the gaping hole in the side of the smiling doll's face – Al pushed some of the escaping white stuffing back inside.

"We tested everything," Mustang's voice came up behind Al, "that doll has chalk, traces of gunpowder, and Winry's blood on it."

"What happened to them?" Al mindlessly asked the doll.

Alphonse couldn't begin to imagine what all these clues added up to or what story was trying to be told. For a moment, Alphonse's chest swelled with a great deal of pity for the officer standing at his back, because Mustang would have had to extrapolate something blindly from all of this before Alphonse had woken up. For as much as Al didn't know where to begin building a story out of this room, Al couldn't imagine what Mustang must have thought of their situation. The sinking feeling churning in Al's stomach telling him that something disastrous had happened prior to the transmutation that sent all of these clues through with the rebound continued to get worse.

He sighed, not knowing where to start the terrifying tale and Al looked at the doll still in his hands, "Can I take this?"

Mustang hesitated before answering, "It's evidence."

Alphonse's thumbs pushed the soft white stuffing protruding from the tear back into the doll, "It's Winry's… and if its evidence you're never going to be able to prosecute anyone with it."

Silence crept in as Mustang held onto his response, giving the young Elric time to turn the doll over in his hands and see the exit tear that was hidden behind the yarn in the doll's hair. Al wondered how the hair had managed to escape damage.

"Is there any evidence I can gather from all the blood on your clothing?" Mustang finally asked, "we haven't been able to identify it."

"No," Al continued to look at the doll in his hands, his words absolute, "it was blood from the other side of the Gate. You probably won't ever be able to identify it. It's no crime you can deal with."

"Alphonse, would you look at me?" Mustang's request came out quickly, like he'd been waiting for an appropriate time to ask for Al's attention, but had finally given up.

The boy looked up to the officer with a stubbornly tight jaw and stern expression.

The officer frowned, "What happened to your eyes?"

Al blinked and the knots in his face were freed – it wasn't something he was consciously thinking about. It wasn't like every step Al made clanked, or that his voice echoed, or that he'd become disfigured in any way he would notice.

"I don't know," was the answer Al finally gave, looking down at the doll in his hands again, "Sensei and Aisa told me that my eyes were gold… but I haven't seen it yet."

Mustang motioned for Alphonse to head to the door, "Take the doll and go see for yourself."

Al stiffened his expression and held the wounded trinket tightly in his hands, taking strong and steady strides towards the door, "Thank you."

 


 

Al stood over the sink in the bathroom attached to Winry's room. Hours after he'd finally seen so many bizarre facts first hand, the change in his eyes was still startling and to Alphonse it was as distracting as a bruised right cheek with stitches would be. Not only did Al think his new eye colour changed the look of his face, altered the tone of his skin, and gave his hair a lighter tint, but it changed the perception of his eyes too. Every time Al looked up from the sink and saw himself in the mirror, he couldn't help but stare for five, ten, sometimes upwards of twenty or thirty seconds, before returning to his task. Sometimes it felt like he was looking at somebody else's reflection, though it wasn't a frightening sensation.

Al plucked the plug out of the sink and let a pool of pale pink water drain away. The dress from Winry's doll was rung out in a hand towel and set aside to dry. Al turned the beleaguered body of the doll over in his hands, eyeing the blood stains on the fabric that he hadn't been able to completely scrub away with a cloth and soapy water; Al wondered if soaking it would help, but that might fray the edges more.

"Alphonse?"

Al looked out into Winry's room, "Major?"

Riza's footsteps came to the bathroom door, "Here you go," she handed the boy a white plastic bag, "does that work for you?"

Al put the bag down on the counter and pulled out a small swatch of pale beige burlap, a tiny match-case with a needle and thread enclosed, and a small pair of scissors.

"Yeah, that'll do," Al looked up from his collection, picked up the doll and bag, and walked back into the core of Winry's room, "thank you."

Al glanced over to the window, watching as a stray gust of wind threw the curtains open, before he sat down in the plush chair next to Winry's bed; the mid-day sunlight was scorching. The room went silent again and the swatch of burlap was taken into one hand while the pair of scissors went into the other and carefully Alphonse cut out a patch from the fabric. Al laid his cut-out down over the torn hole in Winry's doll and wrapped it around the back of the fabric head to make sure it fit. Satisfied with the piece, the doll was put down onto Winry's sheets and Al flipped open the match case of sewing materials, eyeing the few basic colours he had to choose from. Al popped the needle out from the package and threaded it first with white thread, knotting the string off and then picking up the doll once more. His fingers filtering through the blonde yarn hair and Al debated where he should begin.

"Can't you use alchemy to fix it?" Riza asked, picking up the extra fabric and white bag as she set them aside.

Al shook his head, "Someone took the time to hand make this, so it should be hand fixed," the boy slipped his string into the back of the dolls head, "Sensei use to tell us that if we can fix it with our own two hands, do that instead of using alchemy. She made sure we knew how to hunt, how to cook, clean, build, mend, sew…" Al's voice trailed off, "all kinds of things. Lazy men make poor alchemists."

Riza tried to subdue the smile that sentiment left her with.

Al continued to lace the needle through the fabric in the back of the doll's head, "Have you ever been shot?"

"Me?" Riza's brow rose, adjusting the firearms belt around her waist, glancing to Winry laying in the bed, eyeing how the ends of her sheets were not tucked in and knowing that was so the nurses could change the bandages on her leg, "Yes, I have."

"Did you get shot in the leg?" Alphonse asked calmly as he worked.

"No," Riza looked off in thought, wishing she could remember if she'd known anyone who'd been shot in the lower leg, but all the woman could come up with for memories of comrades with gunshot wounds was the immediate afterimages of Mustang laying on the ground after a bullet had struck his eye. She shook her head of the memory.

Alphonse continued to hold his voice steady and composed, "You think Winry'll walk okay when she's healed?"

"She'll walk just fine," it was irrelevant whether or not Riza honestly knew if there was detrimental damage from the gunshot wounds or not, Winry would walk just fine, "and when the sedatives are done and her body says it's time to wake up again tomorrow, Winry can tell you herself."

Alphonse's needle moved through the fabric, winding white thread through the doll's face. With the twist of his wrist, Alphonse pulled the needle through the fabric at the lower cheek of the doll, then slipped his needle off of the thread and began pulling out a bit of the stuffing from the hole he was patching. The white fluff fell lightly into Al's lap and the younger of two brothers snatched up the match case and snipped out a bit of black thread. Al's brow knit as he wrinkled his nose, trying to thread the needle once more, and after he successfully accomplished the task, Alphonse looked abruptly up to Riza.

"Can it be tomorrow now?"

It was such a serious question and, despite how steady and true Alphonse had tried to keep his tone, the question had sounded so childish in his voice. Riza ended up responding with a light laugh, wishing she could give a different answer, "No, I'm sorry."

Al didn't even sigh before his needle dug into the cavity he'd created in the doll's head and he started to recreate the corner of the dolls smile that had been at the fringes of a bullet's destructive wrath.

"I have a patrol group to take care of, so do you need anything before I go?" Riza offered.

Al shook his head, "No, I'm fine."

"Okay," Riza nodded, stepping away and turning towards the door, "you know where to find us if you need anything."

Alphonse knotted up the black stitch work that fixed a smile and tucked his threads inside the doll as the woman left. The stuffing in Al's lap was collected and returned to the doll's head, and then the boy re-strung his needle with the white thread once more and continued his mending.

In the quiet room where people came and went, where the hot mid-day breeze lazily played in the fringes of the curtains, and where Winry Rockbell slept, Alphonse finally knotted off his final stitch and let the yellow yarn hair fall back into place. A softened smile worked its way into Al's expression and he turned the doll over in his hands, looking down at the mending task he'd completed. The shade of burlap was a little pale, Al's stitching wasn't perfect, there were still bloodstains on the fabric here and there, and it was certainly obvious that something had happened to damage the poor thing, but it was in much better shape that it had been before.

"There you are," Al brushed his thumb over the smiling face of the doll, "much better."

Al stood up from the chair and wandered back into the bathroom, picking up the lightly-damp outfit he'd washed and re-dressed the doll. Walking back to Winry's bed, Al stopped at the foot, grinning at how quickly she'd twisted herself around – it was like she'd sensed the room had been momentarily empty. The aid workers and nurses that Mustang had acquired kept trying to have Winry lay on her back, but Winry continued to roll onto her side, nuzzle her nose into the pillow, and resume sleeping soundly.

Still grinning, Al put the doll down next to the pillow Winry had buried her face in and quietly left the room.

 


 

Alphonse could have sworn he'd lived through his longest day by the time he'd fallen asleep that night. For all his boring and uneventful time at the Gate with absolutely nothing to do, the day Al had just spent in Mustang's base of operations rivalled complete and utter torture.

With both his brother and Winry unresponsive in their beds, Al had paced the top floor of the commandeered hotel amidst the sweltering July heat. He'd walked the proverbial 'hole in the floor' and tried to calm himself, tried to rest, tried to eat, tried to sleep, and tried to tell himself that things would be okay. None of it was working – Al was sure that his hair would turn grey at some point before puberty hit him.

Once the sun had set below the tallest buildings, Al escaped the summer heat by throwing himself half dressed into a pool the hotel kept out back in search of some momentary relief from everything he had been dealing with. The jaunt outside had been suggested by Lieutenants Havoc and Breda, who'd told Al that if he did nothing but pace around and silently worry over Ed and Winry he'd either turn himself into a wreck or make himself sick.

Al had floated on his back, staring at the magnificent hues of the Amestris evening sky, and tried to pinpoint exactly what was turning him into a spring waiting to be sprung; maybe if Al analyzed it he could calm himself down. Of course there were the nerves and anticipation of his brother and Winry finally waking up and hearing the stories they'd tell, but there was also fear for some kind of repercussions from leaving them at the Gate. Al also wasn't certain how their bodies had handled the transmutation or how much of it they'd even remember; Al dearly hoped they remembered very little. Then there was the unnerving mystery of all the clues that his brother and Winry had come back with from the other world. To make matters worse, no one seemed to know what had become of Izumi – Al could have surely used his teacher's company by this point.

What stood out greater than every other fact was the one overwhelming feeling telling Alphonse that he was indescribably excited.

The boy could see it: a bright glowing light at the end of the tunnel. Their lives had been starved of normalcy for so long, they'd been deprived of the warmth of flesh for just as long, they'd endured so much, they'd been almost irreparably separated, and the search for and realization of some form of success for each brother's journey was right there. Alphonse felt like he was a rabid beast chasing a raw slab of meat, except the beast could run and hunt the prize down – Al couldn't run fast enough to advance time to get what he desired. What Al wanted most of all was for everyone to wake up so he could look at all of their lives together – finally – and see: that after everything, this is who they were today and they're okay. It was a magnificent picture in the younger Elric's mind no matter how many injuries or oddities had occurred along the way.

After Al had worked through the escapade of his own thoughts and had dried off from the pool, Al twisted himself into a knot again when he watched the nurse give his brother one last shot to ensure he slept through the night – Al was dearly hoping they'd somehow forget to do that.

At some point past midnight, nearing the twenty second hour of consciousness, Al had finally fallen asleep in the chair next to his brother's bed and then woken up a few hours later with enough time to see the sunrise, witness the graveyard shift change over, and realize his world was exactly like he'd left it the day before. The silent stress Al had built up over the never ending day that suddenly became never ending 'days', combined with a poor night's sleep, gave the boy a moment where he either wanted to scream in frustration or burst into tears. Alphonse did neither.

That morning Al had braved the trek into the core of the hotel in search of breakfast. The dining facility Mustang had set up on the second floor felt like it was not much more than a carpeted mess hall. Military personnel of all walks of life from Mustang's growing collection of people loitered in the room and Al quickly realized that the retrieval effort for himself, his brother, and Winry in the days prior hadn't gone unnoticed. From what Al had gathered directly from Mustang and his direct company was that it had been an unexpected rescue operation that the officer had stumbled upon and then the three officers had spent hours struggling to get them back to the hotel. Both Edward and Winry hadn't helped their causes – they'd both been wrapped up in their own deliriums and that had made them not only difficult, but loud. Now the trio's identities had become gossip material.

Al's senses were better than the whisperers were giving him credit for; he could hear when their names were uttered and see when the glances looked his way. Al's identity had been kept under wraps until that point, because he'd been referred to as Izumi Curtis' child and only Mustang's inner circle knew who he really was. Al was slightly amused to realize the monstrous size discrepancy between his human self and his armoured body worked to his advantage – no one was buying into the story that the two entities were the same person.

There were questions to whether or not the blonde woman in their care was Winry or not – if it were, it liberated Lieutenant Havoc from all of the claims and allegations put against him in regards to her disappearance.  Nobody seemed to be entirely sure though. Al was somewhat relieved to hear amidst the gossip that many had doubted the accusations in the first place, but thankfully whispers of Winry didn't last long. Al was content to have her left out of the gossip; the fewer people who talked about her, the less chance Dante had of knowing she was back.

So the real firestorm of stories surrounded the 'someone' resembling Edward Elric, the FullMetal Alchemist, who had been brought in and stashed away in the upper floors. People wanted to know where the former state alchemist had gone, what he had done, and what had happened to him while he was away. People had their theories, but none of the tales were true. Stories were made up about adventurous things, like how Edward Elric had travelled beyond the borders of Amestris in search of the Philosopher's Stone, how he'd headed through the desert to nations beyond to perfect his alchemy, and even some things less harrowing like he'd retired or gone into hiding and Mustang had hauled his ass back into service.

Alphonse at least knew where his brother's journey had taken him, though all Al could see of the journey was the front and back covers, he didn't know the contents of his brother's storybook.

Unable to convince himself to eat, Al gave up on breakfast, leaving it behind on the table, and he returned to waiting for the point where his brother or Winry would come out of their sedated stupors. Desperately in need of something to do, Al gave himself the task of dreaming up everything he wanted to say to his brother once he finally woke up. The list was long and continued to get longer with a mountain of 'whats' and 'whys' and 'hows' and numerous other w-type questions. As Al could figure it, if Winry had been beyond the Gate, she would have told his brother about him, but Al still wondered if Ed would be surprised to see him. It was funny to think – now it was Ed who was so big and Al who was so small. Unlike his excitable older brother, Al didn't mind his size one bit.

With the daydreams of his future life with his brother writing up stories in his head, Alphonse eventually – finally – fell asleep again later that morning.

 


 

One of many attendants who came and went throughout the endless day accidentally brushed the curtains and splashed hot sunlight into Al's face after he'd drifted off. The boy hastily cursed the bright summer's day while a voice he didn't recognize apologized for the rude awakening. Al slipped in the chair he'd fallen asleep in and stretched his legs, pointing his toes as far as he could manage. With a sigh, his muscles were all released and Al slouched horribly in the seat. From the sloppy position Al had, with his arms slung over the sides of the chair and his backside nearly falling off the lip of the seat, Al watched the last nurse in the room scuttle about before snatching up a sheet of paper and slipping out the door.

Alphonse yawned, dumped his tired head against his shoulder, and looked at his brother lying on the bed, absently eyeing a matching set of golden eyes tiredly staring back at him.

A good five seconds passed before Al realized…

"BROTHER!"

Al jerked so suddenly that the seat cushion slipped out from beneath him and the boy landed on the floor with a thud. His arms and legs flying, Alphonse scrambled back to his feet, staggering to regain balance and unable to find a reaction in the list of things and ways he'd dreamt up on how he'd properly greet his brother right here and now.

"You fell on your ass…" Ed's words came out slowly and sloppy while a grin worked its way into his face.

"Y-you're up! You're awake!" Al's words were frantic – this wasn't how this moment was supposed to go! "When did you wake up! Wh- Ho-how long have you been up?" the younger brother's thoughts were pulling him a million different directions while the shot of adrenaline made each thought strong enough to tear him apart. Much to Ed's amusement, Al danced in one spot.

"About half an hour…?" Ed shifted on the bed, stretching his shoulders until something cracked, "kept closing my eyes when the nurse walked by… didn't want to cause a commotion, it'd wake you up."

What an absolutely absurd idea! Alphonse's hands slammed down on the mattress and gripped the sheets with enough strength to tear them, "You should have woken me!"

"Pff… I was watching you sleep," an unintelligible noise was forced through Ed's lips as he released himself limp to the bed, "it's been a while since I've seen you sleep. It was nice to watch you breathe."

Alphonse's jaw slipped and it hung open wordlessly; he couldn't find a response for that. Again and again Al found himself opening his mouth, taking in air, and attempting to find something monumental to say to his brother. He had a million questions, had a million more things to just say, and every time Al readied his thoughts with verbal bullets to pepper his brother with, the young voice only shot blanks. Without having said a thing, Al climbed onto the bed at his brother's side and sat back on his knees.

"I feel like I weigh a thousand pounds," Ed squirmed a bit before giving up on moving for the time being and just looked up to Al instead, "I can barely move."

"They kept you asleep so you could recover," Al put his hands down in his lap, resisting the urge to giggle because the medication was obviously still in Ed's system – he sounded drunk.

"They…" Ed pinched his eyes as he sifted through some strange memories, "Mustang-they?"

"Yeah," Al nodded, an excited grin finally beginning to surface, "they found us and have been taking care of things."

Ed opened his mouth to comment but ended up stalling without voicing his thoughts. A single eyebrow lowered with concern as he stared at Alphonse, "What the hell is wrong with your eyes?"

Al blinked; even after staring at himself for hours on end in the mirror, his mind still didn't register that his eyes were a new colour, "I haven't figured that out yet."

Edward decided to take Al's answer and leave it at that. His eyes slipped away, squinting as the heavy curtains failed to obscure the time of day when a breeze came up again, "Is Winry okay?"

"Yeah," Al nodded, "they fixed her leg up, so she'll be okay."

The conversation paused at that point, like neither boy knew where things should go next – there were a million things to say and all of them felt as important as the next. Two brothers soon existed together silently on a borrowed bed waiting for the world to sink in, neither moving until a breath of wind tossed the edge of the curtain, flooding the room with sunlight.

"I don't really remember what happened after I came back through the Gate," Edward sat up a little and he reached his arm out, scrunching a handful of golden brown hair atop Al's head, "but I remember something about finding you covered in blood and I couldn't make you wake up. If I'm the one in bed and you're the one watching over me, I take it you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," Alphonse nodded as the light breeze from the window died and the curtains settled to dim the room, "the blood wasn't mine and it was the Gate's fault I was asleep."

Ed's hand slipped out of the mess he'd made of Alphonse's hair, "The Gate's fault?"

Al nodded, letting the feeling of accomplishment, pride, and success flood into his chest and invade his smile, "I found a way beyond the Gate, and when I reached in I saw you and Winry there," Al watched his brother draw upright in bed, "I turned on the transmutation circle to bring you home."

A terrified and concerned sound surged into Ed's voice, "Why were you at the Gate?"

"Dante," Al figured the single word was enough of an answer.

Edward's head snapped to the side in disgust, like he was ready to spit at the sound of the woman's name, but then the older brother paused as a realization quickly struck and he looked back to Al, "Wait, can you do the…?"

Grinning ahead of his response, Al crawled across the bed, clapped his hands together, and put them down on the bedroom wall. A blue spark lit the room and both boys looked to the door, watching it close and seamlessly seal as Al presented his answer. Al looked back to his brother enormously pleased with himself, "Yeah, I can."

Edward's gaze eventually slipped away and down to focus in the palms of his hands, "I don't dare clap my hands right now," Ed clenched his fists, "there's all this untested, unproven garbage I picked up beyond the Gate in my head… I'm liable to blow something or someone up by mistake if I don't test my knowledge first. I can't risk that," the bridge of Ed's nose abruptly creased, his eyes narrowing with a scowl, "I'll need to find another way to deal with that bitch."

"That was it… I remember," the younger brother's voice swept in while his thoughts ran about, eyes flying wide. Al slid himself up to the side of his brother once again, crossing his legs and sitting on the mattress, holding is ankles as he looked into the confused and concerned expression Ed offered him, "I couldn't get you through the doors. I tried, but the Gate… it… it wasn't that it didn't want you to come home…" Al's gaze slowly looked around the room as he tried to find a way to voice a feeling and a knowledge that was indescribable.

"You weren't supposed to come home."

Ed's brow rose.

"It was wrong," Al stared back into his brother's golden eyes, "I don't remember anymore why it was so wrong, I just remember feeling and knowing and understanding that it was completely, totally wrong. The Gate tried to enforce that on me."

Edward turned his hands over and stared into his palms resting atop his knees.

"I think the Gate was afraid of what would happen if you came back, because you knew too much," Al's words tumbled from his mouth, like if he didn't get the words out quickly enough, they'd disappear, "but it wasn't fear… it was something else. I don't know what, I can't explain it. It was just wrong, it was never meant to happen, so I couldn't bring you all the way home. The Gate still wanted you."

Ed gave his acknowledgement to Alphonse with a slow nod, flipping his hands over between the fronts and backs, "I guess I satisfied the Gate enough that I was allowed to come home."

It was a statement so wide open that no one could have resisted asking and Al jumped in, "What did you do?"

Alphonse watched as Ed lifted his arms and stretched them out in front of his body, facing his palms out into the room. The fingers of his right hand could stretch as well as his left, the bandage on Ed's right hand restricted full movement. The brothers watched as stripes of sunlight slipped into the room from between the slow-moving curtains and painted Edward's arms with white light before the older brother let the two flesh limbs fall down to his lap.

Edward grinned his characteristic, knowing grin, "I opened the door."

Alphonse didn't know if he wanted to drown in fear of that statement or reach over and punch Ed for it. Al knew his brother well enough that the words he answered with were the window dressings for something else. But, if his older brother wasn't willing or able to disclose what exactly he'd done, even in this sealed room, there had to be a good reason for it. Al wondered if there was ever going to be a point in their lives where nothing existed beyond their family that would threaten what the boys could share with each other.

All that remained between this point and that was Dante.

"You said a long time ago that the Gate was full of knowledge and everything we might ever have wanted to know was there," Al looked to his brother curiously, "it was full of all kinds of truths you wanted."

Ed laughed, "Yeah, that world was full of knowledge. I found a million treasures there and read incredible things, studied up on the histories of people who'd died century's ago, ate up their 'mythology', understood the means of things that world couldn't possibly figure out," Ed cleared his throat, sitting up a little more, "fantastical things, impossible things, the history of all other things…"

"But?" Al offered.

"But," a hard, definitive tone came out in Ed's voice, "there is no 'truth' beyond the Gate."

According to Ed in years past, the Gate had withheld some kind of truth – and it frightened their teacher but tantalized the older brother. A wealth of unobtainable knowledge was there and, though he never had the chance to actively seek it out, so many of the things Ed had thought he'd wanted had been flashed before his eyes during his trips to the Gate. The Gate had cruelly teased a forlorn child and made him feel like it concealed enough knowledge to give Ed back everything that he had lost.

"The Gate didn't have anything I wanted," Ed looked to his younger brother. The biggest truth that no one knew about was the kind of exchange required to obtain alchemy knowledge from beyond the Gate: everything else. "I wanted to leave, I wanted to come home and see you, I wanted to save Winry from it, and none of the massive amounts of knowledge and formulas and history I ever found in that world could do that for me."

Beyond the Gate was a dark world, ravaged by its own doings, and grossly ignorant of its past – Al had seen it clearly and could still feel the sluggish pulse of their lives. At one point in the other world's long forgotten history it had been an alchemy trove, but not anymore. The tangible value the other world had to the Elric brothers' world was buried within history, now the two worlds had moved beyond their historical origins and evolved to carry on a symbiotic relationship. Al was almost certain that if the souls of that world didn't have a place to escape to and didn't have a one-way street to the Gate doors, the world beyond would somehow swell so much that it would explode – alchemy in the brother's world was a necessity to drain the energy from the other world so it could continue functioning safely.

"I had get home to you," Ed's brow creased, his voice deepening, "If I ever stopped, then I was giving up… I couldn't do that. I couldn't give up on you or on Winry."

Al felt the hot air of the Amestris day burn in his lungs with every breath; the younger brother had known something absolute the moment he'd reached into the Gate, so surely if Ed had been focussing so hard on that rebounding transmutation circle he must have known as well…

"Brother, there was nothing you could have done to get home."

By the look in his brother's eyes alone, Alphonse realized that at some point Ed had reached that conclusion. But what Al saw wasn't a resigned gaze or humbled expression – it was steadfast and absolute defiance against the truth.

"I'd have kept searching – something would have turned up," Ed scowled, "There was too much to that world that something someday wouldn't show up for me to use."

Al wouldn't give his brother the courtesy of thinking he was ignorant because Ed was too smart to be that foolish, so he was simply being stubborn – so stubborn that Edward wanted to believe he alone could overcome his own pre-determined fate.

Without warning Al flew forwards, his child-sized arms engulfing his older brother, and the bedding exhaled a puff of air when two bodies fell heavily into the pillows and sheets. The entire room vanished; the light, the sounds, the surroundings, everything, while the two strongest arms the younger sibling had ever known squeezed tight around the boy's shoulders and back. Each brother shut out the world for a few minutes, hanging on tightly to something they'd fought so hard for and had tried so hard to get back.

Both brothers were allowed themselves a moment to feel and indulge in the profound feeling of success.

"I missed you," Ed managed to share.

Alphonse strained to hear the hoarse message his brother had given and the younger brother squeezed his meagre human arms tighter, trying to find a way to match the trembling strength in the arms capturing him. With a deep breath, Alphonse spoke into the ear Envy had violated when the sin had told Edward this journey that had been taken and sacrifices that had been made was an odyssey without rewards; he was supposedly entitled to nothing.

"Welcome home."

 


To Be Continued…


Chapter 42: Second Chances

Summary:

Safely at home, together, and in one piece, Ed, Al, and Winry start to re-orient themselves to their lives.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Alphonse Elric sometimes felt like two different people: the boy who had lost his memories and the boy who had been armour. Today he was the boy who had been armour was newly flesh again, so from that perspective it had been years since Al had felt his body move like this. The younger of two Elric brothers ran through the floors of the hotel like he was made of elastic and weighed nothing at all; the tips of his bare toes threw him forwards and his arms pumped momentum along while the boy's hands grabbed at the air, hoping he could pull himself forwards a little bit more with each motion. He'd been doing it all day: running – there was so much excitement! Al bounced off the staircase railing before bolting upstairs, his legs launching him to every third step, and Al burst onto the top floor almost unburdened by gravity.

Like the guard monitoring the upper floor had been expecting his arrival, the officer's finger was pointed down the hall, "Miss Rockbell's room."

Al found his stride again as he powered down the hall, rebounding off of the doorframe and nearly falling into Winry's room, staggering to a stop at the foot of her bed and gasping for air.

Already awake, Winry looked back at Al through tired eyes, her hair sitting wildly atop her head. Slowly pushing herself up onto one elbow for support, Winry sat up a little further.

"Al…"

Alphonse lost interest in catching his breath; again he moved quickly, leaping onto the bed on all fours, scrambling across the sheets, and his arms flew around Winry. The pair fell back into the pillows and the bedding seemed to explode on contact. They sunk into the bed, Al holding on with all his might and Winry too heavily medicated to do much more than just hang on.

"You're okay?" Alphonse asked when the sheets had finished settling down around them.

"Mmhm," Winry nodded.

"I'm so glad," Al squeezed a little harder and it took all of his willpower not to cheer into Winry's ear, "and I'm so glad to see you! You're finally awake!"

"I'm glad to see you too," Winry giggled at the excitement in Al's voice, "I missed you."

"I missed you too," with another tight squeeze and a deep breath, Alphonse finally let go. He sat back on his knees at Winry's side, helping her sit up in the bed, "Are you okay? Is your leg bothering you at all?"

Winry was stuck between bewildered and overwhelmed as she processed the questions, "I'm fine Al. My leg, it…" Winry glanced down, concern slowly entering her face. Both Winry and Alphonse sat on the bed quietly before the blanket moved when Winry wiggled her toes.

"Your leg should be numb!" Al chirped, "The nurses numbed it because of the surgery and soreness. You can't feel it at all, can you?"

Winry wiggled her toes again. For a moment – only a fraction of a second – there was a very distant and unsettling look that passed through Winry's eyes. Before Al could think of anything to say or do about it, Winry smiled at him, "Its numb Al. It doesn't hurt."

"Great!"

"Al…" a frightened sound emerged quickly in Winry's voice, "is Ed okay?"

"Yeah," Al would have yelled his joy over that fact out the window if he could, "Brother's in the next room!"

Winry's relief could almost be felt – the loss of tension in her body, the loosening of her muscles, and the sigh in her next breath. Al's excitement teetered around for a moment before he slid himself off the foot of the bed and dropped to his knees.

"Did he get into a fight before you two came home? The brigadier general says he's pretty banged up," the top of Al's head vanished from Winry's sights.

"Al…?" Winry's curiosity rose, "what are you—"

Al's head peeked over the mattress, "I have something for you!"

"You do?" Winry tilted her head.

"Yup," Al bounced to his feet, pulled something heavy out from under the bed, scraped it along the floor, and then heaved it onto the top of the mattress.

Winry's eyes lit like a child on Christmas morning, "My tool kit!"

"I think we found everything that was in it," Al beamed, crawling back onto the bed.

"Oh my beautiful tool kit," the medication wasn't strong enough to keep Winry bedridden from that. She pulled herself out from beneath the sheets and crawled to the foot of her bed, throwing open the lid, "what a sexy bunch of instruments you all are."

"I thought you might like to see that again," Al beamed and sat straight like a proud and praised puppy, "figured you hadn't wanted to get forcefully divorced from your favourite things."

Winry laughed at the notion, "Al, you have no idea."

Unable to do much more than grin and soak up the unfolding day, the younger Elric brother slid up side-by-side to Winry on the bed, "This is great – this is all great!" it was so strange for Al to try and verbalize how good it was to feel so successful when there had been no point prior when anything had gone this right, "I have my brother back, I have you back," Al's grin exploded, "I even got my memories back!"

"You got what?" Winry's blue eyes flew open wide, her dropped jaw morphing into a widening smile as she stumbled through her words, "I thought Izumi said… but, you got them back… really? "

"Uh huh!" Al glowed.

"Al, that's fantastic! I'm so happy for you," Winry squealed, a still-tired pair blue eyes looking into a sparkling set of golden ones, moving like she was prepared to hug him…

… and suddenly the whole exchange derailed. Winry froze, "What the-?"

"What?" Al looked around abruptly.

Winry leaned in nose to nose, pushing Al back in surprise, "What happened to your eyes?"

"Oh," Al blinked; even after staring at himself for hours on end in the mirror, his mind still didn't register that his eyes were a new colour, "I dunno."

"Mr. Elric, Miss. Rockbell?" a voice interrupted.

Both Al and Winry turned to the doctor who stepped into their reunion.

"I'm going to need Miss Rockbell for the next short while," the older, burly man folded his arms, "to ensure everything is as it should be. I'm going to ask you to excuse yourself, Alphonse."

"Okay," Al slid himself off the side of the bed.

"No no, wait Al, come back for one sec," Winry's hands patted down on the sheets, "get up here."

Al glanced to the doctor who shrugged his approval and crawled back up onto Winry's bed again while she motioned for him to re-seat himself in front of her. Even while Al was still settling Winry collected one of his hands and held it in her grasp until he was seated. Al watched with interest as Winry turned his hand over and opened it palm-up. Al had noticed something about everyone else's hands – they all seemed more worn than his. Izumi had told Al at one point in time that Ed had transmuted him to a state that was something like being brand-new; his hands and feet, elbows and knees, none of them felt like they had any wear or tear. Though, out of all the hands he'd come in contact with since his older brother had brought him back, even after all the journeying, Winry still had the softest touch out of anyone. Winry placed her other hand down on top of Al's open palm and looked at him for a few moments. Winry's eyes moved around, looking him over carefully like she was inspecting him for something, and settled for a straight-on stare back into Al's eyes. It was a soft gaze that lasted long enough to cause Al to shift around and hope Winry couldn't see him blush.

Al was given his hand back suddenly and Winry's hands landed on his ears – she dipped his head forward and left a strong kiss on Al's forehead before freeing him.

"Go hang out with your brother for a while," Winry told him, sending the boy slinking off the bed again, red in the cheeks and grinning fiercely, "he missed you like crazy."

Al backed himself up to the door, thumbs finding the belt loops on his pants, "Sure, I'll make sure he's not giving the other doctors headaches."

"You do that," Winry smiled, "and come back and see me later!"

"Yup," Al bowed his head and scampered from the room, "will do!"

 


 

Edward Elric concluded that the Amestris sky was brilliant – brilliant with its scenery, brilliant with its colours, brilliant in its vibrancy, and just brilliant. Throughout the evening the sun moved down through Ed's vision, skipping across slanted rooftops, and eventually dipping below the skyline – but not below the horizon – and the sunset managed to create a host of colours Ed had forgotten had existed. Sunsets in Germany and Britain were nothing compared to this. The polluted, lifeless grey that had been infused into everything was washed away and Ed was at a loss for how to explain how it felt to see that.

Ed glanced over when the latch to the roof was rattled and the hinges groaned. Ed grinned when his younger brother's bright gaze fixate on him – the colour change in Al's eyes hadn't been hard to get use to and Ed actually thought it made the expressions on his face shine a little more.

Every time he saw Al it was like drifting through a good dream – Ed hadn't seen this much of his brother's flesh face outside of his nightmares in ten years.

"Watching the sunset?" Al asked as he walked up.

"Yeah," Ed grinned as Al sat down next to him.

"What were the sunsets like beyond the Gate?" Al crossed his legs and looked up to Ed.

It wasn't like Ed to stall when Al asked questions, but he took a moment anyways and just looked at Al in the evening light. The Alphonse Elric sitting next to him was exactly what Ed had wanted to reclaim and at first and second glance it still didn't quite seem real. None of the important things Ed had ever wanted, or thought he'd wanted, had ever been reclaimed, so there was a throbbing lump in the centre of Ed's chest that made him think he was waiting for the punch line to a cruel joke to appear or that he'd finally see the catch in his life for this reward. Even though he'd known months in advance that Al had his body back, that he was alive and healthy, to look at his younger brother like this, to know this would be what he would see day in and out, Ed felt an endless bombardment of relief, joy, and anticipation.

Al would get to grow up.

"Brother?"

Ed's nose wrinkled and he threw himself back into the conversation, "Sunsets sucked beyond the Gate. The sky was filthy."

"Pollution?" Al's asked.

"No," Ed shook his head, "just how things were: everything looked dirty."

"Oh," Al sat forwards, casting his gaze out towards the remnants of sundown, "I kinda got a glimpse when I was at the Gate, but what kind of things were there for you to do beyond the Gate?" the younger brother rubbed his hands over his knees, "you couldn't have possibly just studied alchemy for so long?"

Ed chewed on the question for a moment, which was sort of like trying to grind down a huge wad of leather. What did he do beyond the Gate, "Well… I'd been working the last year and a half."

Al sat himself up a little higher, eyes widening with interest, "What did you do?"

"I…" Ed suddenly realized that his line of work had been very, very unlike him; he hated that world for domesticating him, "I was an office assistant."

"You were a what?" a laugh was buried in Al's surprised voice.

"I was the office bitch in the science wing of the university dad worked at," Ed suddenly hopped he wouldn't have to tell that to anyone more than Al… the looks on peoples' faces would get old really fast.

Al didn't speak up again for some time; Ed turned to him and sat silently while he watched his brother wrap himself up deeply in thought. Al sat quietly, twitching his nose while he thought. Ed recalled the wretched feeling of watching his younger brother think as a suit of armour: Al would be frozen – almost vanishing into his thoughts like he ceased to exist – and nothing would move. If Ed was lucky, Al would hum his thoughts. It was a painful silence that lasted as long as it took to draw his conclusions. Now Ed looked on while Al thought, watching his brother's eyes move, brow lower, nose flinch, lips purse, shoulders roll, and feet shuffle.

It was five seconds where everything was just so right.

"I have a question," Al finally blurted out, "Dad was with you beyond the Gate, wasn't he?"

Ed didn't think he would have encountered that question and have everything around him feel good enough that it would just roll off his shoulders. Ed dressed himself up in a frown anyways, "Yeah, Dad was beyond the Gate with me."

Al shifted around so that he faced Ed, "Did you know him very well? Did you two talk?"

Ed sat up a little straighter and looked back at a number of years' worth of memories, "I… um," and after some thought and consideration Ed dug out the desire he needed to tell Al, "I lived with Dad."

"Huh?" Al blinked.

"I lived with Dad for most of the time I was there."

Al was very lucky he was already sitting down.

"What?" Al gawked with disbelief, his eyes darting around in confusion. Ed's reply defied everything the boy had ever believed possible between his brother and their father, "Y-you did? Wh… w-why? How? "

Ed almost felt like laughing at the reaction – if someone had told him his story in advance, Ed wouldn't have believed it either, "I'd lost my arm and leg again, but Dad found me and dragged me home with him. He kind of um… forced his fathering on me."

"And you took it?" it really just wasn't sinking in for poor Al, “Why?  How?”  This was his older brother who loathed and despised their father to his last breath.

Ed smirked at Al's reaction, "I didn't take it willingly most of the time…" Ed hesitated, allowing his eyes to lower and his thoughts to drift back to the beginnings of a lonely journey that felt like it had started a lifetime ago… and strangely it came after another lifetime he'd had that was even farther away. Ed looked back to his younger brother and felt a little old, "but I didn't know where I was, I didn't have anywhere else to go, and I wasn't in a position where I could take care of myself. So, yeah, dad tried to play parent for me."

Al's wide eyes bounced off the rooftops surrounding them before they leapt back to his brother again, "Did you two get along?"

Ed narrowed an eye, "That depends on how you define 'getting along'."

Before Al dug up another question the younger boy let his focus fall into his hands, "When I reached into the Gate, I could see everything. And I don't just mean 'everything'; I mean I could see everything – even things that weren't things . It was too much, I couldn't understand it all, but I understood enough to know that if I thought about you, I'd find you… and I did," Al looked up to his older brother, "but I tried to look for dad and he wasn't there."

Ed swallowed his next breath, "Dad died, Al."

Preceding silence wasn't needed, the younger brother just slowly nodded, "I figured that's what happened. Do you know how he died?"

Al might never get out of his older brother a proper explanation for the gut-wrenching, sickened look that sat behind Ed's eyes, but Ed still gave him an answer, "Envy killed him."

Again something was said that derailed Alphonse's thoughts, " Envy? What was Envy doing there?"

"He got through the Gate at some point," Ed shook his head, distancing himself from a few memories, "He didn't come through like the rest of us, he came through as… well, a thought in people's heads. He was a homunculus with no soul and his body didn't make the trip, but his mind came through and floated around looking for someone he could either use or wanted to use him," Ed slowly pulled in a deep breath before continuing, "Envy's stuck there now, there's no way to bring him back. He can be their nightmare from now on."

Al had no reply for his brother's statement, the boy's eyes only wandered away and drifted off into the sky.

"I'm sorry you never got to spend much time with him, Al," Ed's hand finally patted down atop his brother's soft hair, "you would have been able to appreciate him a lot more than I did."

"I can't change it," Al shook his head, a definite sound of disappointment being suppressed, "so I'll just have to get stories about dad from you."

Ed rummaged his hand through his brother's hair, rocking the boy's head with the motions before letting it go, "Well…"

Al looked to Ed as the older brother twisted his face with some thoughts.

"If you want…" Ed narrowed an eye and the bridge of his nose creased. Ed thought for a moment about what he wanted to say and finally drew back to Alphonse, his lips curling with amusement, "I can tell you the story behind how Dad got himself fired from his advisory job with Britain's armed forces before we moved to Germany. It's kinda entertaining."

Al's eyes again widened with intrigue, curiosity, a bit of concern, and fascination above all else; a number of looks that Ed might never get tired of seeing on the face of his baby brother. Even if Ed never regained feeling in his arm and leg, or if the damage done from the journey stung forever, none of the wounds would ever be enough to overpower the feeling of sitting right here right now. Ed would harbour all the damage if it meant he could have moments like this.

Alphonse grinned at his brother, "Sure!"

 


 

Somehow, on one leg, Winry Rockbell had pushed the sorry excuse for a table in her hotel room up next to the window after a painstaking amount of effort. It wasn't a great view but Winry still liked seeing what she could of the trees, the rooftops, the sky, and the stars – even in the night full of faint street light it absolutely beat out the mundane scenery she'd just spent months looking at. At some point during her observatory evening she'd managed to hobble over and turn off the lights so the stars would show up better. Winry hadn't noticed until she was looking at an Amestris sky again: there were so few stars in the other world's sky.

A knock interrupted everything and Winry glanced over her shoulder when the door opened. The intruder made her smirk.

"Well, hey there stranger," Winry narrowed a teasing eye at Ed through the dark room, "I heard a rumour you existed. What brings you to this neck of the woods?"

"Ha ha," Ed snorted at the greeting and hid his hands in his trouser pockets after shutting the door, "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Do you think I'm any good at being bed ridden?" Winry rolled her eyes at the question, "and what do you think you're doing coming into a girl's bedroom if she should be sleeping? You knocked then let yourself in –didn't even wait to see if I'd answer."

Ed puffed out his cheeks and huffed as he walked up to the window, "Chances of you being asleep were poor to none, and if you were asleep I'd have left."

Winry narrowed an eye and patted her hands atop her knees, "Lucky for you I wasn't trying to get changed."

Ed drew to a stop at Winry's side and his cheek twitched while he looked out the window, his hands sinking deeper into his pockets, "I worked this hard to get home alive, I'd like to stay that way."

Winry withheld the urge to burst out laughing at him, "So, what's up?"

"Nothing much," Ed shook his head and stuck his nose to the window, "what were you looking at?"

"Nothing much," Winry smiled sweetly and gave Ed back his useless answer, tipping her head innocently when she caught his gold eyes look at her unimpressed, "just seeing how everything looks from here."

Ed gave a dismissive nod to everything, "Did you want to go up onto the roof and have a look?"

Winry choked on her laugh, "Do you know how hard it was to get all this set up with me hobbling around on these wooden… things ," she gave a wave of her hand to the crutches she’d given up on, "I can barely get to the bathroom, I'm not hauling myself onto the roof. That'd take hours."

Ed chuckled at the sour look Winry put on to go with her protest, "I can take you up onto the roof, Win."

"I don't want to be toted around, Ed," Winry sighed, "if I'm going up to the roof, I'll take myself."

"Are you doing okay?" Ed's question fell out like he'd managed to pop the balloon that held the words.

Winry figured he'd shown up for some purpose that was more than just nothing. The problem with the question was that the gauge she'd once used to determine 'okay' was in need of repairs and Winry wasn't entirely sure what a proper answer to the question would be.

"Well… I'm home, I'm safe, I'm with family…"

Ed's left hand surfaced and landed carefully on Winry's shoulder, "But… you're okay?"

Yes, Winry was okay because she wasn't dead or in a life threatening situation anymore… but Winry had been pulled right out from middle of the most terrifying ordeal she'd ever been through and plopped right back into real life. Winry felt like she was still supposed to be afraid of something. She didn't want to even glimpse at the events in the Thule Hall; it was done, she wanted to move on. No, Winry corrected her thoughts, she didn't want to 'move on' – she wanted to run from it.

Winry straightened around on the table and collected Ed's hand from her shoulder. She pried his left hand open wide, watching Ed's fingers straighten like his knuckles were stiff hinges. Ed had used this one hand every day, let it take abuse every day, and continued to rely on it every day to take care of them both and make sure Winry was in some state of 'okay'. Ed was always trying to take care of Winry, he'd told her that and was stubborn about it to the n'th degree; even when Winry would stomp her feet because she didn't want it and even when she was hurt enough that Winry really needed to hear Ed say he'd look after her. Winry looked up to Ed, eyeing the confused and awkward look on his face. There were black stitches on Ed's purple and yellowed right cheek bone; even in the dark, their Amestris world was clear enough that the colours could be made out, and when Winry's memories reminded her of the moment leading up to when Envy had struck Ed to cause it, Winry wished she could turn her mind off. Or crawl away from her thoughts. Or make it all un-happen. Or just-

Ed's voice intruded, "Win?"

Winry blinked and looked at Ed for a few moments, the concern on his face and in his eyes defeated any other shade, colour, or expression he might have donned.

"You okay?"

After a moment was taken to thoroughly read the look on Ed's face, Winry smiled and let his hand go. She rose on her good leg, holding onto Ed's shoulder to steady herself and Ed grabbed her arm as she wobbled. Even before she was steady Winry threw her arms around his neck and shoulders, squeezing with all her might. Ed staggered a few steps back, grabbing Winry as he stumbled trying to steady them both. When Ed's two feet became firmly planted and Winry teetered around on only one tiptoe, everything in the room spun to a stop.

"Thank you," Winry spoke quietly, "for how hard you're always trying to take care of me."

Without another word the two of them stood in the middle of Winry's dark room, a slit of streetlight the only thing peeking in from between two buildings shielding Winry's window. No one moved within the room, no movement came from beyond the four walls either, like everything had frozen just as Edward had. There were always these awkward moments where Winry would engage Ed beyond his comfort zone and he honestly wouldn't know what to do – it was sort of like interacting with a statue. But Winry had whittled down the time it took Ed to figure himself out, so it wasn't long before the statue softened into someone who put a hand down on the middle of her back and wrapped the other arm around her shoulders.

"And I'm so glad you came home," Winry's fingers dug into his shirt, "I'm glad that we're safe and that it's over and that we won't go back," she tucked her forehead away into a place on Ed's shoulder that he'd set aside for her tears and left it dry. "I don't know how I'm supposed to feel right now and I don't know how to describe how I do feel. I don't know if I'm okay or if I'm something else. I think I'm supposed to be talking or crying or venting or dealing over a lot of things and I can't… it's just not there," Winry's shoulders rose when Ed's grip tightened, "but I'll be okay, I promise."

After the moments she'd used to take her next few breaths, Winry found herself on the receiving end of a hug that out muscled her own. The world beyond Winry's window on this night remained strangely calm – no distant gunfire, sounds of people, or wind in the trees, and the world in front of Winry's window offered very little to overturn the silence. Wrapped in a quiet midnight cloak, Winry closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry," one of the two hands on Winry's back found its way into her hair to hold her head, while the other arm wrapped tight around her back, "for everything you've gone through and everything you've had to deal with."

"It's not your fault. It's never been your fault."

"I'm still sorry."

Beyond the Gate Ed had held himself accountable for Winry; what she'd dealt with and the things that had happened to her. Ed had held himself accountable for Winry every day; for what she'd lost and what she had the potential to lose. Ed held himself accountable for Winry and he would do everything in his power to stave off the world from breaking her down like it had spent every day for five years trying to do to him, even if the harder Ed tried, the larger the blows they were dealt became.

Ed had made himself so accountable for Winry's state of affairs that, by the time there were wounds on her body and waking nightmares preparing to become demons in their heads, the places Ed kept her safe, the warm and quiet places where she could hear him breathe, became the safest places in the world.

Some point well after Winry had told herself to ignore the soreness of the tired leg she'd been balancing on, Ed's grip loosened when she moved; Winry reached back for the table she'd been sitting on and Ed helped her slide back on. Winry tucked her hair behind her ears and looked up to Ed as he stepped away, capturing his hands before he could hide them again and Winry held them in her lap. Ed never tried to worm away or hide the embarrassment painted on his face, in fact Ed seemed quite entranced by the entire engagement; a very enthralled pair of golden eyes watched her with an expression that was some kind of cross between a person engrossed in a story and a deer caught in headlights. Winry wanted to giggle at how lost Ed seemed to be.

"Mr. Mustang's going to want to talk with us properly tomorrow, isn't he?" Winry breathed life into her voice.

"Yeah," Ed nodded.

Winry's brow tightened, "You guys are going to have to figure out what to do about Dante, aren't you?"

Ed's eyes were the first thing to depart the conversation, "Yeah."

"Okay," like she'd expected the answer, Winry accepted the response with a nod, letting go of Ed's hands, "then I'm going to go to bed and make sure I'm wide awake for question period."

"Yeah," Ed backed himself out of the engagement with a few reverse steps, then he straightened his shoulders and let his hands vanish into his pockets, "yeah, good idea."

Winry watched while Ed's next few steps turned him around and took him through the dark room to her door, his feet heavy on the floor like they weren't on his list of things to think about and his ponytail bouncing wildly with each step. Ed grabbed the knob, turned it, but didn't open the door – he looked back first.

"When we're done with Dante and it's safe to travel, I'll take you home like I promised."

Winry's brow rose, "We are home."

Ed stood at the door for a moment, barely able to be seen in the pale evening light. With his face locked up in a stern, unwavering expression, his powerful eyes the only thing catching what little of the street light made it through the room, Ed stared back at Winry and pulled open the door.

"Not all the way."

 


 

Roy Mustang had been more than prepared to capture and corral Edward coming downstairs that morning, figuring the once-metal FullMetal Alchemist would rise with the sun. While he lounged around alone amidst a collection of leather chairs pushed together to encircle a table littered with empty glasses and beer bottles waiting for the sun to rise, what Roy hadn't been prepared for was Ed making his way back into the building at four in the morning.  He could have sworn he’d told all three of them not to be seen, let alone leave.

Edward Elric was a startling thing for the officer to see no matter how many times he'd encountered Ed since his return. Beyond the fact that Ed was monumentally taller, he also carried himself differently. For this ungodly hour jaunt, Ed was dressed in a pair of beige trousers and wore a white dress shirt in place of the medical casuals he'd been dressed in since his rescue. The shirt was long sleeved, but Ed had rolled it up snug around his upper arms, left the top button of the shirt undone, yet he'd still chosen to tuck it into his pants. Ed wore a simple pair of sandals, his hair was tied up in a ponytail, and to Roy's amazement the entire outfit looked nice, casual, and properly pressed.

Mustang couldn't get over how strange that look was for Ed.

"What?"

Mustang retrieved himself from his thoughts and stared blankly at Ed's frown.

"What are you staring at?" Ed's brow fell further, one foot on the lower rung of stairs leading up into the suites of the building.

Shaking himself free from his analysis, Roy straightened himself out in his seat, gulped down what was left of his drink, and pointed to one of the opposing chairs, "Have a seat."

Ed took a moment to think about it before turning and taking up the man's offer. Roy watched the bandaged right hand hang from the flesh arm attached to Ed's proper shoulder as the whole limb swung in time with each step; he'd never observed Ed function with two matching arms before.

"What are you doing up this time of night?" Roy sat forwards as Ed dropped himself into a seat cushion, taking a bottle up from the mess and refilling his glass.

"Couldn't sleep," Ed pushed both his hands through his face, clearing away his hair, before it all fell back into place again, "thinking."

Mustang swirled his drink, melting away what was left of his ice cubes, "Ah, they must be deep thoughts to keep a man up so late." Without adding anything further to the current conversation, Mustang took a sip from his glass and then watched while Ed gave him a long, hard look before snapping his eyes around the arrangement on the table.

Ed finally narrowed an eye, "Are you absolutely wasted?"

Roy snorted, taking another drink, "I haven't been here that long. I can't speak for those who sat in these chairs before me though."

For whatever reason Mustang couldn't pinpoint, the response seemed to bring Edward to life. He watched while the golden blonde fished through the collection of glasses on the table, unearthed one that was potentially clean, and pushed it across the table. Roy blinked at it.

"You sharing?" Ed questioned.

Mustang cocked the brow over his seeing eye, "Magic word?"

"Fuck you," Ed chirped.

For someone who'd apparently been up all night, Roy was more than entertained by Ed's socially good spirit – it was unusual. Roy reached forwards, picked up the glass, and stood up, "I didn't know you drank."

"Now you do," Ed's elbow hit the arm of the chair and his chin landed in his hand.

"Why are we drinking together?" Roy asked as he walked through the room. He did actually want to know why; this scenario wasn't in his top one hundred in the list of things he was expecting to do this year.

Ed's reply was blunt, "Something new to do."

"Yeah?" Mustang reached onto the counter and flipped open the lid to an ice box, filling the stout glass half full with ice cubes, "well, word to the wise, I don't recommend drinking too often," he fingered his way through a choice of bottles that had been set aside from the collection of beer and generic lacquers that littered the centre table, "you end up with hangovers, memory loss, an empty wallet, and naked women in your bed," Roy undid a tall bottle and filled Ed's glass enough to submerge the ice. He glanced back, picking up his tone, "the latter of which isn't a bad thing mind you."

Roy was rewarded with a red-faced scoff followed by an eye roll.

"And I've always found I sleep rather well afterwards," the amusement on Roy's face continued to grow as the conversation topic frayed a couple of hair's on Ed's head, "it can also help release some tension. If you haven't tried it recently I do recommend acquiring company if you're having trouble sleeping."

Ed responded to Mustang with a magnificent deadpan expression and his flattest tone, "Not bloody likely."

Roy hesitated before grinning at Ed's reply. He sat himself down again and pushed the drink across the table to Edward, then wove his fingers together and put his forearms down on his thighs, "That’s new…"

"What’s new?" Ed sniffed his drink and crossed his eyes.

"The accent," Mustang mused.

Ed's interest in the drink waned, "I don't have an accent."

"No, I suppose not… not really," Roy reconsidered his statement. Beyond the fact that Ed's voice sounded deeper with the absence of his scratchy pubescent teenager problem, there was something very odd that kept popping up now and then, "you have an interesting inflection in your voice that comes and goes – it sounds faintly like an accent," he watched while Ed curiously swirled his drink around, searching for legitimacy to Roy's statement, before the officer added a touch of clarification, "It sounds stuffy."

There was a moment where Ed's brow rose, his eyes widened, and his lips began to curl – like the blonde knew something Roy didn't – before Edward finally burst out laughing. It wasn't exactly what Roy had been expecting for a reaction, so the man watched while Ed had himself a good laugh over the insight and wondered if he'd ever be let in on the joke. When Ed finished calming himself down he surprised Roy by abruptly downing the entire glass of alcohol he'd been given, nearly dropping it on the table by the time he'd taken the last swallow. What remained of Ed's amusement turned into coughs – the alcohol watering his eyes and flushing his face red.

Mustang's night suddenly felt quite unbelievable. He collected the glass Ed had discarded and made his way back to the side counter again, replenishing the oversized shot Ed had taken, and promptly returned to the two man engagement.

Ed's left fist thumped his chest as he continued to fight the after effects of the drink, " stuffy? "

"Yes, stuffy, and don't drink this one so fast," Roy put the glass down in front of Ed – now seemed as good a time as any for more relevant questions, "how's the feeling in your arm and leg?"

Ed shook his head, giving a sniff to the drink in front of him before picking it up, "Same as the last time you asked."

Roy felt a twinge of disappointment – he was kind of hoping Edward had a revised answer for him beyond 'numb', "And I heard you mention earlier you are twenty-two now?"

Clearing his throat, Ed shifted his posture and sunk into the arm of his chair, "Yeah, I turned twenty-two a couple of weeks back."

Roy was going to have to do a lot more work to convince himself that Ed wasn't sixteen going on seventeen, even if it was visually apparent he was not a child. The officer voiced another question, "That means you've been gone for six years?"

Ed shook his head a little, "Mmm about five and a half. Not six."

The way Ed spoke so casually about the length of time he'd been gone for was just a little unsettling from Roy's perspective. There were over five years in Edward's life where he'd lived in some place, existed in some way, and survived somehow in a world the rest of them would never know. Roy mulled over the answers he was getting, finding them willingly given without Edward's snarl or snark, and figured he'd continue with question period until Ed's willingness to engage in civil conversation waned. With that thought in mind, Roy daringly drove his questions up a few notches.

"Who assaulted you?"

"Excuse me?" Ed narrowed an eye.

Mustang slowly walked his carefully placed line of questions, "Obviously there was an incident around the time you came home, but when the doctors checked you over we found a host of old injuries that predated what we could see. What's been happening to you?"

In the middle of the night that was far closer to dawn than dusk, within the poor overnight lighting that the hotel kept on, Roy sat and waited while the question was weighed over in Ed's mind. The older man watched Ed's hand push aside the hair that covered his face, his fingers scratch into his scalp as it all fell into place again, and then Ed moved on to scratch the back of his neck.

"We were jumped," Ed scowled, his voice toning down into a low growl, "we were in an alley and got jumped."

For a moment Mustang considered requesting an elaboration, but unlike everything else Edward had offered up during the conversation, this one had a good deal of bite to it and it felt like it contained a substantial amount of the wall Ed had kept around himself for so long. Something in the back of Roy's mind told him the door to this question was a little bit more closed than he'd have liked it to be. As the officer debated where he'd take his questions next, Ed beat him to the next word.

"You know, when we were in Dante's ballroom," Ed took a moderate drink from his glass, a golden eye twitching at it when he swallowed, "and everything was a mess, I can remember asking you to take care of Al and Winry for me…"

Roy's brow rose, "I'm impressed you can remember that. You were out of it."

"Yeah," Ed shook his head like he was trying to escape the memory. He took a sip from his drink, "but you still took care of them anyways."

Mustang frowned, "You say that like you didn't expect me to."

"Not that," Ed looked into his glass of dwindling alcohol, the tension in his brow vanishing, "just, thanks for looking after them for me."

Mustang sat silently for a moment. Before all other thoughts occurred to him, the one thing Roy couldn't shake was how worn Ed was sounding. The subsequent thought interrupted the first – Roy hadn't even considered being thanked for that, let alone thanked from Ed. While Roy watched the blonde show deliberate interest in the drink in his hand, the officer's thoughts fell back to a moment where he'd been running through the Resembool countryside, chasing down a runaway boy wearing a braid down the back of his neck. What Roy wouldn't have given to get it through that stubborn child's thick skull that his commanding officer was trying to look out for him. He was trying to help. Roy had wanted to help. He'd always had the boy's best interest in mind – everyone around them did – if Ed had only opened his eyes wide enough to see it.

"You're welcome," suddenly Roy wanted to know the entirety of what had happened to Ed beyond the Gate, but since the sun was already crawling out from behind the horizon, the details would have to wait, "and you should get some sleep."

"You know," Ed paused to finish off his drink, clanking the glass down on the table as he swallowed before standing up, "this shit is disgusting."

Roy grinned, "It's strong. You'll sleep like a log."

Ed gave a thoughtful nod and headed towards the stairs up into the building, "Thanks for the nightcap."

With his grin still present, Roy called out a teasing bid goodnight, "Did you want me to refer one of the check-in girls to your room before the sun has completely risen?"

Ed stopped on the fourth step, his head shaking while his fingers danced around on the handrail, "I hope you die in a fire."

Roy let out a sharp, barking laugh, "Hardly."

 


 

Al had caught Winry sitting at the edge of the pool from an upper floor window. He watched her sit quietly on her own for a few minutes, the sun dangling directly overhead, her wounded left leg tucked away while the other dangled in the cool water of the pool. Al couldn't quite make out what Winry had in her hands, it was a metallic object of some kind and she turned it over on occasion, but whatever it was had her undivided attention. The younger Elric brother gave up his vantage point and made his way down, smiling across the deck to Winry when the screen door made a ton of racket as he came outside to join her.

"Hey Al!" Winry called.

Al walked up alongside her, kicked his sandals off and sat down. All dipped his legs into the pool, eyeing the wrench he spotted cradled in Winry's grasp, "What's that for?"

"It's for Ed," Winry sighed, like the object was a lot heavier for her than the weight in her hands would suggest, "well, sort of - it's the wrench that I had made ages ago to work on his AutoMail. He doesn't need it anymore… I'm not sure what I should do with it."

"You can use it for other things, can't you?" even Al had hung around Winry long enough to know when a tool was a little more than your garden variety kind.

The wrench was turned over in Winry's hands again and she wiggled her foot in the water, "I've used it for other things before it's just… this and Ed's AutoMail were synonymous things. My poor wrench has lost its purpose," she looked over to Al abruptly and spoke with a pouty lip, "it's purposeless and I feel sorry for it."

"That poor wrench," Al bit his lower lip and tried not to laugh, which was hard to do because it became obvious Winry was trying not to laugh at herself, "maybe you should hold a decommissioning ceremony for it?"

The discussion didn't go much further, both Al and Winry turned over their shoulders when the noisy screen door complained again. Ed ducked out of the shaded cover of the hotel and winced in the sun.

"Brother! We're debating the fate of your AutoMail wrench," Al announced as Winry flipped it around once more in her hands.

Ed's brow rose as he sat down on the other side of Al, "Yeah? Maybe you should melt it down and make something new?"

"I don't want to melt it," Winry scowled, "it's a fantastic wrench!"

Al had to admit he also felt a little put off by Ed's desire to melt it, "Don't you want to keep it Brother, like as a memento or something?"

Ed snorted, "No."

"Well, why don't we go get lunch and think about it more over food?" he looked between Ed and Winry flanking him, "I'm hungry."

A wild smirk swept into Ed's face, "For a little guy, you sure do eat a lot."

"Actually," Al pulled himself to his feet, straightened his posture, and looked smugly at Ed while his older brother stood up alongside him, "like a normal person, I'm a growing boy at this age," Al ducked out of the swat Ed made at him, "so let's go inside!"

No sooner had Al expressed his desire to head indoors than a flurry of gunfire and the sound of glass exploding from a window overhead kept the trio from going anywhere. Winry flattened herself against the pool deck and both Elric brothers dropped to their hands and knees. All three sets of eyes watched glass rain down from a shattered window in the hotel room a few meters away. Again a round of gunfire was set off and suddenly the sound of men's voices rose up.

"Get in the pool!" Ed ordered, "the door's too far, get in the pool Al!"

Alphonse scrambled towards his brother, getting grabbed by his wrist and then the scruff of his neck as Ed hauled him into the water. Without being told, the trio took a collective deep breath and all three vanished beneath the surface of the water in the deep end of the pool. The water had more than enough clearance above all their heads to hide in and Al opened his eyes as he sank to the bottom, looking to Ed and Winry as everyone put their backs to the pool edge and tried to crouch on the pool floor for as long as they could.

Really, this idea of hiding their movements at the bottom of the pool to discourage gunfire had a sixty-second life at best; all depending on when the first person needed to come up for air. Before anyone needed to breathe, the calmness in the water was abruptly disturbed by what felt like a boulder being dropped into the pool. The water surged, pressing the trio into the pool wall and pinning them for a moment before the backlash ripped them away. Three scrambling bodies rose to the surface.

Ed was the first to gasp for air, followed quickly by Al, then Winry. Everyone frantically looked to a black mass in the water as they scrambled to get to the pool edge. All three pairs of eyes watched as the mass burst out from the water and landed on the patio deck like a dark, soggy mop had been flung there.

Ed, Al, and Winry watched as Wrath snapped his head and threw his hair back, sending a shower of water everywhere.

Ed's jaw dropped, "You're still around?"

With purple eyes looking more like an animal than anything human, the homunculus grinned at the trio hungrily, "I found my arm and leg."

"That's so fucking old!" Ed barked and, though he had more to say, it was all cut off when Winry put her hand in Ed's face and abruptly shoved him away.

Like she could have boiled all the water around them, Winry's voice raged with hellfire, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THAT AUTOMAIL, WRATH?"

Both brothers looked at the wayward homunculus that Winry had done the humanitarian thing for and dressed up in her finest AutoMail.

It was rusted. Al's eye twitched.

It was mangled. Ed paled.

It had springs and wires popping out. Winry's fingers twitched around her wrench.

"It's very durable," Wrath stomped his AutoMail foot against the pool edge and the wild child swayed on his feet like an ape. Before anyone could react further, Wrath exploded from his stance and leaped over the pool.

Al clapped his hands together and used the water from the pool to snare the homunculus – surging it up like a geyser while Wrath sailed over it and then sucking him back down into the water once again. Wrath hit the surface with a belly-flop crash.

"Al!"

Al glanced over as Winry called for his attention.

"Can you pin him down on the deck?" Winry pushed herself towards the adjacent edge of the pool, cringing when the homunculus burst out of the water again and re-emerged above their heads with a scream, "I don't want to get electrocuted."

There was no time to debate it and Al kicked his feet through the water, clapped his hands together, and slammed them down on the edge of the pool. Two extensions of cement jettisoned out and caught onto Wrath in mid-air and a second transmutation rolled the homunculus up into the tendrils of solid material, quickly pinned him screaming face-down to the ground.

"Great," Winry climbed out of the pool and scrambled along on her hands and knees.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing WINRY?"

"SHUT UP ED," she silenced him with her most vicious glare.

Al watched, nearly wanting to cover his ears at the screams Wrath was making, holding his breath as Winry sat on the creature's ankles and latched her wrench onto the knee joint of her AutoMail work. Wrath continued to thrash within his bindings.

"Winry! He's going to break it," Al shrieked as both brothers scrambled through the water.

"Two seconds," Winry ripped her wrench around at the inside of Wrath's knee before she hooked it onto a secondary latch and ground down her teeth in frustration, "stupid thing is caked in rust… two more seconds."

The brothers reached the pool's edge where Winry was at and snapped their attention to the back doors of the hotel, watching wide-eyed as a host of armed officers with weapons pointed burst onto the patio.

The cement bindings cracked as Winry pried her wrench around once more. Wrath exploded from his trap, knocking the mechanic onto her backside at the lip of the pool and sending her wrench sailing across the yard – embedding in the doorframe next to Mustang's ear as he emerged.

The officer stared blankly at the blunt object.

"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE, FULLMETAL?"

Ed gawked – Mustang was expecting him to answer for this?

Wrath flew to his feet and stared down the collection of officers that stood poised to fire, knowing no one would shoot because there was someone sitting behind him. With a glint in his eye, Wrath took a step back on his AutoMail leg and looked over his shoulder at Winry on the pool deck.

The entire audience watched as two bolts suddenly went flying under the pressure of Wrath's weight and a number of springs sprung with the shift in balance. Winry folded her arms and glared at the creature while the entire knee joint buckled under his weight, completely falling apart. With a squawk, Wrath toppled over, falling into the pool amidst the clatter of parts hitting the patio.

"And that's why you take care of your AutoMail," Winry snarled.

No sooner had Winry announced her victory than another 'boulder' hit the water, showering Winry and following Wrath in, sinking the creature in the process. The boys startled exchanged glances before looking to Mustang, now standing at the pool edge. Ed and Al made their way to the shallowest end of the pool, watching a chaotic mass of darkness churn in the deepest parts of the water before it all went motionless. In the brief moments where everything was calmagain, Mustang's men moved forwards with weapons trained on the water.

The chaos in the pool's deep end moved again, slower and calmer, and a dark displacement drifted towards the soggy pair of brothers. The displacement came to life within the water, making its way towards the Elric brothers, and the boys' stomachs suddenly churned in absolute terror when they saw Izumi Curtis arise from the pool, the woman's own wrathful gaze assaulting everyone she glanced at with bricks. Dressed only in her leggings and black shirt, but wearing the most pissed off look anyone had ever seen her put on, Izumi dragged an unresponsive Wrath by his hair in one hand and carried a cleanly-sliced AutoMail arm in the other.

"S-Sensei!" Al moved towards her.

"SIT YOUR ASSES DOWN!"

Al abruptly backed up and sat down in the shallow end of the pool next to his already seated brother.

Izumi stopped, water at her knees, and she glowered at the two boys looking like they were wishing they could crawl away. The woman's eye twitched, "Hello Edward."

Ed cleared his throat and paled to a fantastic shade of Elric-white, "Hi…"

With the heaving motion of one arm, Izumi tossed an incapacitated Wrath onto one edge of the pool deck and then tossed Winry's rusted piece of work onto the other. The woman's arms flew back into her body, firmly folding across her chest, never once bothering to move the mess of soggy hair out of her face. Izumi took a sharp breath and everyone with an eye on the scene flinched.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA THE KIND OF HEADACHE YOU'VE CAUSED ME?"

 


To Be Continued…


 

Notes:

I went back to work this week and Wednesday snuck up on me. I'll have to go back and do the art later!

Most of my notes are just rewords/edits of my original chapter notes, this is a 2021 note:

This is the start of what would be the Dante Arc. If you've read this fic on LJ or FFN you'll know 43, the next chapter, was the last chapter I wrote in 2011. However, my googledrive right now is at 48 (and I'm currently writing 49). It's 2021 and I've been in quarantine/lockdown since March of 2020 and that's just where we're at. I'll clog up chapter 43 and 44 with more of my ramblings about this probably. But, this chapter, and the next, are slightly different than their FFN/LJ counterparts. I had to fix some story errors and adjust things a wee bit to accommodate a new approach to some old ideas :)

Original story notes:

Ed has a very profound, private, and absolute appreciation for all the people he got back… you know that saying "you don't know what you have until it's gone" - Ed, why do you have to learn things the hard way?

Just to revisit Al's situation and the age discrepancy between the boys now. Ed is 22; he was 16 and a half-ish when he got booted beyond the Gate at the end of the series and has been there for a subsequent five and a half years. Al, at the end of the series, was 15 but was reverted to a 10-year-old (the exact state where he'd vanished turning the transmutation of Trisha). I had 9 months go by in Amestris before picking up the story, so Al had his '11th' birthday in that time (his chronological 16th). Al was 11 for the entirety of the story until he got his memories back, which bumps his mental state up to 16 but leaves his physical state at 11. I really messed him up, didn't I? Al’s going to get to have his adolescence and grow up like all the other kids he got to see grow up. He’ll be the only child on the planet to appreciate puberty.

Chapter 43: Bad Witch

Summary:

Ed starts to reveal the extent of his knowledge from beyond the Gate & Brigitte begins to gain more understanding about the situation she's in.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Ed had watched his father stand at the front of lecture halls and teach for years. Hohenheim had taught in Germany and he'd 'lectured' in London briefly, so Ed had stood at the front of a classroom at one time or another; albeit, when the room was empty. It was a whole other feeling to have people focussing on him as an educator – it was kind of a powerful feeling, even if it was only a handful of people watching.

"Brother?" Al looked at him.

Ed shook his head, snatched up a black pointer stick, and refocused, "The Theory of Beyond the Gate is flawed," his golden eyes scanned the meeting room comprised of Al, Mustang, Armstrong, and Izumi – the people who'd actually understand what he had to say, "at least, Dante's version of it is. Dante believes her knowledge is close to complete because she's unaware of the other portions of the theory that the other side of the Gate covers, which means that everything she's doing is based on a forty to forty-five percent understanding of the full theorem."

"You've seen the theory?" Izumi asked, seated in a wooden chair with one leg crossed over the other.

"I've read it cover to cover," Ed nodded to his own teacher, his thoughts becoming occupied by memories of the book Envy had stolen from Hohenheim's office in Germany and mailed to Ed while they'd been in England. Ed frowned, "Dad had written a revised version during his time beyond the Gate with everything he'd learnt, but he was only able to complete it to eighty percent. The information needed to complete the theory is knowledge buried in that world's ancient history.  So, even Dad's incomplete theory still has no way to successfully bridge the Gate without guessing at the missing portions and running experimental trials."

"What we do know for sure is that the two sides of the Gate have a symbiotic relationship," it was Alphonse's turn to digress in the conversation, "our side feeds from the energy sent through the doors in order to lessen the strain on the other world."

"The soul energy of the deceased?" Mustang asked, restraining the disgusted undertone in his voice, "the dead souls you described earlier from the other world that I use whenever I perform alchemy."

"Yes," Ed's response came through firm and absolute, "and you have to be okay with that."

"You just can't think about it," Al echoed his brother's sentiment, "or maybe look at it in a different light: if our world didn't use their souls for our alchemy, then we wouldn't have our way of life and that other world would become ruined."

Armstrong's voice billowed up from the back of the room, "If we didn't tap into that energy, would the souls become useful to that other world and their knowledge of alchemy?"

"No," Ed shook his head, "they've actually evolved in a way that prevents the usage of alchemy.  Everything I ever found pointed to their loss of alchemy as just being part of their natural evolution," Ed glanced to Al standing against one of the tables before looking back to his thin audience, "if we ever stopped using alchemy, the volume of dead souls pooling at the Gate would become so overwhelming that the souls would begin to seep back into the other world. They'd have…" Ed paused to think about his next words, wondering if it was really what he wanted to say, "ghosts."

Before the alchemists in the room could check their moral compasses or begin to swallow the ramifications of what the brothers had to say, Al stepped in once more.

"Now that Diana's dead, one of three things can happen if Dante continues to try and breach the Gate with the partial knowledge of the theory," Al lifted a finger, "one, she'll get the information she wants and we'll have to try and contend with someone who has god-like powers," the younger brother popped up a second finger, "two, she'll break the Gate and the doors will be stuck open…"

"Despite the kind of anomaly the Gate is, the energy flow between the two worlds is regulated by it so we can both live our lives in the safest possible manner," Ed did his best not to sound horribly, disgustingly bitter while praising the Gate, "if the doors stay open and we taste too much of that pool of power, then our world would become oversaturated with energy and that would essentially cause an alchemist to overload. You'll overload the biological circuit board connecting the mind, body, and soul and alchemy essentially burns out," Ed glanced off in thought, "then both sides get 'ghosts', because we aren't using the souls."

An awkward silence and exchange of glances went around the occupants of the room.

"And three, the doors will break and become permanently shut," Al put his hand down in his lap, "which means we lose our way of life and at some point the other world will become overrun with its own death and fall into anarchy, madness, etcetera."

"Dante isn't going to attempt to breach the Gate until she's had her way with you," Izumi's deepening thoughts came through in her low voice, eyes looking at Edward, "all three of those scenarios are dependent on if she can get anything out of you first."

Ed nodded, "Yeah, I’ll find a way to deal with that…"

"Brother," Al finally aired out a growing concern, "maybe it's safer if we move you away. I mean, if Dante can't reach you, then she can't force any information from you."

Ed's initial response began with a disinterested frown, "I don't want to be on the run, Al; we don't even know if she knows I'm back.  It's better if I’m here." After all he had gone through, the adventure he'd taken, Ed was facing the possibility of falling off the preverbal radar and going into hiding – an immensely frustrating thought. He wanted to focus on dealing with Dante sooner rather than later.

Re-crossing her legs, Izumi sat forwards, "So, say Dante does manage to get what she wants out of you," a situation none of them wanted to face, "in a worst case scenario, what kind of knowledge does Dante take?"

Ed's eyes slipped away to the corner as he felt himself subjugated by his own library of knowledge, forcing everyone in the room to wait on edge before looking over his shoulder to the chalkboard. Ed spun the black pointer in his hands, a slew of heavy thoughts weighing him down, before he finally took a deep breath, stepped up to the chalkboard, and wiped it clean with his sleeve. In the anticipatory silence, Ed swiftly picked up a piece of chalk in his right hand – palm still wrapped and healing from the wound he'd given himself at the backside of the Gate doors – and Ed wrote out six characters clearly before turning back to his audience.

"We all know what these do, right? We use them in alchemy every day," the pointer tapped on the chalkboard, "These characters are all found beyond the Gate as well. The first three are Greek in origin: Psi, Theta, and Lambda; the next two are Cyrillic: Zhe and Jus; and this last one is Phoenician, it's pronounced something like Qof," fascinated gazes bore down on Ed as he slapped his black pointer into his hand, "we have a set of thirty six alchemy characters that we use in everyday practice and forty two in total. On the other side of the Gate the five different alphabets - Cyrillic, Coptic, Runic, Greek, and Phoenician – can be used in alchemy." Ed looked over his audience, fascinated to see the eyes of his peers absorb information… everyone looked so enthralled, "There are approximately 140 characters in total between those five languages beyond the Gate, so that's ninety eight characters we've never either seen or known there was a purpose for before – because a handful of them we already have, we just didn't know it," Ed took a deep breath before he began dropping the first of several bombshells that he was sure they'd been waiting for, "I have them all memorized in historical and alphabetical order… and I understand their principles, I know what the other world tried to use them for, but don't know what most of them can accomplish here if I tried to put them into practice – because practical alchemy as we know it was never truly possible beyond the Gate."

At first no one reacted, but some level of deep concern slowly soaked into every person's facial expression, ultimately acknowledging the calamities inside Edward's head. It was the first time in the lecture that Ed actually could say he felt uncomfortable standing up at the front of the room. 

Ed put the pointer down and walked up to a wooden chair that was unoccupied at the front of the room. On one chair leg, he spun it around, then sat down on the backwards chair and folded his arms over the wooden back. Although the eyes that looked at him seemed to toil in the spaces between fascination and concern, Ed offered up an otherworld story that could end up being one person's fantasy and another's nightmare… or perhaps a little of both.

"I saw an alchemical formula carved in massive amounts of stone once – it spanned more than one area in a compound and I don't think anyone in that world could have known there was a connection to them," dangerous words in Ed's voice were almost wistful, "it took me weeks to decipher the purpose for it because it was loaded with obscure characters and markers and who knows what else. What I think I figured out from it was that some ancient alchemist had a thing for 'earth movement', and I'm not even sure I understand myself when I say 'earth movement'." Ed's hands stretched out in front of himself, his fingers twitching as though he was trying to tangibly grasp the concept. There were some things in that other world he'd found that had been so unfathomable until he'd found them, "It was like someone had thought the earth – the ground – was made up of puzzle pieces and this alchemist created a massive formula to find the seams in the rocks and move the pieces," Ed shook his head at his own words, not even looking to his audience – only focussing on his hands. Without seeing it, without standing on it, without saying they'd somehow felt it, there was no way for Ed to describe the childish excitement he felt every time he'd found something in the other world that defied his understanding. "Someone on that side was trying to move entire land masses; not just countries and cities, it was massive pieces of land. It was fantastic and terrifying and nobody there even had the slightest clue what it was… it was just decoration and carvings to them."

How Ed wished someone had been there to experience those moments with him, and not just Al's imaginary shadow – his father wanted very little to do with alchemy by the time Ed had arrived beyond the Gate.

"Edward Elric," Armstrong finally spoke again to assert his presence and made his words absolute, "you will be moved away to a location where Dante will be less able to track you."

Ed groaned.

"I see your dilemma with alchemy," Mustang found something to say that extended beyond his immediate desire to get more details out of Ed's mouth, "you clap your hands and a quarter of Central City has a chance of exploding."

Ed snorted, recalling the warning tone that came from his father shortly before he'd died; Hohenheim telling his son that if he managed to get home, he would be a danger. Even then, Ed didn't dispute that fact, he'd just never conceived of having to deal with the kind of danger he would become.

"OKAY!" Izumi suddenly stood up and all eyes snapped to her loud outburst. The woman's hands landed on her hips commandingly as dark eyes grabbed the two Elric brothers by their throats, "you boys are done this lecture."

Ed and Al swallowed in unison.

Izumi's right arm snapped out to her side, finger pointed to the open door leading to a hall that fed into the remainder of Mustang's hotel, "But you two aren't done scrubbing this place until it shines."

"Yes Ma’am!" the boys snapped to attention, not yet finished with their punishment for the massive headache she accused Ed of causing her.

The barking teacher thumbed down to Mustang, letting Ed and Al sweat bullets, "I will use his white glove to go over every inch of this building at 8am sharp tomorrow morning!"

Roy scowled, "You will not…"

Izumi didn't acknowledge his response, "And if you have to sacrifice another good night's sleep to meet your deadline, then so be it."

"Yes Ma’am!"

From the back of the room a foreboding presence rose, "If you boys would allow me to impart upon you…"

Ed and Al paled and inched back towards the opened door as Armstrong lumbered towards the front of the room.

"… one of the great Armstrong family traditions for the most effective way to clean sink, urinal, and toilet bowls that has been passed down through our generations!"

While Izumi's hands balanced firmly on her hips and Roy hung his head and sighed, Ed and Al squealed their steadfast refusal of 'no thank you!' and abruptly vanished from the room.

 


 

In the dead of night, the backsides of two brothers hit the cushions of an empty couch hard, each one taking an opposite end – Al throwing his arms over the one side and Ed heaving his legs over the other.

"I don't think I ever cleaned my own house that hard," Ed groaned, his head hitting a cushion and his arms dropping over his face.

"I don't know if there's an inch left that we haven't cleaned," Al buried his face in the fabric arm of the couch.

In synchronous fashion, Ed and Al kicked their slippers off, hearing them lightly thud on the floor.

"I'm going to sleep like a log tonight," Ed groaned, his voice quickly vanishing in behind the noise of officers bustling through the halls.

As the absence of their chatter lingered, Al found himself mulling over concerning thought that he wanted to voice. Al wished he completely understood why he felt hesitant to ask his brother things – Ed was still Ed, and once they did start talking it was a conversation that never felt like it contained a barrier, and it never really felt like his brother was that much older. Maybe there was a fear of finding out that Ed wasn't completely Ed in some way, and that was what kept Al from freely speaking up. What if Al asked the one question that Ed would answer that opened up the storm clouds over their parade? Al didn't know the how, why, or what for to the question, or if it even existed, but he was still wary of it. And the one clear image that accompanied all of it was the sight of his brother's slashed right hand laying limp on the bed.  The younger brother silently wished he could take all his fleeting concerns, roll them up into a ball, and step on them with an oversized armoured foot.

Al frowned and forced his primary concern into words, "Do you think you'll be able to get some sleep tonight?"

Ed had not slept well the last few nights.

"I'd better…" Ed wrinkled his nose.

Al had been woken up by his brother the last two nights.

"… or someone'll exile me to the basement."

Edward had woken the entire floor up the other night, before someone was merciful enough to wake Ed up.

How Ed had explained it to Al was that for some reason or another, because of the type of journey, neither he, nor their father, nor Winry had experienced any dreams in the other world. Sleep was just a black abyss that they fell into for however many hours at night. The way Ed saw it was that he was forced to spend every moment of his existence beyond the Gate, never allowed to dream of being home or escaping the world. That was part of his punishment. The way Al interpreted it was that perhaps the perpetual empty nights of sleep were the only merciful thing that the world had subjected his brother to. Never being able to dream of home meant that Ed would never have to wake up and re-live the loss, and never being able to dream meant he never had to be subjected to any of his nightmares.

Now, Edward's mind was free to dream up anything with years worth of fodder.

Al watched his brother take the disasters his sleeping mind conjured up in moderately frustrated strides; there was obviously a staggering amount of embarrassment that Ed scowled at and he barked at anyone making an issue out of it. But Ed had a history of nightmares after their mother's failed transmutation and after Nina's death, so Al at least knew it wasn't an uncommon reaction… at least that was before Ed had turned fifteen and had managed to find a way to shut himself down far enough that he could block it all out. Al wondered if the nightmares were so bad that he couldn't block them or if his brother was actually allowing himself to deal with the bombardment. Al wondered if Winry might know what might be haunting him, but there was no guarantee she did, and if Winry did know, did Al want to dig it all up through her if Ed was having this much trouble with them? Neither one of them had spoken in detail about the events that had transpired to cause Winry to be shot…

What Ed and Al had going for a conversation had faded away. With soggy pant and shirt cuffs, pruned fingers, plus bumps and bruises, the boys silently decided the most prudent course of action was to remain where they were, listening to the unintelligible buzz of military personnel, and relax. No natural light entered this little sanctuary away from the chaos in the main concourse of the hotel – there were no windows – just a meek little light sitting on a table pushed up against the wall out of reach from Al. The longer they sat, unmoving and uninterrupted, the better their ears were able to tune out the hum of people, and sleep was becoming quite tempting.

"Al?" Ed aired out in a rush.

"Hm?" Al wiggled his chin around on the plush couch arm.

"Can I ask you something?"

Al picked his head up. Squaring himself around properly on the seat cushion, Al looked to Ed– laid out on his back next to his younger brother with his legs thrown over the arm of their long seat. Al smiled, "Sure."

"Are you okay having me so much older?" Ed turned more onto a shoulder.

"Yes I am," the response came without forethought or hesitation. Al's shoulders relaxed, his hands clasping in his lap. His head tipped in thought, eyes focussed on the concerned expression on Ed's face, "I think it's gonna take a few weeks before I stop expecting to see the younger, shorter you though. I'm always double-taking because my brain tells me I'm not seeing the right you. I'll get over it."

Even before Al had finished his statement, he'd seen the look in his brother's eyes flicker away.

"What?"

"I want this to be over soon, so we can go home…" it was a verbalization of a feeling both brothers silently shared – wasn't it about time they got to move on? Ed paused before adding a quiet afterthought. "I'd like to take a crack at life." All he’d ever done was fight through it.

Al grinned, "We can start to think about the rest of our lives."

The younger brother watched the look in his older brother's eyes escape from beyond the four walls that surrounded them as he spoke. That look on Ed was new. It was a subtle and subdued look Al hadn't seen on his brother before, because Al didn't think he'd ever heard his brother refer to his own future in any way – Ed was always concerned about somebody else. Al soon suspected Ed had something more to say; he still moved and twitched in ways that had been like his teenage self when there was something he wanted to say. It was far less noticeable now, but still present, and the younger brother knew that if he didn't push and waited long enough…

"I used to think about things sometimes beyond the Gate," Ed sounded shamed and childish, like he'd been caught doing something and Al was somehow responsible for extracting the confession, "I think at some point I'd convinced myself I wasn't entitled to much in life."

Edward Elric of days gone by was an alchemist for the people. He was the older brother who did not want to get back his own limbs – they weren't important – but get back his younger brother's body instead. He wanted to get Al's body back. He'd wanted to fix his wrongs. The last thing Ed had dearly wanted for himself, that something he had worked hard to get, that thing he had strived stubbornly for nearly a year to find a way to obtain, was something that mourning eleven-year-old boy was told in the most disastrous fashion he could not have: their mother. It was a desire that ruined, damaged, or affected more than just Ed – it touched everyone involved with him and usually hurt them. At more than one point, the repercussions of that desire had cost Ed all that he believed he had left: Al. Edward's selfish desires threatened to leave him all alone. That was the last version of Edward Elric Al had known before he'd reached into the Gate to retrieve him. In a way, Ed's sacrifice to bring Al back finally gave the Gate its chance to inflict the punishment of solitude on Ed that it hadn't been able to the first time around. Al wondered how much time in those five and a half years Ed had spent beyond the Gate alone thinking about his situation and all he'd gone through.

"Now I have these things that I've wanted..." Ed sounded so surprised to feel such an accomplishment, like he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with his success.

At that point Ed stopped and Al figured his brother had decided he'd let his voice run on too long, because the look overtaking Ed's facial expression was clearly infused with discomfort and embarrassment. Talking about himself wasn't something Ed was ever good at, even if Al was the one person Ed felt most comfortable opening up to.

"When you say 'home', you mean Resembool?" Al asked, giving his brother’s thoughts an escape.

"That's where home is," Ed's response came with a slow, thoughtful nod, "when I thought of home beyond the Gate, that's always where I went," his golden gaze meandered off into the corners, "like lying around the hill that overlooks the valley, or sitting creek-side on the edge of the thicket, or falling asleep with the sunset in the spare room Granny Pinako kept for us."

Al wished his brother hadn't stopped there, but the odd, forceful grin Ed took on overrode the mellowed and thoughtful gaze – like the peaceful, private thoughts of home were suddenly ushered into their drawers again – and Al knew his brother was done talking about himself.

"What do you plan on doing when this is all over?" Ed looked to his brother.

The question threw open the lid of Alphonse's mental toy box, "Grow up!"

Al didn't know how much he'd honestly thought of his future while he was a suit of armour – the future he had beyond reclaiming his body – because Al's future began and ended with that body. Alphonse had divergent futures: one was his future if he was forced to remain in the armour forever, and the other was his life if he'd gotten his body back. Positive thinking reclaimed Al's body, but he didn't want to be disappointed if it didn't happen. The future as a suit of armour was a future Al didn't want to think about, because he wanted to be in his body again. So, like his brother, Al now had the opportunity to open his eyes wide and look to the future.

"I want to go home with you and Winry to Granny Pinako's and grow up!" Al bounced on his seat and pulled his feet underneath himself, "We didn't get to hang around with a lot of kids our age during our search for the Philosopher's Stone, but I did get to watch them when I could," Alphonse slapped on a gleeful expression that made Ed grin, "I want to go to school for a bit and learn new things. I want to see and do what kids my age actually are supposed to do and grow up like everybody else! I want to be a teenager, and see how tall I get and find out what my voice changes into and have a girlfriend and become an adult and go travelling and meet new people and…" Al stopped when he realized Ed was laughing, "… and is that weird?"

"No, Al," Ed tried to corral himself and his laughter, "I think it's fantastic. That's exactly what you should be doing."

Al happily nested himself into the seat cushion, "I spent years watching people around me and seeing how things are done in life, and now I get to do it all - it's going to be fantastic!" Al gave an emphatic, childish, repetitive poke to his brother's shoulder, to which Ed rolled his eyes, "And I'm going to study alchemy and you're going to help me."

"You have fantastic goals, Al," Ed's legs came down to the floor and he straightened himself properly on the couch, a position that only lasted a minute before he'd sunken down and slouched in the seat, his legs extending as far as he could out in front of himself, "perfect goals."

Al had always known that if and when he was free of the suit of armour he would do everything he could to wrap himself up in normal life, what he hadn't planned for was the partial do-over of the years he'd spent in the suit of armour. The sudden opportunity to explore all that lost time was a trove of excitement that Al hadn't dreamed he'd get – now he could dream.

Though Ed still grinned at Al's outpouring of energy, the younger of the brothers settled down his own excitement with a sobering thought, "And somewhere in all of that alchemy we'll explore together, we're going to have to find some way to get Brigitte home safely."

Ed cocked an eyebrow curiously, "Brigitte?"

That wasn't the reaction Al was expecting. His expression fell, "You know her… she came with your picture," he narrowed an eye when it was obvious by Ed's confused expression that he didn't know who Al was talking about, "the girl from the other side of the Gate… Brigitte Shmittenhelm."

"Schitten…" Ed suddenly slipped out of his seat and landed on the floor with squawk and a thud, "WHAT?"

 


 

The more hours that went by in Central City – not just the days, but the hours, sometimes minutes – the more Ed realized that when people mentioned that things were dire in the city, he grew to understand they weren't kidding.

Rail transportation had been halted for weeks. Ground transportation wasn't being let into the city at most points. Foot traffic within Central was only safe between certain hours. The common people wanted the government out but if they protested there was a growing risk of being shot in broad daylight – it was more of a military state now than at any point during Bradley's regime. Stores were running low on food and somewhere along the way a rumour had been started that the possibility of a water shortages in some areas were imminent.

Out of all that was going wrong, the only thing Ed wanted was a phone that worked, and it appeared that the telephone system only functioned if and when it wanted to. It had taken nearly four and a half hours before Fuery finally was able to establish a line out to Xenotime. Local switchboards outside of the central core worked, it was just a matter of reaching the operators in the outlying areas. When the operator finally connected with the Tringham residence Ed bolted into Mustang's paper-filled office, shoved aside some work that would never get done, and sat himself down.

Ed snatched up the receiver sitting on Mustang's desk.

And it rang.

And rang.

And rang some more.

Ed had forgotten how much he loathed the ringing telephone. After the hours of frustration, Ed had to restrain himself from snapping the receiver into two.

"Sir, would you like me to try once more?" the female operator at Xenotime telecommunications came over the line after twenty-one rings.

"Yes, please," Ed tried to make sure none of his frustrations leaked out into his voice.

The rings again began, much to Ed's growing impatience, only this time someone answered at the fifth ring.

"Tringham residence."

"Finally!" Ed bounced up in his seat when a woman's voice came on the other line, "I'm looking to speak with either Maria Ross or Russell Tringham, is either one of them available?"

"I'm sorry both Lieutenant Ross and Mister Tringham are out."

Ed frowned, slouching back into the chair, "Do they have a guest with them named Roze Thomas?"

"Yes, but she's stepped out with them as well."

Ed's frown was downgraded into a scowl, "Well, what about the little brother Fletcher?"

"I'm sorry, everyone's out for the day."

Edward sat somewhere between annoyed and moderately disappointed that he'd just gone through all that effort to find out the people he needed to talk to weren't home, "When're they coming back?"

"They left late yesterday for a task, but I don't have their schedule. Would you like me to take a message?"

Ed scoffed – doubtful they'd get through but at least they'd have something. So, Ed needed to compile a subtle message, something that wouldn't set off all the alarms or become gossip material. Ed looked to a story Al had told him the night before, "Sure, tell them to give Ms. Ross' boss a shout about the camera bag we have in Central, we have some new exposures with the film she might want to go over."

"I'll pass that along."

Ed gave a hesitant pause before asking a further, curious question, "Did they take Brigitte with them?"

The woman's voice had a very subdued sound of surprise, "No, Miss Brigitte remained behind."

Ed's brow lifted and a bounce came into his voice "Put her on."

"… Pardon me?"

"Go get her!" Ed barked impatiently into the receiver.

The silence on the phone was negligible and, like Brigitte had been standing in the room the whole time, the telephone in Xenotime was passed off and a confused little voice came on with very nervous English.

"Um… hello?"

Ed's face abruptly twisted like there was someone standing right in front of him to scold, " I didn't see you with your fingers in your ears when I told you not to go to the Thule Hall."

" EDWARD!" Brigitte's squealing voice shrieked into the phone forcing Ed to take it off his ear, " Oh my God, Edward Elric, really! Where are you? How did you find me? Are my parents with you? "

Ed's eyes glanced to the side uneasily while Brigitte shot off an endless string of questions. She obviously didn't know where she was – not that there was any way she could have figured it out.

" I will take my lashes, be expelled from school, and take all the punishment in the world, but I'd just really want to go home. Are you helping me leave? "

Clearing his throat, Ed again tapped the receiver off his ear while he thought, " Um, it's gonna be a bit before we can get you out of there and find a way home. I'm kinda out of the way at the moment… "

" Well, then I'll come to you! There're people here who can drive – tell me how to get there!"

" It's not going to work that way either, " Ed scratched his free hand through his bangs, " sit tight for a bit – I just called to make sure you were doing alright."

" Well, I'm fine but Edward you should really hurry, there are sorcerers and witches and wizards all over the place - I don't know who I'm supposed to trust."

Ed laughed and could almost see the displeasure on Brigitte's face through the phone, " Well, those two boys you're with, the pompous one and his little brother, I'll out them as sorcerers for you."

" Well I figured that when I saw them make the trees change colour! I'd thought they were good people until that happened."

" Well… " Ed was going to have to concede this, " they are good sorcerers and they're going to help you, so they're people you can trust, " he looked around the office in thought, " and I know you've met Izumi, she's a good witch too… and Mustang is— "

" What about the little girl? "

Ed raised an eyebrow and ground his teeth down on the inside of his cheek; he was very certain which little girl she meant, " You mean the girl with the braids? "

Brigitte hesitated before answering, " Well, her hair's not in braids right now, but it was when I first met her. "

It took a moment before Ed realized Brigitte's response had thrown him face-first into a mental brick wall – he felt a little dazed. This couldn't possibly be happening; Ed's stomach churned. Maybe his understanding of German was failing now that he was home. Ed pulled in a few slow, deep breaths and his expression began to plummet, " Is she there? "

" She showed up yesterday ," Brigitte sounded thoroughly disapproving of the new company, "she claps her hands and does the craziest magic I've ever seen. She scares everyone. "

Things weren't just 'bad', they were worse. Ed's heartbeat suddenly kicked into high gear, " Is she in the room with you? "

" Yes, she's watching me talk to you, " Brigitte answered, " her servant answered the phone. "

Ed's mind replayed the delighted shriek of his name in Brigitte's voice and ran his hand over his face, "Fuck this…" Ed cursed the chaos that endlessly rained down over his life and made a futile wish for one more day of peace he would no longer get, " Brigitte, we're going to have a conversation and I don't want you to look at her, okay? "

" Okay… "

His frustrations boiling on high and his blood pressure steadily rising in the heat, Ed took a long, deep breath and tried to put together a situation for Brigitte, " That little girl is a bad witch, and she's not even a little girl, she's very old and just uses her magic to make you think she's little… do you understand?"

" Yes," now the nerves kicked into Brigitte's voice.

" Don't do that, you have to always act like you don't know something is wrong," Ed frowned as he tried to organize his thoughts, " you have to keep an eye her all the time. She has a magic red stone that makes her strong, so if she claps her hands and goes to touch you, I want you to run and run as fast as you can."

" Where do I run?"

" Away - just far away. When you can't run anymore, you find somewhere to hide until I find you," Ed put his arms down on the desk and clunked his chin down on the varnished surface, " You have to act as properly as you can with her. She's a terrifying witch who's a lot stronger than all of us, so you have to play dumb around her and do exactly as she says. "

Brigitte's voice rose with a concern, " This bad witch chased away Maria and her friends yesterday, are they in danger? "

" Yes – but I don't think you are," Ed made sure the leave some sense of security in the girl – Dante had sent everyone away except Brigitte… that made Brigitte important in some way, " the bad witch knows who you are and where you're from, so she shouldn't have any reason to harm you. She thinks you're a magic code and that makes you important, very important to her; that's why you're still there with her and you're not hurt. " In Ed's mind, that was the only reason he could think of to explain the situation.

" Edward… why me? "

Ed's jaw slowly fell open. Why her? Why Nina? Why anybody? 'Why' was a question Ed didn't like, because why's tended to make the least amount of sense and the reply rarely made anything better.

" That's just how it happened," was the best answer Ed eventually gave her.

 


 

Izumi's fingers landed quietly on a door frame, though she could do nothing beyond curse the painful sound of the hinges. Slowly, the woman pulled the door shut while doing everything she could to minimize the sounds. Izumi turned the knob before it reached the latch, silently sealing the door and controlling the release of the knob. Izumi's hands fell away and she dipped her head as she turned into the hall.

"Was their attempt to sanitize this hotel to your satisfaction?" a low voice questioned in the dimly lit hall, "I never saw the final grade."

Izumi looked over to Mustang, "They did an exemplary job."

The officer bobbed his head slowly in approval, cocking an eyebrow and throwing out a greedy question, "Any tips on how to get Ed to behave so obediently? I've never seen him answer anyone's orders quite so well."

Izumi grinned slightly, eyeing the man who'd never managed to obtain authority over the Elric brothers quite like she had. The grin transformed into a smirk and the teacher's feet scraped the floor; Izumi walked past Roy, "Estrogen."

"Ah." With his arms folded, Roy turned and slowly trailed in behind Izumi's path, "Edward is sleeping?"

"Three hours," Izumi stopped and turned the door handle to Alphonse's room, "he got restless at one point, but he just needed something calming to ease him from it."

Izumi entered Al's room before Roy could comment further, and the officer waited in the hall as the teacher quietly made her way through Alphonse's room to check on him. She re-emerged quickly – nothing with Al entered Izumi's list of concerns – and she pulled his door shut again.

"Has Alphonse mentioned any problems sleeping?" Roy asked.

"Al says he's fine," Al looked fine, sounded fine, and came off with a profound increase in confidence – if Izumi wasn't so reluctant to relax her nerves, she wouldn't have checked on Al at all, "the experience at the Gate hasn't adversely affected him as far as I can tell. He's the only one in this building who appears to be getting eight hours every night."

Even those with clear heads didn't manage to get a full nights' sleep with all the never ending commotion.

With Alphonse's room inspected, Izumi made her way further down the hall. She paid no mind to the officer who observed her actions, not interested in his presence enough to keep the conversation going with him. Izumi's hand landed lastly on the knob to Winry's door; she turned the handle and used her shoulder to push into the room, only to meet solid wood when the door didn't budge. The woman stepped back and gave a confused scowl to the knob.

"Winry asked for some privacy the other night," Roy cleared up the situation, "she's allowed to lock the door."

Izumi wasn't sure if allowing anyone to lock their door was a good idea considering Dante could manufacture the ability to come and go as she pleased, and who knows who else was out there waiting to be sprung on them. The teacher continued to frown, her fingers lightly tapped the door knob. She eyeballed the man standing square in the hallway, somewhat uselessly, entirely unsure of his motivation for standing around like this in the dead of night. Rather than simply walk away, Izumi chose to utilize his lingering presence.

Izumi sighed, "So, after all was said and done, Brigitte and Winry were exchanged through the Gate?"

"If what Edward told us earlier in the day holds true, yes," Roy concurred.

Shaking her head, like hearing the explanation from more than one person didn't make it any less profound, Izumi turned up her nose in frustration, "And now Dante has caught Brigitte in the town of sanctuary you sent them all to."

"I don't believe for a second that Dante would have pursued her out that far if her circumstances hadn't changed so drastically. She showed little sign of interest in Brigitte until now," Roy's response had a fair bit more bite to it than Izumi had been expecting – the situation from his perspective was obviously more frustrating than he was outwardly letting on. Then Mustang threw in a deepening concern of his own, "and she has one of my good officers."

"And those boys with Roze," masked in the dim hallway light, Izumi's fists clenched before she threw her arms across her chest, "I explicitly told them to stay with Mrs. Hughes beyond the border."

Izumi felt Roy react to her statement on Gracia Hughes long before the words came to his mouth – she couldn't say the ire in a man's aura caught her attention that often , "Did I ever get the chance to properly discuss that with you—"

"Save it," Izumi waved him off like the boiling rage of a man had no effect on her, "save your breath for one of the hundred other more important things we have going on right now." She hopped onto another train of thought, "With Diana gone, Dante might try to find some use for Brigitte in her place, which is probably why she headed out there."

"That was the consensus," Roy's temperature slowly lowered, "but now that we can add Ed to the equation, it lessens the danger to Brigitte, but still leaves us in murky waters."

Izumi nodded in agreement, "Even if Brigitte speaks another language, Ed said his name isn't pronounced much differently in her tongue, so we can be almost certain Brigitte gave his return away.  Dante’s going to want to get her hands on the knowledge in his head before she does anything more with the Gate; we have to keep Ed away from her."

That arrangement was something Roy had begun working on in the evening, "Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong has been discussing with his family up north to have Ed sent to the mountains – I'd say that'd be Dante's least desirable destination at the moment since Drachma has been harassing the border and is profoundly miffed at the political office she's controlling."

"You honestly want to send them within spitting distance of a potentially escalating battle zone?" Izumi harshly questioned Roy's logic.

"Where else do I send them?" Roy scowled, "you lured Dante's eyes west when you ushered off Gracia and Elysia, I got wind that men were sent south to Resembool to talk to Mrs. Rockbell when Havoc was being accused of killing her granddaughter, and Dante has a long standing love affair with the eastern quadrant of the country. Dante's only involvement with the north has been sending us to do something to piss Drachma off."

Izumi scoffed, yet offered nothing to counter his assessment of the situation.

"I’m looking to find somewhere north, but south enough of the border to be out of the way. We have towns and hamlets that he can lodge in," Roy spoke with an inarguable tone.

Again, Izumi offered nothing to counter his logic, "You know you're going to have to send Al and Winry too," was finally her concession, "Al won't leave Ed and we obviously can't send Winry to Resembool."

"I’m well aware.  And when a decision is reached, Officer Falman and Sergeant Fuery are going to accompany them until they can get a local security detail," Roy responded promptly, something that seemed to draw out some of Izumi's frustrations.

"You have all of your plans in the works already?" Izumi finally scowled at him.

"I have to have to," Roy responded tartly, "you think I just run around this capital city without knowing exactly where everyone is, what the missions are on each division, the time frame for execution, what exactly I'm looking to accomplish, and how I'm going to pull that off with the least amount of pedestrian consequence?"

Izumi dearly wanted to reply with a yes to the military dog, but was more than certain he was holding onto as much power and control over the situation as he could. Unable to counter his retort with nothing more than some childish backhanded response that was beneath her, Izumi lost the argument by changing the subject.

"What are you doing up here standing around in the hall talking with me for?" Izumi asked abruptly, "if you're so busy being an active little puppy, why are you standing around?"

"Because it's my bedtime," Roy responded with a haughty perk in his voice and it stood a few of Izumi's hairs on end, "and I am free to use my bedtime in whatever manner I see fit."

Izumi scoffed, wondering how a man could hold the kind of look in only one eye that gave her a childish urge to want to claw it out, "You thought it would be best to waste your bedtime bothering me?"

The reply was brisk, "I thought it would be best to waste the first few minutes of my bedtime to look around my upper most floor and make sure that, at least for some point in the night, everything was sound and at peace – you've taken care of that for me it seems."

Izumi watched the wind fly out of her sails. She didn't like to lose a verbal sparring match, but if Mustang had shown up only to check on his cared-for occupants, she couldn't condemn him for that. The teacher's shoulders fell, "Everyone's fine," Izumi let her arms drop to her sides and she walked down the hall, stepping past Mustang as she moved, "since my bedtime doesn't feel like it's forthcoming, I'm going to sit in on Ed for a bit."

The noise Mustang made almost sounded like a laugh, "Does he know you're babysitting him like this?"

"I have no idea," Izumi shrugged, turning the handle to Edward's door, "but there are some tricks you learn about kids when they're younger that can help you slip under their radar even when they're older. If he complains about it, I'll stitch his lips shut."

Mustang cocked the eyebrow over his good eye and looked to Izumi over his shoulder, "Do those tricks require estrogen to learn as well?"

"Yes."

In the wake of her swift reply, but before vanishing into Ed's room, Izumi kept an eye on Mustang as he slowly made his way towards the staircase, walking through the dimmed lighting of the hallway without any further response.

 


 

As far as Brigitte could figure out, 'Nina' had initially been this little girl with a servant and the both of them pestered her. When she'd first woken up in this backwards world, she was on a dark floor with the girl and her caretaker, and from that point forwards Brigitte had felt something like a puppy they'd been trying to train. The whole situation was thrown on its head when a lady named Maria had shown up in costume and kidnapped her… at least, that's what Brigitte had originally thought was going on. All of it had made no sense; she'd been abducted in the first place and taken away to some British colony that was presumably much closer to the equator, so to be re-kidnapped by another sect within this far away world made even less sense than kidnapping in the first place. But, no one had made her cook or clean, wash linens or chase away cobwebs; no, Brigitte had been clothed, fed, modestly entertained, nicely treated, and thoughtfully taken care of, which really shot a number of holes in her whole kidnapping theory.

The world made no sense.

And for some reason they all wanted to know about Edward Elric – if this golden-eyed person was so important, why did they kidnap her and not him? Then life made less sense when men attacked Maria's cottage and they all had to run. It made even less sense when the magic started happening. Brigitte was forced to update her only logical scenario: she'd been kidnapped by British sorcerers and taken to their training colony for some reason yet to be determined… but it couldn't be good, whatever the reason. Maybe this was like Hansel and Gretel and she was Gretel without Hansel; Brigitte spent a few days not eating much.

So, Maria Ross, the only woman who she was one hundred percent certain was not going to suddenly pull magic out of her bag, collected Brigitte plus the dark skinned woman who came out of nowhere, and they drove off in the middle of the night.

It had taken days to get where they'd needed to be because of this, that, and the other thing, but the city they came upon was tucked away in some low rising mountains and was a lot lower key than how active the other city had been. In this city she was reintroduced to two blonde boys that she'd seen briefly in the previous city. For a few days at least, things felt kind of normal.

And then Nina came back into the picture. Brigitte hadn't known really who or what this little girl and her entourage were all about until Ed phoned the next day, and neither had Russell and Fletcher's servants – they had mistakenly let Nina in when her party had walked up to the front doors and rung the doorbell. Then came the outburst of rage from the older brother, followed by an explosion of magic, and then the building flew into chaos and became locked down. After a good deal of confusion, all of the faces Brigitte was familiar with vanished and she was left with Nina, who seemed perpetually angry. Nina appeared to want Brigitte's company for no logical reason, and it was the only point in time during her entire adventure where it actually had hints of a kidnapping.

Come here.

Stand there.

Carry this.

Hold that.

Since all the adults in the room were taking orders from the little girl, Brigitte took it as a clue to behave and do as she was told. Her conversation with Edward cemented her good-girl behaviour.

In the afternoon that followed her conversation with Ed, Brigitte had been taken on a walk, directed to remain three steps behind Nina, and had been instructed to carry a jewel box that weighed next to nothing. They'd walked the hall for hours, visited thirty different rooms, until the pair finally found another closed door to open. What made this thirty-first room more distinguishable than the first was the key Nina needed to get in.

"Come inside, Brigitte. I need that box," Nina summoned Brigitte forward as she sauntered through the door.

Brigitte scampered in after Nina and looked around the rounded room with no windows but astoundingly bright lights in the ceiling. It looked like it was supposed to be a bedroom, but it had been warped – there was bedroom furniture but no closet, a bed but no sheets or pillows, rounded walls with no corners. Brigitte looked ahead to the body of a person curled up on the bed but glanced down again when Nina walked up and flipped open the jewellery box in her hands. Brigitte's brow rose at a blood red pendant on a golden chain seated atop the pure white cotton in the box and a clear vile of matching red dust next laying to it. Nina picked out the thin vile and twisted the cap off.

"Just a little…"

Brigitte watched Nina produce a handkerchief and thinly spread a layer of red dust over it.

"That's good."

The vile was capped, returned to the box, and Nina walked up to the bed, climbing atop the mattress. Brigitte glanced down to the open box, her eyes fixating on the stunning colour of the red jewel attached to a thin gold chain; she'd never seen anything so profoundly, powerfully red. It was enthralling.

She has a magic red stone that makes her strong…

Brigitte startled at a handclap and looked up when the figure on the bed jolted; Nina was leaning over the body and holding the handkerchief over the person's face. The struggle barely lasted a few seconds – the body on the bed simply had no strength for a fight.

"That's better, just breathe it in for a few seconds," Nina hovered for a moment before withdrawing, turning away and slipping herself off the bed, "our conversation today will be so much more productive this way and much less of a struggle for both of us."

Nina walked back up to the box Brigitte held and helped herself to the red pendant, linking the golden clasp behind her neck and then tucking the entire pendant away under her blouse – the wondrous object vanished from sight. Nina shut the box and smiled up at Brigitte who only replied with a nervous frown.

Nina turned back to the bed.

"Would you sit up please, Maria."

Brigitte nearly dropped Nina's jewelry box when Maria Ross sat up on the bed with a pale, empty expression on her face, deeply reddened cheeks, and hazy eyes that captured nothing.

"I have a few more things for you to answer today," Nina's voice suddenly echoed in the room, "so make this painless: put your hands on your knees."

It took a few moments, but gradually – hesitantly – Maria obliged. The subsequent clap of Nina's hands was deafening; Brigitte staggered back a few steps, rolling the jewel box into her arms and pinning it to her chest. Everything moved so slowly.

If she claps her hands and goes to touch you…

'Something' will happen.

Nina reached out for Maria and Brigitte dropped the jewel box. When the corner cracked on the ground, Brigitte acted on the first thing she thought of – she screamed.

Nina spun around.

Brigitte screamed until her lungs were empty and her chest hurt from it. She coughed as she looked back at the bewildered little girl with some kind of terrifying power no one had explained, but the witch's hands seemed to hang uselessly at her sides.

" The ceiling is white and the sky is blue and it's all falling down! " Brigitte kicked the jewel box and backed herself up, her body thumping against the door – she didn't care what came out of her mouth, no one would understand her anyways, " there are skeletons in the closets and monsters under the beds. They're going to break everything! "

"What is your problem!" Nina hollered.

For someone so small, Brigitte was startled by how much booming rage Nina could project; her heart pounded. Brigitte looked around madly before suddenly cutting across the room and scrambling into the space between the night stand at the side of the bed and the wall. Brigitte wedged herself in, sat down on the floor, wrapped her arms around her knees, and looked back out into the room at Nina's flabbergasted reaction.

" You don't even have a closet in here, but that just means the skeletons you have are the worst. "

"Wha—" Nina looked at her hands in disgust, then to Maria, back to Brigitte, and down to her hands again, like she didn't know what she would do next, "you… you stupid girl!"

Brigitte paled and curled up tight when Nina finally stormed forwards, the German girl's eyes pinching and ears listening for a frightening handclap. A handclap never came, but the hard toe of Nina's dress shoe kicked her in the side of her thigh. The angry witch kicked her four or five times with chirping screams of frustration before Brigitte reached out to try and push her away. Nina's hands flew in and grabbed Brigitte's hair, trying to yank the girl out into the centre of the room, all the while attempting to inflict damage with her feet. Brigitte scrambled along the floor, trying to grab the hands pulling her hair, but she ended up grabbing Nina at her waist instead, and Brigitte again tried to shove the raging child away.

Brigitte shrieked and recoiled when her hands sunk unnaturally into Nina's body, though her own startled sound was drowned out by the scream of pain the little witch made. Brigitte was released and she scrambled back against the wall, watching as Nina wrapped her arms around her stomach and staggered away.

"This body…!" Dante choked.

Brigitte's thoughts were momentarily captured by the strangest odour seeping into the room.

"I lost my concentration… I need my focus!" childish rage erupted again, "and I need to heal this body again."

Nina threw her piercing eyes over her to Brigitte, fear nailing the girl against the wall. Dante only stared down Brigitte for a moment before she stormed through the room, kicked the jewel box to the door, picked the box up again when she got there, and slammed the door in a tantrum as she left.

The wrathful little girl left and the air slowly began to clear. Brigitte sat against the wall for a few silent moments, waiting to see if Nina would return, but once the sound of footsteps vanished and all she could hear was the buzz from the blaring overhead lights, Brigitte pulled herself away from the wall.

Standing up, Brigitte winced and rubbed her sore leg and hip. Her focus wasn't on these new bruises though – Brigitte looked over to the bed, nervous to see Maria tipped over and fallen on her side atop the mattress. Brigitte carefully walked around the bed, slowly making her way to the side Maria was facing.

"Maria?"

Brigitte climbed onto the bed and hid her knees beneath herself. She could hear Maria breathe, she could see her empty eyes stare off without purpose, and Brigitte put her hand down on the woman's bare arm, shaking it a little – she was very warm to the touch, like a person with a high fever, "Maria?"

Nothing came for a reply.

Brigitte reached up and patted the unresponsive woman on her cheek once, then twice, and a third time just a bit harder, "Maria?"

For a moment Brigitte watched the look in the officer's eyes come into focus and capture the room; it looked something like delight over the successful scale of the world's tallest mountain – it was full of exhaustion. She didn't move her body, but Maria smiled before the moment faded and she closed her eyes.

" NO ," Brigitte shrieked and jerked Maria's arm, " no no no what did the witch do to you?  She did something to you, didn't she? " Brigitte looked frantically around the blindingly bright room, " I need someone to help you. I need to find help. "

Brigitte slid off the bed and fixated on the door. She didn't know how to contact Edward, or where the two brothers from this city were, or where the dark skinned woman had gone. Brigitte clasped her hands over her mouth and pinched her eyes, trying to think about what she was supposed to do next.

" I'll go get you help, " Brigitte nodded to herself, looking towards the door again - she hadn't heard the door lock when Nina had left, " I'll bring someone who can help, I promise. "

The girl from the other side of the Gate spun on her toes and ran from the room where the ancient witch with the face of a child used the red stone and red powder that Edward Elric had warned her about to harm the only person Brigitte could safely say she trusted.

 


 

To Be Continued… 

 


 

Notes:

- Oh Maria Ross D: you’re one of my favourite ‘03 characters too…

- Ed never thought Brigitte had crossed over the Gate, he'd always thought she'd died, or gotten sucked up by the Gate, or something in the process of bringing Winry over. He had no reason to think she'd gone through because he had no way of fully understanding what had happened.

- Something I find endearing about Al is that although he has fears and insecurities (like talking to his brother about important things after such a change) he's a strong enough character that he'll fight through and speak anyways, rather than shy away.

- In the opening bit, Ed is talking about moving large land masses. He is referring to plate tectonics, but I left Ed unaware of the concept of tectonics. Our world didn't accept tectonics until the 60s and continental shift wasn't coined until the 20's. The FMA world doesn't seem like a world that would be looking into a science like that quite yet either. Ed's ultimately baffled by what he discovered. The boy can't know everything!

Chapter 44: The Xenotime Gambit

Summary:

Mustang stalls while he tries to get a firm grasp on Dante's intentions. Disappointed with the situation, Ed tries to shake things up.

Notes:

This story continuation is sponsored by Covid19 Quarantine.

Its been nine years, seven months, and a few days since the last chapter and this was *incredibly* hard to write after so long. But, I’ve never forgotten this story. I do have an ending to share.

That said, I haven't asked anyone to beta this for me, I’m flying solo. Hopefully I still have some clue how to do things, so here we go~

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text


 

The sun had begun to set and Brigitte couldn’t tell how long she’d been unable to find help for Maria.  Every which way she’d gone, someone had collected her and returned the German girl to her room.  The louder she’d screamed and shouted, the more ruckus she created, the more harshly she was dragged back.  Surprisingly, none of them seemed to have the ability to lock her door.  Brigitte began to think that Nina was the only one who possessed that key.  

At the point she gave up on the men and women of the facility, who acted like nothing was going on around them, Brigitte did her best to gather all her nerves and march down to the main floor.  She waited patiently for someone to come along and offer even the slightest distraction, and when some giggling women gave her an opening, Brigitte brazenly tried to run out the front door.  She was scooped up off her feet by two military looking men before she’d even finished getting down the entry steps and was hauled back into the building kicking, screaming, and making as much of a scene as possible.

Nobody seemed to care.

The military type men deposited Brigitte in the middle of the building, like they hadn’t known exactly where to put her and just simply placed her away from the exit.

Frustrated, German girl dragged herself back to the room everyone else sent her to and looked around for anything that might help her.  All she had was a cold plate of food that had been left on her bed.  Sighing, she walked up to it, picked up the plate, and headed out of the room, back to where she’d left Maria.

Slipping into the room Nina had forgotten to lock on her way out, Brigitte closed the door behind herself and stared at Maria curled up on her side atop the bed centering the far side of the room.  She’d been cursed by the little witch’s magic, Brigitte concluded.  What else could a magic red stone possibly do?  The quiet German girl put her plate down on the floor – she wasn’t hungry, but she picked up the dinner bun.

Crawling onto the bed beneath the aggressive overhead lights, Brigitte sat down next to Maria.  The fever’d look she’d once had seemed to have faded and she was far less warm to the touch.  Brigitte patted her on the shoulder and Maria’s eyes began to crack open.

Oh, I woke you, ” legitimately surprised by that, Brigitte tilted her head and looked down at her, posing a question regardless if it could be understood or not, “ are you feeling any better?

Maria’s gaze drifted a bit, swimming in the room, but eventually settled on Brigitte and the officer forced a difficult smile to her.

That’s better than you were, I have to say ,” putting the bun down on top of the uncovered bed, Brigitte collected Maria’s limp hand and squeezed it, wondering – hoping – she’d get some kind of response.  What came were a few twitchy fingers that tried to communicate and not much more.

Humming her thoughts, Brigitte put Maria’s hand down and looked her in the eyes again.  She reached out a finger and pointed it in Maria’s face, “ You… ” her hands came up and cupped her ears, “ hear… ” and then the same pointed finger landed on her own chest, “ me?

An unstable, swimming nod came to Maria’s body language, and Brigitte continued the nod with affirmation, “ If we’re clear, that’s good I suppose.  Though I’m not sure what good it does either of us right now.

Picking up the bun Brigitte had brought with her, she pulled the tiny dry loaf in half and held it out near Maria’s nose, “ Food?

Maria closed her eyes and rolled her head away.

Sighing, Brigitte nibbled on her end, not sure what her next course of action should be.

In the silence that followed, Brigitte perked up at an uncomfortable, distant sound that filtered into the room.  She wasn’t certain, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be certain, but Brigitte had thought she’d heard a crackle – the kind of crackle that accompanied much of the magic.  Sitting frozen, Brigitte tried to force her eyes to look at the door, positive it had come from within the halls of the building.  

Losing interest in her food, Brigitte left her torn bun atop the bed as curiosity lured her to the door.  She didn’t want to see the magic, but she also wanted to make sure of where it was in case she needed to run from it.  Unable to hear any further sounds from the hall, Brigitte placed her hands down on the doorframe and slowly, silently turned the knob of the door until it opened and she peeked out. 

The hall was empty.

She stuck her head out and looked up and down it, wondering if the noise was loud enough to be heard through multiple walls, but not curious enough to leave Maria’s room and check the other doors.

And then the crackle hit – like pocket lightning – illuminating from behind Brigitte in the depths of the room. Nearly slamming the door shut on her nose as she whipped around, Brigitte knocked her knees together to keep from falling down to her backside as she watched.

With edges formed from curled wood, a gaping hole had appeared on the left side of the rounded wall.

Brigitte’s eyes widened as the young boy Fletcher practically tumbled out.

“Brigitte!” he hoarsely whispered her name then hopped onto the bed, “Ms. Ro…” his tone changed at the recognition of the unresponsive lieutenant as he rolled her onto her back, “Ms. Ross?”

With a deep breath, Brigitte got her legs back in order and staggered forwards to a magician Edward had told her could be trusted, “ The uh, the-the little witch clapped her hands and did something to her.

Looking wide eyed at Brigitte’s untranslatable explanation, Fletcher’s mouth slowly opened, “Brother, I think I need your help.”

Russell snapped his head into the hole and hissed, “I told you to keep your voice dow—woah, what the heck, Ms. Ross?” he got out of the hole in the wall much more skillfully than his younger brother.

Despite the unease the incomprehensible trickery left her with, Brigitte’s recognition of the help she’d spent the afternoon seeking won out.  Clenching her fists, Brigitte took a deep breath, marched up to the foot of the bed, hopped up onto her knees atop the mattress, and announced to the boys, “Nina!”.  Clapping her hands, Brigitte clenched her teeth and prayed absolutely nothing would happen as she put her hands down on Maria.

The only thing that happened was the two brothers’ jaws falling loose.

“We need to get her out of here,” Russell reached across the mattress and grabbed Maria under her arms, “right now.  We got what we came for.”

Brigitte and Fletcher helped usher the limp officer’s body to the edge of the bed.  Together they sat her up and draped her arms over Russell’s shoulders, trying to get her onto his back.

Russell tossed his head to their escape hole, “Brigitte, get in there.”

She sat on the bed bewildered, startling when Fletcher pushed her off the mattress and pointed at the hole.

“Go on.”

The wooden hole carved of unnaturally bent wall planks was given a very wary eye, “ Oh lord no…

“Go go go,” Fletcher continued to wave his hand at her.

“Ohh…,” Brigitte took a reversed step away from everything, “ oh no, I am not interested in finding out what’s inside a dark magic hole, thank you.  Are there no doors available?

Russell scowled, “Fletcher, help her get in.”

No sooner had the younger brother hopped off the bed, than the door to the room flew open. 

The young occupants froze and stared wide-eyed at Aisa standing in the creaking entryway.

“Ah.  That’s what I felt.”

No sooner had the sound escaped her lips than Aisa had flown past Brigitte and run Russell into the wall with an explosive force.  Maria crumpled to the floor with the loss of Russell’s aid and Brigitte screamed as everything burst into motion.  Russell’s legs thrashed in the air and both of his hands grappled around Aisa’s iron grip on his neck as she began crushing him into the wall. 

Dropping to his knees, Fletcher snapped out the stub end of a piece of chalk from his pocket and, in a few swift strokes, laid down a transmutation circle on the wooden floorboards.

His glare snapped to Aisa and he activated it.

“STOP,” Aisa spun around.

The two youngest in the room watched in horror as the woman’s eyes, skin tone, and teeth reddened at the activation of a transmutation circle too close to her body saturated with red water.  Whatever Fletcher had tried to transmute began flying wildly beyond his control, causing the floorboards to curl, splinter, and sprout.  Like he’d intended to do it from the start, the youngest brother released his hands from the transmutation and let Aisa inadvertently fuel the continued chaos.

Brigitte never stopped screaming as the floor beneath her feet roared to life.  It rocked and crawled and grew until it touched her legs.  She threw herself on tip toe towards the door, endless voices yelling words she didn’t understand, and she ignored them all.  Frantically scrambling with the knob, the door finally popped open and she ran from the madness. 

Never looking back, Brigitte ran with her longest strides down the sunset halls, throwing her arms with each step, hoping it would propel her farther and farther away.  She took corners and adjoining halls at random, hoping to lose anything that might be following her, until finally she found herself running down a plain hallway with nothing but a window at the end. 

Jumping up, she flipped the window’s latch and threw the heavy glass panes wide.  Brigitte’s small fingers grabbed the screen by its corner hook and yanked on it until it fell away to the bush four stories below.  Gasping for air, focus dizzied, and with no conscious thought or plan, Brigitte climbed into the window.

The scream she let out when an arm reached around her midsection and hauled her back in should have been enough to alert the entire township below that something had gone terribly wrong. 

Brigitte’s legs weren’t strong enough to free herself, her hands not strong enough to hold on to the window frame, and Aisa ripped the frantic, screaming child back into the building and shut the window.

 


 

Well, that was odd.

Mustang double checked a report.  It remained odd.

Against the logic of what Mustang was expecting to be Dante’s about-face return to Central to collect Ed, reports began coming in that contradicted his expectations. 

Postponing a briefing with his senior officers, Mustang asked for his reports to be re-delivered and some corroborated by different sources.  Yet, the feedback remained the same.  Perhaps it was a ruse?  It stunk of a rouse.  But, there were other ways to stage a ruse.  This was too blatant and obvious.

While Central City had ground to a near halt and the major cities of the four quarters had begun to feel pinched as well, why the hell was there increased traffic going IN to Xenotime? 

Beyond it being the current location of Dante, the home town of Nash Tringham and his sons, and that it had been heavily involved in the production of red water, Mustang couldn't say he knew too much about the town.  Other than being in the east, what was the strategic significance of Xenotime to warrant an influx of people?

The situation in Xenotime was infuriating, since Mustang was the one who’d organized getting everyone together there.  There had been absolutely no motivation for Dante to go, so someone out that way must still have ties to Dante and alerted her.  Or worse, someone around him.  Now, he had an officer trapped there with their foreign child, the woman from Lior Dante had once fancied, and the two botanical alchemist nuisances who were actually providing their worth.  The east was an area Mustang had stronger ties to, which offered a slight piece of mind if and when Dante showed she was moving on Ed.  Except, by all accounts, she didn’t appear to be going anywhere.  She looked to be fortifying herself in Xenotime with his people.

Mustang rubbed his good eye – why?  She clearly wasn’t worried that Ed could be headed out of reach, which in itself was concerning.  He couldn’t begin to fathom what sort of tendrils Dante had in place that would give her the kind of confidence that she could simply sit idle while they shuffled Ed through the country.  Given the longevity he’d been told she had, there was the possibility that she saw the entire country as nothing more than her private property that they were all trespassing on.  To top that off, Izumi had mentioned she had her tricks woven into the minds of at least several men in powerful positions.  Did that mean she had moles who didn’t even realize it?  How spread out were her eyes?  What was the potential and scale of it all?  Was that how she found out about the group in Xenotime?  The potential for her reach was unnerving.  Roy straightened himself up at the desk.

The phone kindly rang, relieving Roy of his train of thought for a second.  The voice on the other end, however, threw his thoughts with more of a curve than he’d had before.

“They what?  I need you to elaborate.”

An elaboration was unnecessary, the message relayed was very clear.  It was the absurdity that Mustang needed clarified.  A select number of government officials were en route to Xenotime, where the Prime Minister was already headed, if not there already.  Prime Minister Mitchell didn’t surprise Mustang, since he’d written the man off due to his proximity to Dante, but the other officials simply up and abandoning their duties while the city – the country – was in growing turmoil and lacking leadership was absurd.  The informant wasn’t entirely sure what prompted the senior officials to vacate the city in the middle of mounting protests, but the fact of the matter was, the issues of the capital city were less important than whatever charade was going on in Xenotime. 

Mustang thanked his informant and dropped the receiver of his phone to its holder with a clatter. 

A bare hand came over Mustang’s mouth as he thought things over.  Central City was open.  It was vulnerable: abandoned by its leaders and stewing in the furor of neglect.

Mustang could march in and take the city.  It was too easy.

It was too easy. 

… That tiny little shit.

Their ancient parasite was locking herself down in Xenotime and she would be fully aware of what leaving Central without its higher government would mean.  There had to have been a message relayed by her actions and the most obvious one Mustang could find was that she simply placed no value in who actually controlled the nation.  Political control was not an objective of hers, it was only a tool used as a means to her ends.  Then, what she was doing was turning Central City into bait for Mustang, and if he didn’t act on it soon, someone would see it as a weakness and take advantage of the situation in his stead.  But, if he took the offering of Central City now, he would be so bogged down with politics that he wouldn’t have time to address the little miscreant treating the nation’s people as nothing more than free-range livestock for her games. 

In a way, Mustang was somewhat pleased that he finally felt like he had some sort of handle on what was going on.  The devil’s actions had once been buried beneath well-constructed blissful ignorance, but now that he’d started to learn where and how to see it, she was actually fairly transparent: Dante needed him, and his crew, occupied and too burdened to track her.  That was the game he was playing with her.  

Mustang gave a swift boot to the bottom of his desk, rattling the telephone receiver as he slapped his hands over his face.

“Bad timing?”

“What?” Mustang groaned at Havoc’s entrance.

“Well,” the lieutenant closed the door behind himself, “you wanted me to get the trip up north sorted sooner than later, but you’ve been on the phone all morning.”

“What do you know about Xenotime, Havoc?” Mustang straightened himself around in the chair.

The man wrinkled his nose, “Only what I read in Ed’s red water report years ago, that’s it.”

“Knowing what we know now and how involved Dante has been with things, can you think of anything that would give preference to Xenotime over other locations in the east or in the quarters near Ishibal and Lior?” Mustang asked.

Havoc folded his arms, looking to the ceiling, “If I’m to be perfectly honest, I don’t remember a damn thing from the Xenotime reports, other than the refreshers we got on the implications of red water.”

Snorting a laugh, Mustang waved his hand dismissively, “It's fine lieutenant.”

“What’s up?” Havoc yanked a wooden chair over to his superior’s desk.

Gesturing to the papers strewn on his desk, Mustang shrugged, “Dante isn’t making a move on Central.”

Havoc looked from the papers to his superior officer, slowly raising his brow, “In most cases, I think that’d be a good thing?”

“In most cases,” Mustang scowled, “but allowing us time to move Ed tells me she’s confident that she’ll gain access to him no matter where we send him.  On top of that, she’s bringing parts of the upper echelon into Xenotime for… something.”

“What?” Havoc shot his confusion around the room, “What the hell for?”

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t think it matters what for, because it’s not why they’re going to Xenotime, it’s why they’re leaving Central City,” Mustang’s head continued to shake, “the city is being made available for the first upstart who wants to supplant the current government for abandoning its people.”

Moving as though he were ready to fly from his seat, Havoc froze when he realized Mustang did not carry any of his enthusiasm, “Wait, we’re not taking it?”

“I’m being set up,” Mustang ground his teeth, “imagine the amount of work I might be delegating to you and how many weeks and months it’ll take you to get through it.  Now put that on a national scale,” the officer sighed at the bind he was finding himself in, “a society to put back into order, law to establish and maintain, multitudes of people to organize, jobs to distribute, people to calm, public confidence to be measured, domestic affairs in all four surrounding quarters – I still don’t know at this point if all the quarters want to play nice with yet another change in governance.  Dante will use the chaos to vanish in the first days and we won’t have the resources for months to track her or keep her from reaching Ed no matter where we put him.”

Havoc settled back in his seat and looked around the room they’d come to call headquarters, “All things considered, I still think sending them to be under Major General Armstrong’s watch is the best option.  She can have autonomy over their protection while we deal with Central.”

“Agreed,” Mustang nodded, looking over to his junior officer, “but, before we do that I want to make sure that devil doesn’t have her hands into more than just the east.  Now that we have at least a clue what to look for we’ll double check our options before we gift wrap anyone into a trap.  I’m not losing Ed or this nation to that tiny woman.”

Mustang slammed his fist on the desk, bouncing the telephone receiver off its cradle as he stood up.

 


 

Every few minutes, Alphonse bounced.

“What’re you doing?” Winry giggled.

A goofy grin wiggled through Al’s face, “I haven’t bounced on a bed in years.”

“So you pick mine?” Winry sputtered.

“Yup,” Al gave another bounce and flopped onto his back.  Looking ahead to the ceiling, he dropped his arms out at either side, “I wish someone would come and tell us what’s going on.”

The someone originally was meant to be Lieutenant Havoc, who wanted to have a chat with the trio about a tentative plan to head north.  But, Havoc didn’t show at the time expected and neither did anyone else.  Eventually, Ed had gotten exasperated with sitting idle and had wandered off in a huff for an explanation. So, like the well behaved ones they told themselves they were being, Winry and Alphonse waited for someone to show up and explain things.

And they waited.

And waited.

And then it turned into the afternoon.

“How cold do you suppose it is up north?” Al wondered aloud.

“It’s July,” Winry shrugged, “even the coldest places get summer in July.”

“True… true true,” Al nodded as he thought that over, he’d simply always associated the north with the cold.  His eyes narrowed with a fun thought, “If we go north and we’re there long enough, we’re going to need winter clothes with hats and mitts and scarves and fur coats and—”

Winry started laughing and leaned back against a pillow she’d shoved up against the headboard, “You want the winter to freeze you to death?  Be my guest, but count me out – I’ll stay inside, thank you.  I’ve had enough of the cold for a while.”

Al bounced around on the bed to face Winry, his legs crossing in the process and he slapped his hands down in his lap eagerly, “You said it was really cold beyond the Gate, right?”

“Your brother will tell you I’m exaggerating,” Winry pointed a finger at the younger Elric, “but I swear no cold like that exists here.”

Al dug his hands into the bedsheets.  “Was there a lot of snow?  Did you have to wear parkas all the time?  And big fur hats and boots?”

Winry laughed, “Not exactly, but I would have worn something a heck of a lot warmer on my feet if I could’ve.  I think my feet were always cold.”

Al thought that was an odd statement to make, “Why couldn’t you wear warm boots if it was cold out?”

The look he got from Winry was palpable, “I had to obey the rules of what women could wear, and my feet suffered the most for it.”

Al was starting to find that, if he wanted to learn more about the little things about life beyond the Gate, he was probably going to get it through Winry.  In the first few days, his brother had felt surprisingly open about details he’d shared, but the moment things began to get serious with their situation, Ed’s restraint kicked back in and, other than making it clear he hadn't enjoyed his time there, he became more factual about what he shared.  Winry, on the other hand, offered tiny details, voiced her thoughts on the little things, and had a moderately subjective opinion on most everything.

Al found he had an insatiable hunger for the smaller details, like the strange idea that it mattered what men and women could wear; it gave the place more substance and made everything feel far less abstract.  When Al’s memories had come back and filled the space that existed between his reborn self and everyone, even though they weren’t there to share it with him when it happened, it had been a very rich sensation.  Suddenly everyone he looked at or thought about made more sense to him – they were fuller somehow.  Since Al wasn’t going to get five years of free information on his brother, or a much easier five months from Winry, he’d have to build it himself.

As his thoughts wandered around the ideas of building memories and connecting dots, there was as small detail Al already had that he wanted to know about, “Did you know Mathilde and Hermann?”

Winry’s eyes flew wide, “Did Ed tell you?”

“No no,” Al laughed at her surprise, “Brigitte wrote their names down when she was trying to tell us about people on her map in München and Deutschland.” 

“Ohh… yeah, she would have met them too,” Winry looked off in momentary thought while she put together an answer, “We did know them.  Mathilde was pretty lively – the first time I met her she showed up with an armload of clothes, a stack of magazines, and a massive collection of curlers, pins, clips, and things.  She spent the afternoon dressing me up like I was a human sized toy doll,” Winry gave a laugh at the memory, “I think she had a lot of fun doing it.  She spent forever trying to teach me how to curl and style my hair.  Most of the time I just gave up and let her do it.  She just somehow knew how to set the curls, spin it all up, do it this way or that, and then pin it to my head properly.  I either wore a hat to hide how I couldn’t do my hair or I wore my hair as a hat.”

Al’s expression twisted as put together in his head what in the world Winry might look like, “… no, I can’t imagine you in curls,” he laughed.

“Right?” she sputtered at Al’s very astute conclusion, “it was such an exercise, but no way was I letting her cut my hair.”

“How did you guys know them?” that was what Al really wanted to know.

“Hermann was a scientist of some kind,” Winry folded her arms as she racked her brain, “something to do with rockets I think?  Ed never went into much detail about what he actually did, since he was also a doctor and we sometimes needed him for that.”

With another mental canvas well underway, Al wanted to know more, “Did you do a lot of things with them?”

Winry gave a wobbly nod, “Not lots lots.  We had dinner together a couple times.  Hermann sometimes came over to pick Ed’s brain on science stuff.  If I needed to go shopping for clothes I couldn’t borrow, Tilly would take me,” her nose wrinkled, “I didn’t understand at first why she was so specific about everything.”

“Specific?” Winry’s tone only made Al more curious, “about the clothes rules?”

“Yeah, everybody had a lot of clothes rules,” Winry straightened herself and motioned to Al, “like for you, I never heard Ed mention if it was a rule exactly, but whenever we were out, all of the men wore a dress shirt, vest, pants, and a jacket of some kind – everywhere they took me and any guy I met was dressed like that too,” her eyes lit with a hint of amusement, “I suppose it was like a uniform: the man uniform.  Ed and your dad stayed ‘in uniform’ pretty much every moment we weren’t at home.”

It wasn’t a battle that Al had considered for his brother, or one that he would have seen him conceding to either.  Ed had his own style that he catered to, and certainly never made an effort to ‘blend in’, so to consider some of his individuality lost to societal standards and norms must have been at least a little deflating for him.

“At least he looked good in it,” Winry grumbled, “all I got were these frumpy clothes and skirts everyone had to wear no matter the weather.  And they could only come half way up the calf and always cover my knees,” her grumble got worse, “and I had to wear stockings because I wasn’t allowed to have bare legs. And I couldn’t wear pants either, so if I ever wanted to wear sweats or a big sweater or something I had to steal them from your brother.”

Al’s thoughts were tripped up and he burst with a laugh, “You stole his clothes!?”

“They were way more comfortable!” Winry protested, “I just couldn’t leave the house in them.”

Al couldn’t stop giggling at the mental image of that.  His brother now was at least a few sizes larger than anything Winry would have fit into, “You raiding his closet.  Everything must have been huge, why didn’t you buy your own?”

Winry sat back and let Al in on a missing detail, “Money was pretty tight.  Ed and your dad both had good jobs, but they both said the country was having too many economic problems and their jobs didn't matter too much, so they couldn’t afford to decorate me in new things.  Most of the clothes I got were just hand-me-downs Tilly brought me.”

For Al, the concept of beyond the Gate seemed to come with the precognition that the people existed with general wealth, since their knowledge had once seemed so vast, and both his dad and his brother working at a school complimented that.  Alphonse had never even considered the people beyond the Gate would be struggling to pay for something.

“But Ed never complained if I took his sweaters, as long as I washed them and put them back,” Winry shrugged, “I think the only things he really paid for were my new coat and the dress Tilly helped me get for the concert.”

“Concert?” there Winry went again hauling Al away from his growing list of curiosities and over to a whole new picture, “You went to a concert?  What kind of concert?”

Winry replied with a mousy grin, “Yeah, someone gave Ed two tickets to a fancy orchestra concert for his birthday.” 

Al’s grin flew wide with intrigue, “And he took you?  To the orchestra?  Like on a date?”

Winry wrinkled her nose and waived Al off, “Al, your brother’s never asked anyone out on a date.  The person who gave him the tickets told him to take me, so I could see the finer side of German culture.”

Al debated how badly he wanted to contest her assessment of the outing, but decided he was more interested in hearing what else Winry had to say than risk derailing the conversation.

“Ed couldn’t give the tickets back, so we had to scramble last minute to find something to wear,” Winry's gaze narrowed, “he got lucky and the Haushofer family was all boys, so they had a tuxedo he could borrow, but I had to go shopping for a nice dress and this contraption called a garter belt.”

Al took note to ask who the Haushofer family was later, but he still needed to know a little bit more about the topic at hand.  Since his afternoon seemed to continually get more entertaining, Al bounced himself onto his stomach, folded his arms atop the sheets, and put his chin down with a grin, “What kind of dress did my brother end up paying for?”

“It was an olive green thing,” Winry looked herself over, “it came down to here and here, didn’t have sleeves, the back was really open, but I had a nice shawl, so that was okay.  My hair was bundled up on my head again, I had to clip up my stockings into the damn belt, and I wobbled around in these pointy green shoes Tilly found to match.  It was the most uncomfortable lady-like outfit I’ve ever worn,” Winry paused as her memories drifted into the ceiling and she tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear, “but, I did look kind of nice in it, and I enjoyed the evening overall, so I give it a pass.”

Grinning, Al stretched his arms out through the top of the bed, “Who was the mastermind that sent you two to the fancy concert?”

“Um…” Winry’s clenched her eyes and shook out her thoughts as she tried to remember, “oh, it was this guy named Rudolf He—”

There was no provocation Al could recognize, nothing in her story that would have let him see it coming, nor anything the younger Elric could have done about it.  Al slowly began to bring himself up, helplessly watching a rich, fun story of an innocent adventure drain of its life in Winry’s eyes and bleed the colour from her face. 

“Hess.”

Her eyes locked forwards, but Winry’s gaze existed far from the room; Al watched as she sat up in the bed and tried to tuck her legs under herself, but her wounded leg didn’t comply, and she was forced to leave it out, half bent in front of her.

“Hess?” Al leaned forwards with the question, hoping she’d look at him to give him something – every alarm was going off in his head and he had no idea why, “Winry?  Who’s Hess?”

Her hands came up to her face and her fingers pushed through her cheeks, hooked around her ears, and slowly pulled down her neck, while her gaze vacantly darted around the sheets, like she was piecing something together, “It was the Saturday before…”

Al reached out finally, grabbed one of her wrists, and watched her expression flash back into the room in a panic.  He hesitated with his question, not certain where he should begin.

“Are you okay?”

The obvious answer was no, but Al wasn’t lucky enough to get that response.  Winry’s snared look held her captive for a moment longer, before she took a deep, staggered inhale and tried to shake it all out on the exhale.

“Al, can you go find someone to tell us what the heck is going on?  Your brother buggered off ages ago.”

Glancing from the door back to Winry, Al sat back, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she nodded.

Al looked to the wrist he still held and slowly let it go, “Alright, but are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” she offered a forced laugh that Al saw straight through, “it's fine, don’t worry.  But can you find someone to tell us why we’re still sitting here, please?”

“Okay,” he slipped off the bed and slowly made his way to the door, “I’ll find an update quick and be right back, okay?”

“Thanks Al.”

Her fake smile made the guilty weight imposing on Al more noticeable, and he certainly hoped doing as she asked and not pushing was the right thing to do.  Hopefully he could find some answers quickly, so he had a valid excuse to come back sooner than later.

 


 

Past the dinner hour, and through the final reaches of daylight, Mustang strode through the halls of his operations base.  Lodging and a few operations was sequestered away on the second floor, leaving the main floor open and modestly accessible to not draw too much attention, and it allowed the troupe access to the dim little restaurant the hotel had there.  A shoddy café by day, and dingy pub by night, it was an occasional respite to sit and enjoy the dreary atmosphere of somewhere else beyond a repurposed second floor lunch suite. 

It was where Roy found Ed, much to the officer’s chagrin.  He would have preferred if this Elric would stay completely out of sight, though his concerns were eased knowing that this Edward Elric did not fit the description of his teenage self any longer.  Nobody beyond a handful of people knew Ed’s current age or constitution; yet, tonight he was a far odder sight.  Roy found him seated alone, back to the world around him, an elbow on the table with his head resting in the hand, plate of food half eaten, one drink gone, another on its way out.  Roy’s brow furrowed at the picture being painted.  With an unassuming stride over, the officer stepped up behind Ed, put a hand down on his shoulder.

Ed threw himself from the chair at an alarming speed, nearly knocking the table over as he flew up and away from the grasp.  Spinning around amidst his stumble, Roy snatched the wrist that went flying out at him.

“STOP.”

Ed froze; panicked golden eyes locked to Roy.  The pair stood silently paused, staring at each other, as a fork finally toppled from the table and clattered off the floor.

Ed suddenly snatched his arm back and snapped his shirt straight.

“Anything wrong?” was the question Roy opted for.

“No.”

The officer looked to the ajar table of spilt alcohol and cold dinner, “You’re certain?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Ed barked, turning to the table to straighten his mess, “Christ, you don’t just sneak up on people like that.”

“Okay,” Roy backed off.  His brow lowered and he watched as a frustrated Ed tried to re-set the disturbed table, “no one to dine with tonight?”

“Winry’s taking a nap and Al’s occupying himself, since we’re not doing anything and all your people are giving us the runaround,” storming over to the unattended servers bar, Ed snatched a rag to wipe his table down with and confronted Mustang again, “where the hell have you been all day?  I was hearing you had some grand scheme up your sleeve to banish us north?  Anything wrong ?”

“Yes actually,” Roy ignored the cranky Elric’s attempt to get a rise out of him.  Exhaling, he brought his mind back to a very pressing topic, “what do you remember about your assignment in Xenotime?”

Not expecting to have his snide quip actually answered, Ed put the rag down on the table and raised an eyebrow, “With the red water?”

Roy nodded, taking his turn to approach the bar counter, “I’m looking more into what you remember of Xenotime itself.”

“Oh,” Ed’s brow popped, his toweled hand sweeping over the table as he tried to think, “it was a mining town.  They mined gold in the northern range and valley until it ran out, then the town declined pretty badly.  They found more gold in a new excavation, and then fell back into decline after that ended.”

Roy scanned the layout behind the bar counter and snatched up two tall glasses, “Topography?”

Straightening up, Ed strummed his fingers on the back of a chair as he thought, “It was tucked away in the lower mountains.  The town sat in a valley bed.  Fit maybe a few thousand people or so I’d guess.”  He narrowed his eyes in thought, hearing ice cubes clatter into Roy’s glasses, “There was a huge lake just beyond the southern mountain range, Al and I took a train over it.”

“Where was the red water treated?” Roy crouched down and opened a cooler door.

“The northern range.  They had a sheared cliff that they built the lab into above the town and it was the range where they first found all the gold,” Ed sat back down at his table, eyed his cold dinner, and gave up on the idea, “when the gold was gone, they used the old gold mine shafts as procurement for the red water.  I’d assume someone had planned to do the same for the second deposit at some point.”

Roy walked back up to the table and placed two tall, ice filled glasses down on the table for each of them.

Ed looked from the glass back to Roy as the elder of the two sat down, “Why?”

Sighing, Roy took a sip of his drink before answering, “It doesn’t appear Dante is leaving Xenotime.  If anything, she’s fortifying and bringing people in.”

Ed laced his fingers, put his elbows down on the table, and leaned into his hands with a scowl.

The discontent in Roy’s voice grew, “And I’m having some trouble getting information about what is exactly going on, but there’s a clear influx of people into Xenotime and almost nobody is leaving.  The fact that Xenotime is in the east like Ishibal and Lior, and she has history with both the town and quarter, doesn’t bode well.  On top of that, she seems to have gone ‘fuck it’ to politics and is willingly about to let us fall into anarchy.”

His head falling forwards, Ed’s hands slapped down onto the table.  He scowled and grabbed the glass Roy’d filled for him.  With a sharp inhale he took a large gulp and suddenly found himself sputtering on it, “It’s water?”

Roy put his glass down and looked pointedly at Ed, “So, how difficult would it be to use the Xenotime township as a replenishment source for the Philosopher’s Stone?”

Ed froze.

Roy ran his finger over the rim of his glass, “You just described a dying town with underground mining architecture.”

“Xenotime?” Ed looked around in hurried thought, “The place is too small, she wouldn’t get much.  It doesn’t even seem worth it.”

“But, if she were desperate?” Roy tapped his finger off his glass, “if she weren’t even desperate and just wanted to make a point?  With a town she could hide by drowning it in lake water, all executed from a secure location?”

Ed sunk back in his chair, “Shit…”

“A town with people in government converging on it to bolster her effect.”

Taking a long, heavy sigh, Ed rocked back on two legs of the chair, tossing his head back as he groaned.  He let the chair land on all fours again with a thud and snapped forward, popping up to his feet.  Roy rose as Ed snatched up his glass of water and came around the table.  Stepping into his path, Roy’s hand landed firmly on Ed’s chest to stop him. 

Ed scowled at the intrusion, “What?”

Without a word, Roy spun him around, put a hand at what would have been the scruff of his neck, and led him out with his gifted glass of ice water.

“The hell’re you doing?” Ed spat.

Shrugging, Roy ushered him towards the stairs, “You seem to need something to keep you busy and I need to figure out more about our little terror in the east.  So, I’m going to put some people’s heads together in a room and see what we come up with.  Drink up.”

 


 

It had been an exhausting evening of arguing.  There were a multitude of ideas all going in their own directions and no sign of a consensus among stubborn minds.  Al walked into his room, his brother storming in after him, slamming the door.

“He’s got a point though,” Al flicked on the table lamp to ruin the midnight.

“His nose is a damn point,” Ed grumbled, “if Brigitte and everyone are with Dante in Xenotime, we need to find a way to get them out and keep her from ruining the town.  You’re going to need me to be there for that.”

It was his brother’s argument that, to prevent Dante from possibly doing something to endanger the entire population of Xenotime, Ed would travel with them knowing that Dante wouldn’t act callously and risk endangering him – Ed was too valuable.

“Brother, we’d nearly be handing you to her if you go.”

The counter argument from everyone else was that, in order for Ed’s presence to be effective, they would have to let Dante know he was there. 

“Nobody’s handing me over to Dante,” Ed dumped himself in the room chair, his elbow landing hard on the table, “we can bait her out and keep her occupied long enough to evacuate the town and give everyone else enough time to extract Brigitte, Lieutenant Ross, and the rest of’em.”

And this was the focal point of contention between the two Elric brothers, “I don’t want any part of a plan that uses you as bait ,” Al watched his brother’s head fall into his hands with a heavy sigh, and the younger brother rolled his head back, “we don’t even know what happens if you clap your hands at this point.  You said it yourself; you need months to practice the other world’s alchemy practically, with tangible transmutation circles, to learn what they do before giving it a go at clapping your hands for it.  That leaves you defenceless and you want to be bait?  No, absolutely not.”

“You’ll be with me and she’s probably going to have a ton of questions for you too,” Ed’s hands flared out, “she’ll keep her heavy actions to a minimum and I’ll have you to watch my back if anything starts up.”

Al bristled at the plans being made for him, “No, you won’t, because I’m not going.  I’m staying put with you and Winry, like we’re supposed to.”

After Al had anxiously left Winry’s room to find answers that would hopefully distract her, Al had found his brother loitering in the main floor halls, scowling, having been completely unable to get an answer out of anyone or, for that matter, find Mustang, Hawkeye, or even Havoc who was supposed to have taken them north.  Al mentioned to Ed that something had upset Winry, and when he elaborated with ‘someone named Hess?’ his brother abruptly vanished, leaving Al to scour for answers on his own.  After what felt like an hour later, Al gave up getting rhetoric and runaround from people, went back upstairs, and intercepted his brother coming out of Winry’s room.  He’d asked if she was okay and Ed simply said she was taking a nap, at which point Al took a good look at his brother and told him that he looked like he needed one too.  Ed dismissed the idea and wandered downstairs, leaving Al by himself and to his own devices.  At that point Alphonse decided he was just going to collect his family and take them wherever Mustang sent them, because something felt off.

“Al,” Ed pleaded, his hands dropping over his knees, “Winry definitely needs to get out of here.  I don’t want her anywhere near this and she needs to be far off Dante’s radar, but Dante’s not going to do anything that might hurt me.”

“You mean other than try to turn your brain to liquid while she tries to rip your thoughts out against your will?” the younger brother’s fists landed on his sides.

The impatience and frustration in his demeanour growing clear, Ed swung back up to his feet, folding his arms.  He drew a breath to speak, but Al beat him to it.

“Brother, can we just step back for a moment,” Al took his fists off his hips and let them ease at his sides, “let’s just focus on leaving safely and we can think of something on the way.  We might get some better ideas on some sleep, travel, and new scenery.  You haven’t been sleeping well, I think we need a change of scenery at least.”

Ed stopped pacing, though his head kept shaking, “That’s really what I came home to do?  Run and hide?”

Al’s shoulders sagged, “Brother…”

“I need to at least try to do something, Al,” Ed voiced his exasperation at the situation, “but the less you or I do, the more Dante will.  She doesn’t act with morals or empathy.  She’ll operate like Envy and work her way in where we’re not looking.  And then what happens?  Who gets hurt?”

If anything was unmistakable about Dante, it was that the lives of Amestrians only had value to her in terms of how they could further her objectives.  She rarely acted on her own accord, rather choosing to use any available assets to move on her behest, while she slipped ahead to orchestrate another playing field to her favour.

Unsure of what his answer could or should be, Al watched his older brother’s brow flatten and tighten as he began to think.  Ed’s eyes could exist in a room, but his gaze could be seeing something ten thousand miles away if he wanted.  Tapping a free finger within his folded arms, the older brother rolled his jaw while his pupils danced around in thought.  Finally cancelling the silence the brothers were maintaining, Ed moved - from the bedside table, the elder brother picked up a pencil and notepad and began writing.  Wrapped in the weak room light, Al watched curiously as the page was torn out and handed to him.

“What’s this?” turning the sheet around in his hands, Al’s brow rose curiously.

“Cyrillic," Ed answered.

Oh.  Al wasn’t sure if he should divert his eyes from the four items scrawled on it or not.  He debated dropping it altogether, “Brother, isn’t this dangerous?”

“I don’t think these are.”

As passive as it was, Al didn’t like the response and he took his eyes off the paper, “The Gate wouldn’t let me bring you all the way home,” he glanced at his brother standing in the corner of his vision, “If this knowledge is dangerous, I don’t think I should be looking at it.”

Shaking his head, Ed stepped up to his younger brother, “It was me the Gate didn’t want coming home, right?  I was the danger, not the knowledge.”

Al gave pause to think on his brother’s words. 

“If all of the knowledge was dangerous, why did the Gate allow me to return with it?”

Al had only been able to bring his brother so far as the back side of the doors, because anything beyond that had been refused.  It was Ed, as an existence, as an entity, that the Gate had refused.  But in the end, Ed had managed to get himself, Winry, and the knowledge in his head home.  A question drifted past Al as he mulled his memory of the moment… what did he—?

“Dante has every inch of Amestrist to her memory by now,” Ed pivoted on his toes, waving the notepad in his hand as he spoke, “she has five hundred years of weaving done.  Even if that nasty little bitch has tricks we can’t even imagine,” Ed spun back to his brother with a very familiar smirk, “I guarantee she’s never encountered those four characters.”

Unable to dissuade himself from entertaining his brother’s energy, Al peeked down at the sheet in his hand.

“The culmination of what I learnt beyond the Gate is dangerous,” Ed wouldn’t disagree, “but not every individual thing I discovered there was.”

Alphonse relented, “Okay, what do they do?”

Ed shrugged, “When I researched them, they looked like basic alchemical formula markers.”

Al looked at his brother confused, “Just regular transmutation parts?”

“Hopefully, they’re a bit more than that,” Ed cocked an eyebrow, his tone a bit wistful, “I had no way of testing them.  They’re part of an older alchemy formula set that gave way to one that’s more like what we have.  I never found anything coded into their texts that made it look like they were volatile but, I’d rank those as the most garden variety ones from beyond the Gate that we’ve never seen,” Ed’s hands found his pants’ pockets, a growing grin worming its way through his expression, “and you can find out what they do.”

It was an indelible curiosity.  Al brought the sheet of four mystery alchemical factors back up to eye level.  He could learn it.  They could learn it.  It had been a long time since Al felt that kind of excitement bubbling in him.  They had been innocent children the last time they sat down and really tried to learn anything new with alchemy together.

“We can go north, south, east, or west, but it’s not going to matter where we go if we have someone hunting us who doesn’t play by any rules,” Ed’s brow rose with a quirk to his grin, “So, we’ll modify the playing field.”

Slowly, cautiously, yet with a child’s eagerness, Al examined every stroke his brother had made on the sheet.  He wouldn’t deny he was insatiably curious about the concept and application of new transmutation circles.

“I’m going to have to start by drawing all these out,” Al looked up from the sheet.

“Good call,” Ed’s energy picked up yet again and he tore out a few sheets from the notepad, “and after some practice you won’t need to anymore.”

There was never a moment where Ed’s excitement for alchemy wasn’t contagious.  Al began pulling the small table in the borrowed hotel room over to the bed as his brother put down a series of blank circles on each sheet.  Running into the bathroom, Al filled a glass half way with water and brought it back, placing it centre of the table. 

“Let’s think up a couple circles that’ll give us a clue to what they might do and go from there,” Ed tapped the end of his pencil on the table and spread out the sheets.

Al tapped his chin as he scanned the paperwork, debating where to start first, before his new golden eyes excitedly lit, “Oh, there’s a planter at the end of the hall.”

“I’ll grab some dirt,” Without missing a beat, Ed hopped to the door, “and get some salt from that makeshift kitchen.”

The younger brother was momentarily left alone with the incredibly exciting and nerve wracking job of thinking up the first new transmutation circle in hundreds of years.  What an absolutely monumental feat they were about to undertake.  Yet, when he looked back at the door his brother slipped out of, Al wondered how concerned he should be that Ed seemed to be trying to divert him from the idea of leaving Central.

 


 

There was no prison to stash a wailing and raging de-limbed homunculus in, so Wrath had been relegated to the basement’s cleared out equipment room.  It was close enough to the boiler room that it would drown out the creature, and solid enough that he couldn’t break anything, and built well enough that his ankle could be tethered with a chain to his wrist around a cement pillar.  The bottom of the stairs was where Izumi would sit in the mornings if she wanted to interrogate or simply stare at the defective creature as it wiggled, wailed, and flailed.  At some point the red stones fueling Wrath would have to run out, but at what point and when, she couldn’t say. 

Izumi didn’t want to look at the reason she’d given herself the task of monitoring Wrath; looking at him and knowing why he existed was bad enough.  And even locked up with nowhere to run there was nothing she could do about him.  He was nothing but a tool now.

She knew this.

She understood it.

And she was still down there anyways while he screamed at her.  Wrath didn’t seem to need much sleep when he was hyped up on red stones, but he’d fallen silent in the last while, like a child that had simply exhausted its ability to throw a tantrum and passed out.

Through the silence, a pair of shoes were heard on the cement stairs and Ed came down to join his teacher that morning.

“He’s not going to start acting like he can rip me limb from limb, is he?” he asked quietly, below the echo.

Izumi shook her head, “He’s screamed himself to sleep I think.  It took hours.”

Ed breathed in the stale, warm air and sat down next to her, “He didn’t happen to give up anything useful?”

“Just noise,” she shrugged and looked at Ed, and had to look again and bring her eyes up – she still wasn’t used to having to look up at him, “when did that happen?”

She got back a curious look.

Izumi offered a soft laugh, “When did your body decide it was time for you to grow up?”

“Oh,” a rich, smug grin came to Ed for this answer, “I was seventeen.  Not sure when it started, I wasn’t really paying attention, but I stood up one day and whacked my head into the kitchen cupboard,” he rubbed the top of his head at the memory, but never lost his grin, “I’d never done that before.  Best hole in my skull I ever got.”

Izumi did her best to stifle her laugh at the achievement marker, “Well, that’s good,” Ed got a pat on his knee for that as Izumi looked him over again, finally shaking her head, “Brigitte told us that you were older than we were expecting, but I don’t think any of us honestly believed it.  We accepted the facts as they were, but to look at you and know you’ve had over five years go by…”

Ed leaned back, putting his elbows down on the step behind him.

“There’re a lot of people involved now who’ve never even known you for five years, I can’t even say I have.  You two were so busy running around being fools.”

Ed chuckled at the sentiment.

“Your father, of all people, got the most years out of you,” Izumi looked out into the darkened cement room, poorly lit with the sunrise falling in through the filthy windows near the ceiling.

Ed drew a slow breath in and looked up to the piping overhead, “They weren’t exactly my best years.”

Izumi followed his gaze up, but found nothing of interest, and cast her attention back to him, “How’re things now that you’ve been back for a bit?”

Narrowing his eyes at a drip leaking through a pipe, Ed wondered how to answer that, “It's fine.  It was something like a shock to the system at first,” his gaze narrowed as he struggled to find words for a feeling, “we woke up here in the middle of everything… I’ve just been running with it.”

“But?” Izumi pushed his silent hesitation.

Ed shook his head slowly, unable to find his words, “I don’t know… at some point it’ll start feeling normal again.”

There was something in Ed’s voice that Izumi kept picking up on that she couldn’t say she’d ever heard from him before: a weary tone occasionally found his voice.  It wasn’t much, but it was noticeable when his words softened - it was a subtle undertone that she wanted to describe as sounding tired.  Izumi wasn’t sure ‘tired’ was the word she wanted, but she couldn’t put her finger on another one.

“I suppose you’re a few steps out of sync,” she offered, “from your perspective, this point is around four years behind you.”

“Something like that,” Ed continued the shake of his head, but then startled Izumi when he suddenly choked down a laugh, “Actually, I feel like I have to go to work.”

And with the upbeat in his tone, the inflection was gone.  The teacher joined him in the muffled laughter; Al offering up his brother’s occupation beyond the Gate had given everyone a lot of questions that Ed had groaned his way through answering, “You’re such a good boy, getting a nice, decent, regular Monday to Friday job.  Please, do everyone a favour and find something like that here later.”

Ed rolled his eyes, “We’ll see about that.”

“All things considered,” Izumi looked at him and wondered aloud, “you did live a fairly normal life there.”

A disgruntled noise sputtered out from Ed, “I just buggered around with one arm and mostly two legs and tried to learn an extinct science nobody believed in any more.  Speaking of…” he pointed a finger upstairs, “Mustang’s gathering people for a meeting soon and wants you involved.  If you’re not busy with this creature…” the finger wiggled over to Wrath.

“I’m not busy,” Izumi shook her head, “if he wakes up, he can yell at the ghosts for a whi—”

As if irony had timing, from the floor above a clatter of what sounded like a tower of pots and pans fell to the ground, sending a deafening echo through the concrete walls. Ed and Izumi cringed in unison and looked back to Wrath lying flopped on his side, purple eyes suddenly open wide.

“Well, at least he can’t go anywhere,” Ed shrugged and stood up.

“Hello there my arm and leg!” the little creature’s voice gleefully ripped out like fingernails down a chalkboard.

Izumi gave the noisy creature her harshest glare as she rose to her feet, “You mind yourself down here.”

A toothy grin was flashed their way, “I will if you let me take my arm and leg back.”

The teacher turned and began her ascent up the stairs with an exhausted groan while Ed used this single, childish opportunity for one purpose, and one purpose only.  Clicking the heels of his shoes off the floor, Ed walked up to the very edge of the flopped homunculus’s reach, leaned down, looked Wrath in the eye, and offered him a mercilessly smug grin.

“They don’t fit you anymore, Wrath.  They’re too big.”

The hungry gaze and enflamed purple eyes drained away and Wrath stared blankly back.

Ed’s foolish expression vanished.  He leaned back warily as Wrath’s blank look locked on and didn’t let go.  Ed glanced at the stairwell Izumi had already climbed before cautiously looking back down at Wrath. 

What the? 

This was unnerving.

Total bewilderment and curiosity got the better of the golden blonde and he knelt down, half expecting the creature to try and bite something off him.  Nothing happened though, Wrath simply stretched forwards, as far as he could within his bindings, like an animal leading with its nose, piercing purple eyes drying out as the creature focused relentlessly on Ed.

His discomfort growing worse, Ed’s brow rose high and he stood back up.  He tugged his shirt straight like the adult he should have been and looked down at Wrath again.

The homunculus’ eyes had somehow grown wider as his head slowly turned and neck craned while he stared, jaw creaking open the longer it went on.

“Ed!”

He startled from the echo of Izumi’s call.

“Act your age, stop tormenting him, and get your ass up here.”

“Yeah,” Ed took a step away from Wrath, watching the homunculus' eyes continue to track him as he moved.  Making his way back to the stairs, Ed kept his own eye on Wrath and listened while the creature never made another sound.  Ed landed deliberately silent on each step and he looked up to Izumi waiting at the top, holding the door.

“What’s he doing?”

“Hell if I know,” Ed shook his head.

Turning on the top step, Ed took the door from Izumi, but stopped before closing it.  His attention fell back down into the homunculus’s chamber, barely able to see Wrath’s face peek into the light of the open door as he pushed the limits of his binding to watch Ed go out.  Ed slowly turned, his golden gaze narrowing and staring straight back at the creature while he tried to think.

“What?” Izumi asked.

Ed let the door go and it slammed shut, “Wrath’s being weird.”

“Stop taunting him then.  Let’s go.”

He nodded and followed his teacher out.

 


To Be Continued...


 

Notes:

Ed actually didn’t mind his job at the university. For what it was, he was pretty good at it. He did take it out of necessity though (he’d been having to face a few realities and getting a job was one of them) but being in the sciences department helped keep him from being too bored.

I don’t know why this story exists in my head as richly as it does. Some poor person’s going to come along in 2022 and see like 600,000 words and just nope out on me LOL. Are you still reading along? Cheers to you!

I chose not to re-do ch 42 & 43 and just went with taking things where they sat (with slight mods) and moved forwards from those points - it makes entry into the Dante arc a bit wonky for me, but it'll smooth out. I hope this chapter didn’t read as clumsy as it feels in my head. I gave up counting how many times I changed my ideas and my outline. Chapters 44-46 have been re-drafted over and over and over…

Interestingly, when I was dumping my thoughts and trying to mash out ch 44-46 (they were written together) I ended up writing character interactions or emotional points that were almost word-for-word something that I’d already written ten years ago lmao.

My long-held intention to make this 51 chapters has been overturned in favour of taking better care of the story. The final chapter count will land between 55 and 60. 65 looollll

At time of posting, I'm polishing up Ch49 and at some point I’m going to catch up to myself. I wasn't going to try and finish this unless I could write out enough to convince myself that I could actually make it to the ending. I hope everyone enjoys reading me get back into the swing of this, before I force you to wait between chapters :)

Chapter 45: Pushback

Summary:

As everyone tries to figure out how to tackle Dante, Ed and Al try to come up with a lure for her from beyond the Gate.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“No,” Izumi snarled, “Xenotime is a trap.”

The alchemists had gathered in a room and, even after the noon hour lapsed, they still remained locked in debate.  All around the circular table Mustang had spread his maps and plans out on, the morning arguments raged on.

“It’s not much of a trap if we all know what it is,” Al had to concede and got a nasty look from his teacher for it.

Ed’s voice once again rose up, “At some point there’ll be enough people in place at Xenotime that Dante’ll act.  If we don’t do something soon, we put everyone she’s trapped at risk and possibly be sacrificing the town as well.”

“Can someone tell me,” Mustang bellowed, “does the size of the Philosopher's Stone impact the strength of it, or is it simply a matter of longevity of the stone.”

“Longevity,” Izumi answered.

Mustang took his frustrated, dark gaze and put it on Ed, “Then we might have to let the town fair on its own so we can deal with things.”

Ed’s hands slammed down on the table, “ARE YOU FUCKING MAD?”

Mustang’s fists did the same, “I’M FURIOUS.  With this situation, with these endless no win options, with this monstrous little terror, and with YOU , for continuing to think that any of us are going to let you within a day’s travel of her.”

Ed threw his hands up in exasperation.

“The hound is right,” Izumi’s vocal barrage followed next, providing unusual backup for the officer, “the danger of putting you anywhere near her, especially in such a pocketed area is way too high.  What the hell are you thinking, Ed?”

Before Ed could bear his fangs and bite back at anyone, Al stepped in with hands raised, “Maybe maybe maybe we’re approaching this all wrong.”

He waited until the boiling faces lowered to a simmer.

The smallest alchemist in the room continued, “We all agreed Dante is obviously trying to get us out of Central and into a more remote area to manage.  We know that’s how she’s operated for decades – pulling her strings in smaller areas like Ishibal and Lior and even Dublith,” Al glanced to his teacher, “and we agreed earlier that she was doing it because she doesn’t feel like she can get an upper hand on us in a place like Central City right now.”

Armstrong’s voice finally rose up, “And because of that, we hold the advantage in Central City.  It’s the last place she wants to engage us.”

“Right,” Al nodded and pointed his question at the lumbering officer, “Can we do anything to strengthen our position here to lure her back?”

As temperatures cooled elsewhere around the table, Armstrong took the lead, “Dante has deliberately left the city in a vulnerable position.  The heads of government are acting like everything going on is inconsequential.  With high ranking officials gathering in Xenotime, we could easily subdue the city in the course of a few days and use their neglect to claim victory.  However, the disadvantage it leaves us in is staggering.”

Izumi’s nose wrinkled as she looked at Mustang, “She’s really handing you the keys to the city?”

“Yes,” Mustang flipped his pen into the centre of the table with a disgusted sound, “and the moment I take it everyone I have at my disposal here, or anywhere else, become too overburdened with governance to manage Dante,” he scowled at his plans laid out on the table, “issuing an immediate ordinance or putting any resources towards capturing and imprisoning a seven-year-old for any sort of reason, at any point would cast serious doubt on my competence.  I’d be forced to let her slip away and have no way to track her.  I’d suspect she’d let the assembled government in Xenotime hang to buy herself more time,” Mustang gave a short, sarcastic laugh towards a darker fate, “or actually replenish her Philosopher’s Stone with the town of Xenotime, just as a former State Alchemist walks in to helm their lives.  I might as well hang myself for her at that point.”

“So,” Ed slowly drew out beneath his relentless scowl, “we still need to come up with a plan to get Brigitte, Lieutenant Ross, and the rest of’em out of Xenotime.”

“I’m absolutely not allowing you anywhere near her vicinity,” Izumi glared bullets at Ed.

Armstrong spoke up again, “Is there any way to use the Empty City as a distraction while a few men infiltrate the lab in Xenotime to get everyone back?”

“I could—”

“Not you,” Mustang nearly snapped his fingers at Ed.

The older Elric’s eye twitched and he withheld what he’d have preferred to shoot off his tongue, “Al could maybe entice her.”

“I-I could?” Al stammered.  Not expecting to be put on the spot, his hands fluttered around as he tried to come up with something, “I… could… oh,” he looked around the room in frantic thought, “OH.  I could offer her a trade!”

“A trade?” a number of voices echoed in chorus.

“Yes, for Brigitte!  And I could offer her…” Al reached into his pocket, “this.” 

On the table, Al unfolded the piece of paper he’d received from his brother the night before – the four new alchemical symbols Al had spent the night learning.

Ed’s jaw unhinged and eyes popped wide – that was absolutely, in no way, in any universe, anything close to what he was going for.  Slowly, he inched away from Al, who stood between the older brother and Izumi. 

Armstrong did the courtesy of wondering aloud for everyone, “What are those?”

“Four symbols from beyond the Gate,” Al announced proudly.

“ED.”

Pinpoint gold pupils snapped to his teacher, “Yes Ma’am?”

Slowly stepping around Al, Izumi zeroed in on the slinking Elric, “WHY WOULD YOU GIVE AL—”

“IT'S OKAY!” Al flailed his arms, “they’re pretty harmless.”

Ed froze, hands behind his back, “They were the four most common ones that we didn’t have.”

“That’s not the point!” Izumi roared back.

Reaching across the table, Armstrong picked up the sheet, eyed it, and handed it to Mustang.

“Giving Dante alien alchemy information isn’t something I’d otherwise consider an option,” the senior officer took the sheet, his one eye inspecting warily, “what do they do?”

“Not much,” Al watched the small hopes of the room deflate and quickly added, “well, I mean, they can do a lot of things but, so far, they don’t seem to have properties beyond what we can already do.”

Ed straightened himself and cleared his throat, “It looks like they’re just simply formula elements that can complete any average transmutation if they’re swapped in for others and the circle is re-ordered to accommodate.  The transmutations they’re used in execute slower because they require more pathways to conduct flow.  And they’re also symbols that ended up becoming common characters in language, so for them to be basic isn’t too surprising.”

Mustang looked from the sheet to Ed curiously, “How would alchemical symbols fall out of favour and end up as language?”

Ed shifted and folded his arms, “If I were to start a hypothesis based on last night, even if not all alchemical characters ended up in language scripts beyond the Gate, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the ones that did transition were the slower, redundant transmutation elements.  I remember noticing at one point when I was researching that there seemed to be a fair bit of redundancy between certain alchemical methods, but I couldn’t test anything to find out why.  If redundancy was the case, it’s possible that we ended up with the other world's preferred character script at the time of the Alchemical Revolution,” Ed paused as he took a moment to organize a few thoughts, “In Al’s trials last night they didn’t show anything additional, just another, slower means to arrive at the same end.  With that in mind, it might be possible to theorize or even determine at what point the redundancy ends and higher level alchemy begins based on what characters gained prominence in modern Gate language scripts and which didn’t.  Once I determine that, we can create a new, secondary set of alchemical characters that ultimately accomplish nothing more than what we can do already.”

The room stared in silence at Ed.

He blinked, “What?”

Mustang refolded the paper in his hand and reached across the table to return it to Ed, “Thank you, Professor Elric.  I’ll take notes next time.”

The colour drained from Ed's face and he looked back at Mustang absolutely mortified, “Don’t you ever call me that again.”

“Al, can you please explain in fewer words than your brother?” Izumi requested.

The younger brother swallowed his giggles, “Yeah.  The characters just seem to be another way of accomplishing the same things with the knowledge we already have.  But, they look fancy and new and potentially a lot more than they’re showing now.  Their transmutation circles look complicated, and kind of pretty too, but once you dissect them, they’re very simple.  If we can be confident in how harmless the characters are, then we can make a decent resource pool to tempt Dante with.”

“And we can lure her out of Xenotime and into the Empty City, because its doubtful we'll be able to coax her to go anywhere else,” Ed added, “we can do something like 'bring us Brigitte and we’ll give you a sample from beyond the Gate'.  Dante’s not stupid enough to actually bring Brigitte, she might not even want the alchemy, but it’s too enticing for her to pass up.  It’ll open up a window of opportunity for someone to rescue the people in Xenotime.”

Slowly, the room quietly nodded in agreement.

With a heavy sigh, Izumi looked over to the two Elric brothers, “If you two can get something together, we can use Wrath to deliver a message.”

Ed nodded, “And Winry can fix his leg up.”

“Do you want to help or supervise?” Al looked up at Izumi.

Sighing, she shook her head a little, “I’m really not sure I want to be involved with anything that came from the Gate,” her eyes flickered from Al up to Ed, “but if you’d like my help, you can ask.”

The Elric brothers nodded.

“Alright,” with his hands on the table, Mustang rose to his feet, “let’s finally get this day going.  Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong and I have a few things to work out on our end.  You two get going on a placebo alchemical chart.  Ms. Curtis, can I ask you to continue monitoring Wrath in the basement?”

The collection of alchemists gave nods of approval and Mustang dismissed the room.

 


 

With the pop of his brow, straightening of his shirt, and a grin ear to ear, Al knocked on Winry’s door.

“Room Service!”

There was no reply for several moments, “… What?”

“Open the door Winry, free food!” Ed barked.

Al and his brother exchanged a concerned glance at the surprising amount of clatter, noise, and a few curses that tumbled towards the door before it finally clicked open and an interrogative pair of blue eyes peeked out.

The younger Elric brother beamed as they each held up a fairly substantially sized paper bag, “We bring lunch!”

“Smuggled in from the café down the street,” Ed nodded with a smirk.

“Illegal lunch? At three thirty?” Winry found a kind of grin the brothers were wearing and she let the door swing open, “well, okay I guess.”

Alphonse quickly slipped by Winry and bounced into the room, followed by his older brother who cast a scowl down at the obstacle course of crutches on the floor.  The brothers sat their hefty bags of lunch down on a little table in the corner and, while Al plucked the seat cushion out of a chair, Ed turned around and laid his scowl on Winry.

“Stop walking on it.”

“I’m not walking on it, I’m clearly hobbling,” Winry matched Ed’s scowl as he took her under the arm to help get her back to the bed, “how did you use those so often?”

Ed gave a half-hearted laugh to that, “I only used one.”

Al plunked the seat cushion down at the centre of Winry’s bed, relieved a pillow of its case, and dressed the cushion with a ‘tablecloth’.  He looked up with enough time to see the interrogative and suspicious look he got from Winry before his brother hoisted her up onto the bed with a squeak.  Al giggled, watching Winry bounce, and walked with his brother back to the table of food.

Winry adjusted herself as she sat on the bed, “What am I being set up for?”

Ed picked up his paper bag and frowned, “We can’t just bring you illegal take-out?”

“No,” her scowl briefly came back.

Ed shrugged and walked back over to the bedside alongside Al with their lunch, “Move over.”

Winry slid over as Ed put a bag down on the cushion table and Al hopped up on the foot of the bed, sat down, and started un-bagging their lunch.

“They’re tiny pastries and sandwiches,” Winry giggled at the display Al was happily setting out.

Ed pulled himself onto the bed next to Winry at their makeshift picnic, “We need you to do us a favour.”

“Of course you do,” she laughed at the edible bribery.

Carefully placing a bite sized lemon tart out in front of Winry as she folded her arms, Al gave a sheepish smile, “Can you fix Wrath’s leg, please?”

Winry eyeballed the tart before letting her gaze slide up to Al’s now hesitant smile, “That is a thing I can do… but, why do I want to give that little goblin two legs to stand on again?”

“We need him to relay some information out to Dante,” Ed answered as Al resumed laying out food.

The look Winry gave Al moved up to the elder brother, “I thought we were leaving, why are we contacting Dante?  I thought we were avoiding her at all costs.”

A very pointed look was given to Ed by his younger brother, “My brother is leaving with you once we get some things sorted out.”

Ed rolled his eyes away.

“I’ll join you a little later,” Al continued, “We’re going to try and lure Dante out of Xenotime with some information from the other side of the Gate, so the brigadier general can rescue everyone with less trouble, and maybe Sensei and I can do something to throw Dante off her game a bit.”

Slowly, Winry reached down and collected her tiny lemon tart, bit it in half, and chewed out a response, “I suppose I can help with that.  He’s just going to wreck it again though.”

With a shrug, Ed deposited the empty paper bags on the floor as Al completed their lunch display, “Yeah, but it’ll last long enough for us to actually get some good use out of Wrath.  I’ve been hearing Dante was using him as a messenger pigeon, so now we’ll just return the favour.”

Winry soured and popped the other half of the tart in her mouth, “It’s so painful watching him ruin my work, though.”

“It’s a noble sacrifice for a good cause,” Al declared then flared his hands out at the food display, “lunch is served!”

A wide Elric grin flew into Ed’s face as he looked at his brother’s display, “I think we got three of everything.”

“Why’d you buy so much food?” Winry laughed as she looked over her options of pastries and quarter sandwiches.

Ed dipped his head and looked at her, “Win, we need something to eat other than Mustang’s food.”

Winry puffed her cheeks and put herself nose to nose with Ed, “We need or you want?”

Ed gave an Elric sized grin and shrugged.

Winry giggled and turned her attention over to the indoor picnic, “Okay, so where do I start?”

“So what we have on the menu today are,” Al proudly presented from left to right, “meaty ones, greeny ones, ones with spreads, bread in unusual shapes, and tarts.  Help yourself!”

Winry reached out and plucked up another tart, opting for dessert first, “I missed food that had taste.  Eating just makes me more hungry.”

“Careful with the pastries, Win,” the grin Ed had been holding turned into a wicked smirk, “or you’ll have to figure out how to adjust that corset again.”

“Excuse me?” Winry squawked, “again?”

The frozen fingers of Ed’s hand reaching for food twitched as he eyed her, “Tilly said she let out your corset when we got back after France.  We did kinda spend a lot of the trip on a pastries and wine diet…”

The elder Elric brother very quickly found himself backhanded across the head with a pillow.

“Did I LOOK LIKE I got fat?” Winry raged.

“No,” was the meek reply.

Ed was sideswiped with the pillow again for the sake of it, “That was NOT why she adjusted it.”

“Then why?” Ed swept his hair out of his face.

“Where is that stupid thing anyways?” Winry scowled at him, “where’d they put all our things we came back with?”

Ed frowned in thought, “I think Mustang said everything was in a box somewhere.”

“I want that back,” Winry sunk her teeth into half a sandwich wedge.

“What the hell for?” Ed gawked at her sudden interest in it, “you hated that thing.  You bitched for months about it.  I had to listen to you bitch about it for months.”

“Yes,” Winry’s eyes lit with righteous fire, “and now I’m going to burn it.”

Ed started to sputter before he burst out laughing at the idea and Winry abruptly slammed a sandwich wedge into his mouth to shut him up.  When it didn’t help silence the laughing Elric, Winry popped up on her knees, laid an overhead smack down on him with a weaponized pillow, and then finally made a vain effort to try and shove his whole face into the mattress for being a horrid nuisance.  Unfortunately for Winry, she quickly realized she was absolutely no match for a two-armed Edward Elric.

“Christ Win, I have stitches in my face!” a grievance given with a laugh, “bugger off.”

Popping back down to her backside, Winry decided that dishevelling him was enough, “You can explain to the doctors that your foot-in-mouth disease caused collateral damage,” she hotly snatched up another sandwich wedge and sliced it in half with her teeth.

Collecting himself, Ed finally sat back up with a grin and pulled the tie out of his hair to fix the mess.  But, he slowed when he made eye contact with Al.

Alphonse took a slow nibble at the corner of his sandwich and stared at his older brother, slowly raising his brow.

“What?” Ed asked cautiously, giving a firm yank to his ponytail to tighten it.

A swift breath was taken and Al filled his lungs, “You know, I think this is the first time the three of us have sat down together to enjoy anything since you both got back.”

“Sorry, that’s my fault,” Winry offered her confession, “I’m the miserable bedridden one.  Everyone must come to me to save me from my doldrums.”

Ed turned to her, “Why don’t you come to Al’s room?”

“For?” Winry questioned.

Giving a shrug, Ed picked up another sandwich, “Just alchemy stuff, not much different than anything I was doing at the house before we left, but you can be bored here on your own or come be bored with us?  At least, until you get your AutoMail stuff going.”

Winry paused a moment, her eyes wandering away as she considered the invite.  A tiny smile popped into her face and it grew larger as she replied, “Well, I’ll do my best to not to ruin the working aura with my boredom.”

“Tch,” Ed chortled, but suddenly found Al’s stare again.  His eyes grew wide with concern, “uh… unless Al needs the focus?”

“Nope,” the response came quick and Al grinned wide, “Winry can absolutely come and be bored in my room.  I don’t think we’ve really ever had Winry around while we worked before, it’ll be a good change.”

Winry laughed at that, “Al, I promise, I’m the most useless alchemy assistant.”

Ed nodded, “She really is.”

This time, he got clobbered with a two-handed pillow attack.

While voices rose and the both of them tried not to laugh amidst feigned contempt, Al continued to watch the scene with interest and he helped himself to another sandwich.

 


 

“Is that all clear, Major?” Mustang looked up from a sheet he’d read.

Armstrong nodded, “Yes, Sir.”

“Alright,” Roy shook his head in disgust of himself and swept up the papers he’d laid out on his desk, “I don’t know how long you’ll be able to maintain the façade until someone turns up to challenge you, but do your best with the men.”

“With the Armstrong family honour, I will, Sir.”

“Very good.”

Finally, Mustang was able to hold a proper briefing of his trusted officers – Hawkeye, Havoc, Armstrong, Breda, Falman, and Fuery – and actually give out some concrete information and instructions.  It was a relief given the chaos they’d found themselves besieged by in the weeks prior.

Havoc looked to the ceiling, his arms folded, and he flicked the cigarette in the side of his mouth, “And with that, there goes our credibility.  Farewell.”

Breda put his hands together in false prayer, “Not with a bang, but a whimper.  It was a good run, my friends.”

“You two…” Hawkeye cast a disappointed frown at them from across the table, “I think the wellbeing of the entire nation is a bit more important than all that.”

“I know I know,” Havoc raised his hands to surrender for his poorly placed comment and looked back at the round table of officers, “it’s just, after all that, we’re going to go out there and try to support this piss-poor, farce of a government.  I know what we’re going for, but it feels like a loss.”

“There is no ‘support’,” Mustang corrected, “we’re initiating accountability and forcing the government to determine how it topples.  And when it does, we will be there.  And yes it does feel like a bit of a loss, but sometimes taking a step backwards leads to greater strides forwards, or so I’m hoping.”

“Lieutenant,” Armstrong’s voice rumbled out, “one of the few weapons we possess against Dante is our ability to act in contradiction to her whims.  If she wants us to take over Central, then we must stall.  If enabling the government leaders she’s controlling is not something she wants us to do, then that’s exactly what we will do.”

Hawkeye nodded in agreement, “If we try to hold the government accountable and responsible, and encourage the people to do the same, rather than doing the easy thing and take control, we’ll keep attention pointed her way, and it’ll be harder for Dante to act.”

Mustang tucked his stack of papers in a folder and tapped it straight atop the table, “Worst case, the government simply fails and we reach a point where some faction must take over, but we’ll force Dante to handle the government’s actual downfall, we will not execute that for her or we will lose,” the brigadier general looked out to his table of officers, “all that being said, the more we can do to keep people’s eyes on the farce in Xenotime, the safer a lot of people will be.”

The bundle of papers in Mustang’s possession was slid across the table, settling in front of Lieutenant Breda.

“Enjoy being Armstrong’s right hand man, Lieutenant!”

“Paperwork until the end of time,” Havoc chuckled and patted a heavy hand down on Breda’s back.

“Ha ha,” the lower lieutenant straightened out the bundle in front of himself, “make sure you bring me back a souvenir for this, I’m shit at paperwork.”

“Officer Falman,” Mustang’s commanding voice came up again and was answered with a ‘yes, sir!’, “I’ve made arrangements for you and Sergeant Fuery to take Edward and Winry north once everything with Wrath is sorted.  Make sure they’re kept low and out of sight, I don’t want any attention on them leaving or en route.”

“Yes, Sir!” was the dual confirmation.

“Alright,” Mustang sat forward in his seat, “provided no further delays, Hawkeye, Havoc, and myself are leaving in under forty-eight hours for Xenotime to retrieve Lieutenant Ross, Miss. Brigitte, and the rest of the hoard,” the superior officer stood up from his seat, picked up a map from the table, and spread it out, “We’ll have a check-in point at the halfway mark here, and unfortunately nothing after that.  Once we’ve arrived, we will keep low in the Xenotime town and try to assess the situation until Wrath appears,” the brigadier general looked up to two of his officers, “prior to transporting Edward and Winry, Falman, you will accompany Ms. Curtis and bring Wrath here,” Mustang’s finger relocated on the map, “at which point the road into Xenotime is direct and he can be released on his own.  Ms. Curtis will re-engage his leg at the release point and then we will wait for him to reach Dante.”

Mustang leaned back from his map to address his round table as a whole. 

“Once we can confirm that he’s made contact with Dante we’ll monitor her and wait for her to make a move.  When it's evident she’s heading to meet Alphonse and Ms. Curtis, we’ll clear our people out of Xenotime.  If we are able to get Brigitte in the process, or if Dante takes her with her, we’ll make contact once we’re safely clear to update the situation.  There should be enough time for Ms. Curtis and Alphonse to work accordingly.  Any questions?”

“What about Aisa?” Breada was the first to ask, “she caused a hell of a lot of chaos with Izumi in Central.”

Mustang drew in deep, nasally breath, “Ideally, she’ll remain behind in Xenotime, since Dante would want someone she trusts to protect their assets.  Her physiology has been altered to act as a flesh container for both the Philosopher’s Stone and red water; but, she is not indestructible,” the senior officer looked around in thought, “however, from what I understand, the closer you are to Aisa’s vicinity, the more volatile the transmutations become due to the red water.  The Philosopher’s Stone being part of her body further amplifies the mess she can cause and ultimately Ms. Curtis ended up at the Gate.  If I need to do anything, I’ll do it from a distance.  Otherwise, this is a classic rescue operation.”

“Hopefully she’s left behind for us to deal with,” Hawkeye offered a concerned look to Mustang, “she severely cripples both Alphonse and Izumi by simply being there.”

“Yes, she does,” Mustang grumbled, “and if they do have to deal with her, at least they’ll know how to respond to her presence this time.  Anything else?”

Sergeant Fuery raised his voice, “I know we’ve been most concerned with Ed, but doesn’t sending Wrath to Dante run the risk of revealing we have Winry?”

Mustang sank back in his chair, “Dante believes she killed Winry, leaving no body, and she has no idea, nor any reason to believe, that Winry went beyond the Gate and has come back.  Dante has already played the hand where she pretends Winry is in her custody, so if that homunculus does bring her up, there’s a good chance she won’t take him seriously,” he gave a shake of his head to his own thoughts, “and if she does, retrieving Winry from what Dante believes she fated her might actually be an easier task than retrieving Ed.  Alphonse’s time at the Gate can explain her presence, if needed.  That said, as far as everyone at this table is concerned, Winry is not here and was never with Ed beyond the Gate, understood?”

“Understood,” the tabled chorus responded.

“Good, any other questions?”

The brigadier general scanned the table as no other officer voiced a question or concern.

“Very well, in two days’ time Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong will be hosting these meetings – be sure to give him your full attention.  Dismissed.”

Chair legs scraped along the floor as everyone rose with murmurs, departing the room while Mustang held back in the room with Armstrong.

“Sir, I have a request.”

Mustang looked up.

Armstrong voiced a concern, “I believe it would be prudent to have one more check in just prior to Xenotime.”

“We risk a lot by lighting the switchboard that close,” Mustang’s gaze narrowed.

“Considering the deteriorating state of communications, you may not be able to reach us from your first checkpoint,” with a slow, thoughtful nod, Armstrong offered an alternative, “and if we want to avoid a switchboard redirect, perhaps a telegram from the post office instead?”

The senior officer’s tight brow slowly lifted, “Very well.  Our regular code should suffice.  I’ll check the map within the hour for a hamlet to send from and an approximate time to expect it.  Acceptable?”

“More than, thank you, Sir,” Armstrong gave a firm nod, “and I’ll have my ‘presentation’ for tomorrow finalized by the afternoon.”

Mustang gave a wry grin, “I cannot think of anyone better suited to give an impassioned speech to motivate a crowd of people than you, Major.”

A heavy chuckle shook through Lt. Colonel Armstrong as he stepped past Mustang to exit the room.

 


 

Alphonse’s expression widened curiously, watching his brother modify a transmutation circle.

“I think,” Ed narrowed an eye at his piece of paper, “if it’s redirected this way, with an auxiliary path,” his pencil carefully finished his thought.  The elder brother grinned triumphantly and he handed it to Al, “try that.”

Al collected the paper, put himself back down on the floor, and carefully drew out his instructions.  With the transmutation circle laid, he poured out a measured amount of sodium and sulfur on each element of the circle and followed one of the lines pouring out a cup of water.  He sat back on his knees, both brothers took a deep breath, and Al ignited the transmutation.

The reaction was quaint: it simply went poof and alchemized the materials into a scattering of yellow flakes.

The end result might have been yellow, but Ed turned green and he got up swiftly from his chair, “Yup, that did it.”

“That’s so foul,” Al covered his nose and mouth with his hands while his brother threw open the window again.

Snatching up one of the bags that kept their leftover sandwiches, Ed dumped the food on a table, knelt down with Al, and the brothers hurriedly swept their transmutation into the paper bag.  Ed crumpled it down and tossed it out the window into the alley below. Al brushed away the transmutation circle, clapped his hands, and refreshed the carpet.

After breathing in some fresh air from the window, Ed came back into the room, sat down at his small working table, and added another element to the chart, “That was the last trial on that one, I declare it safe and done.”

“Also disgusting,” Al dragged himself over to the window and hung himself out of it, “everything that one did smelt terrible.”

“There should be a law against transmutation elements that align with sulfur,” Ed moved himself back to the window and joined his brother hanging out the frame, “this one had a double strike against it; redundancy and sulfuric alignment.  They did everyone a favour by letting that one go.”

“But, you know,” Al looked up to the night’s sky with playful determination, “we could use that one and make the greatest stink bomb and just smoke Dante out of Xenotime.”

Ed cackled at first, but eventually gagged at the suggestion, “Unless you want to run a solo mission, we aren’t getting anyone volunteering for that.  We’ve had enough complaints in the last hour with everyone trying to get some sleep.  We even chased Sensei and Winry away.”

“You chased Sensei away,” frowning, Al wasn’t going to let his brother sweep that away and he pulled himself back into the room, “she got exasperated with you and left.  You're lucky she didn't kick your ass.”

Ed scowled and dropped a firm response, “I’m not biting on Mustang’s plan to go north, Al.  You’re going to need me here.”

“Brother, you’re making this way too hard,” Al scowled back, “we’re going to be luring out Dante in the Empty City, and she’s not going to play fair – you said so yourself, that’s why we even started on the new symbols, to change her playing field because she doesn’t play fair.”

Grumbling out a sigh, Ed put his back to the window, “I was hoping we could use the transmutation elements as a way to get a leg up on her and shake things up.  Bribery with a foreign alchemy table still leaves us on even footing.”

Al shot his brother a wary eye and drew a line, “And I think by the time we’re done the new table we’ll have had enough of otherworldly alchemy for a while,” the younger of two brothers looked down at his hands, “Once this alchemy table’s done I’m not touching anything related to otherworld alchemy until after we’re all north.”

“Al,” Ed’s head fell back as he looked to the ceiling, “you’re going to need me here.  I can—”

“No,” Al’s interjection was firm, “if Dante sees you, she’s going to take one look at you and start to question everything.”

Ed glanced down to himself, “I don’t look that different.”

Al’s jaw dropped.  Had his brother never looked in a mirror?  “For starters, you have all four limbs!”

“You did that,” Ed rebutted the concern.

Technically, he wasn’t wrong, but Al didn’t care to acknowledge that, “Your face is…” Al needed a word, “sharper!  It’s not round anymore!”

“I wouldn’t call it sharp ,” Ed ran hand over his chin, “but my face hasn’t been round since I was thirteen anyways.”

Al’s brow popped high, “No, your face was still round when you left.” 

“No, it wasn’t,” Ed wrinkled his nose.

“Yes, it was!  It was so much rounder,” the younger brother threw his arms out to his sides, “and you have shoulders and a great big arm span now,” Al’s hands were then thrown above his head, “and your legs are long and you’re like THIS tall.”

Ed’s wicked grin curled with immeasurable pleasure, “Yeah, I did get bigger, didn’t I?” and then he had to wipe it away, “but, I’m not that tall.  Dad was tall.  And besides, I did most of my growing when I was seventeen and eighteen, by our world’s calendar this isn’t that far ahead of schedule.”

Al wasn’t sure how to phrase his biggest concern, or what words could actually describe it.  But there was something heavy lingering about his brother that added more age to him than he appeared to be seeing, “You look tired.”

Ed garbled his reply, like he’d had more than one thing to say about it and couldn’t choose which, but then chose something else entirely, “Then, I’ll get a good night’s sleep.”

“When?” Al folded his arms.

At the sound of a click, the brother’s growing voices were subdued when the bedroom door opened.

Winry gagged before entering, “UGH, what died?” 

“Sorry,” Al called, “it’s the sulfur.”

“It’s gross whatever it is,” Winry stumbled into the room on her crutches, a large burlap sack dangling down from her shoulder and clanking around her hip, “you can smell it half way down the stairwell.  I could also hear you beyond the door, what is going on?”

“Nothing,” Ed stepped away and went back to his working table.

Al grumbled a sigh and looked at Winry as she tossed her noisy bag onto the bed and climbed back onto, “Winry, can you please tell my brother he’s going north with you once you’re done with Wrath’s leg.”

“What?” Winry flipped open her bag, “Ed, why the heck aren’t we going north now?”

“You’re going north,” Ed pointed a finger at her, “I need to stay back to—”

A bolt ting’d off Ed’s forehead and Winry sat back, “You don’t need to do anything.  Al and Izumi are more than able to take care of themselves.  We’re going north.”

“Win, you don’t understand,” Ed wrinkled his nose and rubbed his forehead.

“No, I sure don’t,” she went back to rummaging her bag as Al brought her back the bolt, “but I do know this is Alphonse and the woman who taught you alchemy, so you should have no problem with them handling this.”

Joining his ally atop the bed, Al watched as she grabbed both ends of the sack and unceremoniously dumped the entire noisy, metallic contents out.

“AutoMail parts?” he asked.

“Yup,” Winry slid out onto her stomach and began sorting, “I managed to get someone to fetch a ton of parts for me earlier.  I wasn’t exactly sure what I needed since I still haven’t gotten the leg back yet—”

“I’ll go get it.”

With a huff, Ed lurched to his feet and made his way out.  Al and Winry watched as he let himself out of the room without another word, closing the door just heavily enough that neither of them could say he’d slammed it.

Al sagged and sprawled out in what was left for space on his bed.

“Well, he’s cranky tonight,” Winry went back to picking parts.

“Winry, why is he fighting us?” Al groaned, “I don’t understand why he’s being so stubborn.”

Grinning, Winry picked up a screw and held it in her fingers, “He’s just used to being part of the solution, Al.”

“It stops being a solution if he sticks around,” Al shook his hands out at the ceiling in frustration, “it’s nothing but a huge problem.  The brigadier general told him no, Sensei’s told him no, I’m telling him no, but he’s not listening!  He isn’t practicing any of the new alchemy with me; everyone agrees he needs to wait until we’re in some place with wide open spaces just in case, but then he doesn’t seem to see how much of a problem it is for him to go to the Empty City with us.  I don’t understand what he’s thinking.”

Winry’s hand danced through a mess of metal parts, “Al, you and I know that your brother has spent more than half of his life trying to stay in control of his own destiny and trying to fix things that went wrong,” she stopped for a moment, keeping her eyes in her work while her thoughts organized her next words, “the world beyond the Gate tried really hard to knock him down, hoping that if it happened often enough, at some point he’d stay down.  Ed is Ed though, and he kept getting back up,” she picked up a bolt and tumbled it through her fingers, “And he took some heavy blows before we left.  I think he’s just trying to find a way to get up from that.”

Al let his arms bounce limp off the mattress, “We need to find a way to convince him he doesn’t have to right now.”

Winry turned to Al, “You’ve been working all day, why not call it a night, get some rest, and think more later?”

With a whine to concede to Winry’s assessment, Al relented, “Yeah, sleep’ll probably do some good.”

“Good, but before you do,” Winry reached over and pinched the smaller Elric’s nose, “can you go find a fan to blow this stink out of the room?  Or we’re going to be smelling rotten eggs in everything for the next month.”

With a bounce to get himself mobile, Alphonse was more than willing to pass on alchemy for the rest of the night and hunt one or two of those down.

 


 

At the top of a cement staircase late that night, Izumi looked down at a bewildering scene.  Tilting her head, the woman’s eyes flickered away for a moment of thought, before returning to question what she saw in the hallway light soaking the floor of Mustang’s poorly lit equipment room meant to contain Wrath.

Izumi stared at Ed; the golden blonde was crouched down, squatting on his toes, arms resting on his thighs, leaning forward as though he were trying to read the fine print of something posted on the far wall. 

Engrossed in the baffling sight, Izumi put her left hand down on the railing and silently slid a foot on to the top step.  Her right arm reached back, fishing for the inner door handle, and when she caught it, another step down was taken and she pulled it shut behind her.  No click was heard and when the room sunk into moderate darkness again, Ed placed a hand on the ground, slid a foot back behind himself, and without disengaging what he was looking at, resettled farther away on his toes.  His head dipped forwards curiously.  Izumi took another silent step and took her eyes off Ed, shifting her attention to whatever he was looking at.  With one more downwards step, Izumi leaned out and found what had his undivided attention.

Still bound by his single ankle and wrist, Wrath strained towards Edward with every inch he was able to give.  With his toes latched on to a divot in the cement floor, the binding on his wrist strained as he precariously balanced on the one leg, neck stretched and craned to project his forehead as far forward as it could possibly go.

Ed’s left hand came up suddenly and motioned for Izumi to approach.  The teacher began descending the stairs, letting her sandals clack louder and louder with each step she took, watching how Wrath completely ignored her no matter how much noise she made.  Crouching down next to Ed, Izumi looked at the bizarre view he had of their otherwise feral homunculus.  Wrath’s eyes were enormous and fixated on Ed, his breathing heaved while purple pupils danced around him with no noticeable pattern or point of focus – beyond Ed himself.

“What the hell is he doing?” she finally wondered aloud.

“I have no idea,” lines cut into Ed’s forehead as his brow tightened.  He put his hand on the floor again and this time started to shift to the side, “he’s probably going to fall over if I go too far.”  Ed moved one body width, then two and, as he’d expected, Wrath toppled over.

Izumi watched Wrath fall, noting how he’d done nothing to brace his landing, he’d simply hit the ground with his wide-eyed, unblinking focus locked on Ed.

Ed rose to his feet while he and his teacher watched Wrath twist his body around to keep a lock on Ed’s gaze.  The elder Elric brother began to walk slowly towards Izumi, both watching how Wrath used his single leg to claw along the floor, trying to get closer, while fighting against the tension of the chain that linked around to bind his wrist.

Ed walked past his teacher and stopped at her opposite side, “I’m going to go upstairs.  He seems to snap out of it when I’m out of sight.  Can you watch and see what he does when he comes out of it?”

Izumi nodded, “Yeah, go.”

As Edward ascended the staircase, the puzzled teacher studied Wrath as the door opened and flooded the room with the hallway light.  Wrath seemed completely unfazed by the brightness change, his pupils never reacting, he simply stretched and strained, trying to see around the stairwell wall despite his bindings.  The door finally shut, locking out the light from being anything more than what the tired bulb hanging from the ceiling offered.  Izumi crouched down and examined Wrath, watching to see if she could identify what it was that would change. 

With a blink, whatever enchantment had entangled the homunculus, suddenly vanished and Wrath slipped slightly along the floor as he let the tension in his bindings ease.

Izumi watched as Wrath regained his bearings and finally snarled at her.

“Why are you bothering me?” Wrath lashed out uselessly.

“I haven’t done anything to bother you,” she eyed him, “what were you just looking at now?”

“Nothing,” he tossed his head back and rolled over, stretching his arm and leg out as far apart as they’d go.

Izumi put her hands on her knees and pushed to her feet, “Ed, you can come back.”

The door cracked open for a brief moment, before it closed again, and Ed made his way back down the stairs, stopping at the last step.

“You got your shit back together yet, Wrath?”

The creature screamed at him, “GIVE THOSE BACK TO ME.”

Both Ed and Izumi rolled their eyes at the verbal explosion.  Izumi turned and walked towards the staircase.

Ed shook his head uselessly at the situation, “He’s either screaming at me for my arm and leg or staring at me like he’s trying to dissect me.”

Izumi put a hand down on Ed’s shoulder and motioned to the exit, “Let’s talk upstairs.  We can leave him to scream himself out.”

The pair climbed the stairs besieged by Wrath’s angry wails, wasting no time shutting the door to drown him out once they reached the top.

Ed scowled at the door, a hand coming up to scratch through his hair as he tried to think.

Izumi re-did the locks and turned around to Ed, “How long has he been doing that?”

“I was down there for about half an hour trying to figure him out,” he replied.

Her frown growing darker, Izumi gave a passing thought to the red stones in his system, but couldn’t find anything in its properties that might warrant a behaviour change that they’d never seen before. 

Unfortunately, this mini mystery would have to sit on the backburner, “Wrath aside, how close are you and Al with your experiments?”

“A few of them were so rudimentary we flew through them, so it's been doing pretty good.  We should have a dozen ready in the next couple of days,” Ed answered, “but Winry said she'll probably finish after us.”

“That’s fine,” Izumi nodded, “let’s still try to get Wrath gone sooner than later, though.”

“Right,” Ed didn’t disagree, “and I think Al and I should do a canvas of the Empty City while you’re taking Wra—”

“No,” the teacher was getting tired of this, “I’ve told you, repeatedly, you’re staying put until we can send you north with Winr—”

“Sensei.” Ed’s shoulders locked and his stance firmed up, “I’m staying in Central while you and Al meet with Dante.  I’m not going north until I know you’re safe.”

This was by far the most interesting thing Izumi had heard come out of Ed’s mouth since he came back - not because of what he’d said, but because of how he’d said it.  It was a very unfamiliar tone Ed pulled out for her and it kept Izumi from coming down on him, only because it was so unusual.  The Ed she knew, the one who’d shown up at the meeting, the one who quarreled with her in Al’s room, was shrill, hot, and animated with his arguments, but this sound was firm and authoritative.  It was obviously some mannerism he’d picked up while he’d been gone and it was clearly meant to put himself in an irrefutable position.  She couldn’t imagine the number of arguments he must have gotten into to have honed it.  Izumi found herself at an intriguing crossroad with him: she wasn’t sure if she wanted to punch Ed through the wall for using it on her or keep listening to see what he did with it.

Ed seemed to mull over his next words, before he finally chose, “If you don’t want me in the Empty City, fine.  But, I’m not leaving without you and Al.”

The teacher’s brow creased as her gaze narrowed; seems she was opting to study the latter.

“Al and I still have work left to do tonight.  We should be finishing up two more elements, so if you come by in the morning, you can confirm them with us.”

“I can do that…” Izumi replied slowly.

An unwavering Elric gaze looked back at her before turning to walk away, “Thanks.  Can you let me know if Wrath does anything else weird tonight?”

“I can.”

Oh boy, Izumi was suddenly hot for letting him get away with that.  It took all her willpower not to reach out, yank him back by his ponytail, and chain him up in the room with Wrath. 

Until that point, Ed had either been as complicit and obedient with her directions, or as argumentative as she’d remembered, but she also hadn’t asked too much of him either.  It seemed the decent behaviour now had a limit and instructing him to bow out entirely brought on the well-polished obstinacy.  Izumi laughed to herself, she wanted to blame his father for that; she couldn’t imagine Ed behaving for that man.  The Elric brothers’ alchemy teacher was going to have to come up with something more poignant to get through his thicker skull.

 


 

Through the pitch black darkness, feet dragged in the dirt, carefully feeling each step taken to avoid falling unknowingly.  The air thick with dust and almost no flow, the deep, heavy breaths of four people were the only sounds above the scraping of feet.  The dirt tunnels had lost their light far too many hours ago, and now the only drive that remained was the one to walk forwards without end, and hope and pray to whatever God might be listening, that they may find their way out.  Breaths got louder, strides shorter, and sweat heavier, as the dark, dusty air grew hotter and thicker while the ceiling grew lower and lower. 

It wasn’t the light at the end of a tunnel that changed their courses, but a draft of cool air at their feet.  With an eager abandon that had once faded before the light had left them, the group trapped in a dirt tunnel turned to follow its flow.  There wasn’t enough energy to be used for both walking and words, but the sounds of desperation in their strides were enough to shout ‘faster’.  When the ceiling of the cavern shrunk and they were all forced to hunch and stumble forwards, a faint light finally showed them the way.

Moonlight, thankfully, called them to an exit, buried in overgrowth.  Hands were used as claws, the exit was unearthed, and the muddied, sweat-soaked, exhausted tunnel crawlers gasped in the fresh air and hauled themselves out into the night.

Roze, with her pacified baby wrapped against her chest, was the first to exit, followed by Fletcher, who helped haul his brother out with Maria Ross draped over his back.  In the grassy, weedy, semi-forested hillside overlooking the southern lake outside Xenotime, Roze unwrapped her child and laid him in the cool grass and Russel did the same for Maria on her back, before face planting himself into the earth.

The collection of exhausted people sat quietly and breathed in the lake-side air.

Wriggling up to his knees, Russel popped a few buttons of his shirt, slid the soaked piece of clothing off over his head, tossed it into the grass, and resumed laying down on his stomach, “That was absolutely awful.”

“I feel so gross,” Roze finally laid down on her back.

Breathing on his hands and knees, Fletcher looked from his brother to Roze, and then down the remaining hillside to the wide lake below.  The younger brother forced himself back onto his feet, staggered over to Roze, and picked up the damp wrap her child had been tied to her with.

“Can I borrow this?”

“Of course,” she nodded.

Fletcher made his way to his elder brother and picked up his soaked shirt, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Nobody had the energy to question him, they simply let him go.

The sound of Fletcher’s feet vanished into the brush, replaced by far too many crickets and a squirrel or two through the trees.

“How the hell did we manage to get out?” Russel eventually asked the earth.

Roze laughed, softly, but cynically, “I promise you, if Dante had wanted us caught, we would have been.”

He managed a light chuckle, “So instead she chases us into the unfinished mine shafts and leaves us for either death or whatever this death feeling is.”

After a few deep breaths, Roze looked up into the moonlight filtering in through the trees.  She asked the stars an unanswerable question, “What happened that made her lose interest in us…?”

The sound of movement in the brush startled both Russel and Roze.  They sat up and looked down the slope, watching in relief as Fletcher slogged his way back up.

Russel narrowed an eye, “You’re soaked.”

The shirtless boy with soaked rags over his shoulder heaved his baggy pants along as he walked, “The lake was so nice.”

With a huge sigh, Russel put his face back into the dirt, “I don’t have the energy to go down there.”

Fletcher walked up to Roze and wound her lake-soaked baby’s wrap around her neck with a tired grin and left the ends in her hands, watching as the woman laid back and drained it into her face and hair.  His brother’s lake washed shirt was returned to him, spread out over his back as he flinched at the chilly lake water.  Fletcher sat down with Maria, who seemed to have passed out, and wrapped his soggy shirt around her neck as well, squeezing out the ends over her face and hair.  He looked up when Roze’s baby began to squawk as his mother wrapped him in the cooled cloth.

“What do we do now?” Fletcher’s hand moved his damp hair off his forehead.

“Is it safe to spend much time here on the hillside?” Roze asked the boys.

“It's fine,” Russel garbled into the ground, “unless you’re afraid of mountain goats, we have some of those that come down here.  But, it’s just squirrels and regular critters otherwise.”

“We need to get Ms. Ross some help though,” the younger brother’s concern grew.

Russel rolled over, taking his damp shirt and wiping it over his face as he sat up, “When we’re feeling up for it, we’ll head over to the train tracks and walk the tracks across after the last train's gone through tomorrow evening.  Bramleah is the closest town once we’re across, it’s a bit of a hike, but there should be a doctor in town and a post office or something with a phone we can use.”

Sighing, Fletcher’s concerned gaze held fast over their wounded officer, “Guess we don’t have much of a choice.”

“Not really,” Russel grumbled.

“Fletcher,” Roze called, “can I ask a huge favour of you?”

He shuffled over to her, “Of course.”

Wrapped in the damp cloth, Roze passed her son off to the younger Tringham, “Can you take him down to the lake and wash him up please, we haven’t had a chance lately.”

“Oh, yeah yeah, of course,” he grinned and wrapped the baby up in his arms, “I’ll be back in a bit.”

Watching his brother run off again, Russell ran his cool shirt around his neck with a grin, “He’s having a good time playing big brother.”

Roze sighed, “I’m so sorry I’m imposing so much on you, but thank you.”

“What?” Russell wrinkled his nose, “don’t worry about it.  It’s just a shame we couldn’t get you out with the Hughes’.”

“The conversations I had needed to happen, unfortunately,” Roze pulled up her legs and wrapped her hands around them, “Dante’s biggest weapon is everyone’s ignorance.  It’s how she’s lived for so long.  It’s how she’s corrupted this country from the shadows.  The more people who know, the harder it’ll be for her to move, maneuver, manipulate, and cover it all up.  Taking away Dante’s cloaks and forcing her out into her chess board is how they’ll find success.”

Looking down at Maria, a frown found Russel, “Did you ever fully come out of it?  What she’d done to you?”

“Dante groomed me for a bit, but never fully finished, so sometimes I feel like I’m a little out of step, like I’m waiting for some external confirmation of my thoughts,” Roze shrugged, “it slows me down a little occasionally, but it’s not something I can’t manage,” her focus fell onto Dante’s latest victim, “Maria though, I'm worried it might be different.  If Dante tried to get into her mind, I’m not sure how that’ll affect her long term.”

Russell grew curious, “You just came out of it though, right?  Like a stupor?”

“I did, yes," Roze nodded.

Russell paused before asking, “What snapped it?”

Roze’s gaze returned to the overnight sky as she thought back to a memory that felt much farther away than it actually was, before looking back at him, “I watched Ed die.”

Midnight’s silence fell between them as Russell stared back, uncertain if he’d heard her right or if her statement wasn’t meant to be taken at face value.  His head slowly tilting, Russell’s perplexed look quickly grew more concerned as he tried to piece his parts of the story together.

“I’m missing something, aren’t I?”

Roze giggled, “Yes, you are.  Don’t worry too much about it.”

Sweeping his damp shirt over his face again, Russell struggled to take in what she’d said, “That’s a tall order…”

With a smile, Roze laid back down in the hillside grass, “I think it's best if we simply keep standing and moving forwards, everything else will sort itself out.”

 


To Be Continued…


 

Notes:

I posted a tiny ficlet called Overdue Prize. I dug it out of it’s internet grave. It’s the small story of Ed’s first proper growth spurt in London, which he mentioned to Izumi in the prior chapter.

Hohenheim used the Elric surname beyond the Gate, but he didn’t mind being on a first name basis with most everyone, including students. However, he was officially addressed as 'Professor Elric' in Germany and occasionally in London. Ed died a little inside lol.

Ed’s pretty much run his own show the last five and a half years (since he gave the middle finger to his dad for most things). Ed arguing with Mustang will always read as normal. Ed arguing with Al doesn’t hold, because Al can still diffuse his brother. Ed arguing with Izumi exposes his ill behaviour.

So, at the time of posting, I’ve been sort of like Winry the last four weeks and house-bound with a foot I can’t walk on. Ed using a single crutch like I had him doing requires a whole lot of strength (that I don’t possess lol). Even when forced to be a normie, Ed’s still rock solid.

Yes, I did try it :’)

Chapter 46: Lesson Plan

Summary:

While Izumi works towards convincing Ed to back down, Mustang stages an event to force Dante to stay in the spotlight.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Squirming in the sheets, Winry rolled onto her left side and seemed to re-settle.  But, after a few moments, the AutoMail mechanic rolled herself onto her stomach.  In a silent room filled with the new morning sun, Winry pulled her knees under herself and shifted her weight to try and bury her face into the mattress under her pillow.  It lasted until she’d either gotten uncomfortable or ran out of air, and Winry popped back up again with a sigh.

Her eyes opened, immediately flew wide, and Winry abruptly sat up, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Alphonse replied, seated at the opposite side of the bed.

“Good morning,” Izumi added from her chair pushed up next to him.

Winry laughed awkwardly, “This isn’t my room…”

“You fell asleep,” Al smiled softly.

“O-oops,” her nervous laugh continued as she fiddled around to fix her hair, “I’ll uh… I guess I need to catch up on some work.”

“It's fine,” Izumi intervened, “a good night's sleep is just as important as everything else.”

Winry smiled awkwardly at the reprieve and settled down on her backside, sliding up to the head of the bed, “What time is it?”

“Seven thirty,” the teacher eyed the alarm clock.

Winry sunk against the headboard, “I should get up and get breakfast…”

“I can go get something for you,” Al offered.

Winry turned to Al with a pout, “Thanks Al… sorry you keep having to run errands for me.”

“It’s no problem,” Al slid himself off the bed and looked over to the small round table in the corner where his brother was passed out, face down in his folded arms atop his work, “he’s not up anyways, I’ll grab something for the both of you,” Al turned to his teacher, “did you want anything?”

“No thanks Al, I already ate.”

“I’ll be back,” with the reply from Izumi, the smallest Elric left the room.

Izumi watched him leave and she turned back to Winry.  Regret started to creep up over how little time and effort she'd put into spending with Winry after Al had been brought back.  Winry lived in the house Izumi had been a guest in for months, but while she got to know Pinako quite well, Winry had distanced herself.  After all the revelations surrounding Al and Ed's 'death' had settled, Winry had coped by shutting herself away in her workroom, and Izumi wasn't sure if it was her place to help dig her out.  Alphonse seemed to have no issue going to see her, and Winry had no issue surfacing for Al - but, beyond that, Pinako said to just give her some time and space, which Izumi granted.  Gradually, Winry did start turning up more frequently in her own home, but their relationship didn't grow like Izumi's had with Pinako.  

The alchemy teacher silently eyed the look Winry had put on Ed in the corner and grew curious when she seemed to be keeping herself from laughing.  The woman decided the ball was in her court to try and have a conversation with a little more.

“Something’s funny?” Izumi asked.

Winry looked up to the ceiling with a smile, “Not long before we got back here, Ed had set up camp in the living room to try and figure out how to get us home.  His papers were everywhere, it was a complete disaster, but he was so happy to be doing it.  I found him asleep in his chaos a few times.”

Izumi looked back over to their remaining, sleeping Elric, who had surprisingly slept rather well despite his awkward position. 

“I have a few things I’ve been wondering about Winry, if you don’t mind me asking?” the teacher figured she wouldn’t get a better opportunity than this uneventful morning hour to try and entertain some of her curiosities.  

“Sure,” Winry replied.

Turning in her seat, Izumi indulged in conversation, “You stayed with Ed and their father the entire time, right?”

She nodded, “Mostly, yeah.  We did some travelling, but their dad had a house we stayed in.”

The teacher had no explanation for why, other than she just wanted to know, “What was the house like?”

“It was nice,” Winry pulled a pillow out and stuck it behind her before she leaned against the head of the bed once more, “it was a little small, but it was pleasant.  When you came in the door, there was a small kitchen on the right with a table and chairs up against the wall.  On the left was the stairs that went up to the bedrooms,” she pointed her finger around as she walked through the memory, “if you went straight through the house you got to the living room.  There was a fireplace, couch, and a coffee table in there that we sat around at a lot.  There was a chair off to the side that his dad sat in mostly, and tucked away on the right was his study.  Oh, and there was a bit of a yard out back.”

“That does sound nice, actually,” Izumi’s head bobbed as she drew the image out in her mind, not sure if she was relieved or disgruntled that Hohenheim could actually provide a decent house, “and Ed managed to get along with his father while you were there?”

There was nothing about Winry’s uncomfortable laugh that surprised Izumi, “They tried to get along.  They did alright.  I think Ed and his dad had some kind of peace treaty going on.”

“Did they argue often?” Izumi tucked her curious question in.

Winry hummed her answer before she verbalized it, “Ed argued, his dad talked.”

Izumi shook her head at the answer - why did that not surprise her?

With a deep breath, Winry turned a bit more to Izumi to try and elaborate on something that was far more complicated than it appeared on the surface, “Ed argued with a lot of people - most often his dad.  Ed just wanted somebody to yell at sometimes,” she sighed, “but his dad didn’t treat Ed or me or anyone we met poorly.  He tried to take care of us, even if Ed didn’t want it.”

As much as Izumi didn’t care how Hohenheim had attempted to make any sort of peace or amends, she was very curious about how Winry would answer one thing, “Do you know how he died?”

“Yeah,” Winry sat back and looked to her hands in the sheets, “Envy killed him.”

That was already known - woman’s curiosity pushed for more, “Do you know how?”

Winry tilted away, her eyes remaining down, her tone uncharacteristically firm, “Unkindly.”

Fighting an urge that was pushing Izumi to keep pursuing the topic, because every inch of her told her this injured girl had something more, the teacher erred on the side of caution for someone she didn’t know well enough and she let it go.

“I’m sorry,” Izumi offered.

Winry shrugged, “It’s fine.”

Stepping away from a subject that had made the air between them heavy, Izumi digressed to lighten the mood, “You were there for five months.  Did you have things to do all day? I assume the two of them couldn’t stop working just because you’d arrived.  Did you go to work with them or stay home?”

“Ed brought me to the school at first,” Winry nodded in thought, her tone perking up, “but I couldn’t understand or read anything and Ed’s job wasn’t exactly exciting.  I asked to stay home - I could focus on his new leg and arm better and just take care of the house.  There wasn’t really anything else for me to do.”

Izumi put an arm over the back of her chair, “If Ed had been over there with an artificial arm and leg already, why did you need to redo them?”

“How do I put this…” heavy focus lines sliced through Winry’s brow, “their medical knowledge and technology was horrific.  I got my license to do AutoMail apprenticeship surgeries under Granny when I was thirteen, but those people didn’t even understand the nervous system yet.  Their surgical tools were archaic, practically barbaric.  But, they did try to make Ed an arm, even if it was pretty questionable.  He didn’t have it for too long before it broke, though.  I only re-did the leg first, because he actually needed to stand on that,” Winry suddenly perked up at the memory, “I was pretty proud of it actually, I designed it from scratch.  It was a very resourceful and sturdy bit of craftsmanship, if I do say so myself.”

Izumi chuckled at her sudden energy and slipped in a question she was far more curious about, “Could he run with one?”

Even before she’d spoken, Winry’s facial reaction gave away that she didn’t think that was a good idea, “The materials needed to make something with that kind of dexterity just weren’t available for his degree of limb loss.  He’d have probably damaged it,” she straightened herself up as she explained, “the one I made him was the best thing he’d worn there and I still wouldn’t recommend it. Ed had to be careful.”

The teacher turned her attention to the table in the corner of the room and looked through the bright morning light at their topic of conversation.  Ed was still conked out, face down in his work.

Winry released a heavy sigh, “Honestly, Ed taking the job at the school was a smart idea.  His mobility was handicapped; his leg and hips were probably killing him while he was travelling and looking for all that alchemy stuff.  A false leg isn’t meant for adventuring, that’s why there’s AutoMail.”

Maybe it had been the hectic pace she’d been forced to keep up for so long, or the state of upheaval her family situation had been for the last year, but Izumi couldn’t help but find it incredibly ironic that Ed, who had been the focal point of so much of their adventure, had spent a good deal of his time away being forced to exist in a very slow, ordinary, domestic life.  And now that he was released, she had to get him to keep living that way a little while longer.  

While the conversation offered insights and answers to the teacher’s underlying curiosities and concerns, in the back of her mind Izumi couldn’t help but feel baffled at how nothing Winry had said shed light on how they’d both returned in the condition they had.  The only thing she came away with was a nagging curiosity to learn more about how the boys’ father died.

Izumi shook her thoughts away and returned to Winry, “Strange to say, but it doesn’t sound like it was all that bad.”

Winry pulled her good knee back up and tangled her fingers around it as she looked absently into the sheets, “It was a life.  It just wasn’t the one Ed wanted or where we wanted to live it.  We wanted to be home.”

The teacher watched Winry’s blue eyes come up out of the white sheets and look into hers.

“Ed just wanted to come home.  Everything he did revolved around that.”

Slowly, Izumi began to nod while her thoughts replayed bits of what she’d learnt and the woman once again redirected her gaze to the Elric still sleeping soundly in the corner.

 


 

It wasn’t going exactly as planned.  In fact, it was far from the original plan, yet the final plan turned out to be an excellent plan crafted just prior to the noon hour.

Ed sat cross legged on the dim equipment room floor, arms folded, scowling back at Wrath who, once again, could not disengage his enthrallment with the older Elric brother.

Al stood, wandering around Wrath, a light held high in his hand to keep their subject illuminated.

And Winry sat on her backside, repairing Wrath’s AutoMail leg port completely unhindered. 

The entire exercise was going far faster than any of them had anticipated.

“Is he flinching at all?” Winry asked.

Al raised his brow in amusement, “Wrath or my brother?”

Winry picked her head up and looked at Ed, who seemed to drift between a scowl at Wrath and a look of absolute discomfort for what Winry was doing.

“What’s that face for?” she laughed at him.

“I just… can remember what that feels like,” Ed twitched, “I didn’t think I could… but I can.”

Winry smirked and resumed her work, “Well, if you’d taken better care of your AutoMail, I wouldn’t have had to tinker with it.”

“It’s just… that was one of the most uncomfortable things I have ever experienced…” Ed’s forlorn look fell into his hands, though he made sure to keep an eye on Wrath, just in case.

Al couldn’t help but ask, “Why?”

With a pair of pliers in hand trying to re-shape a damaged piece, Winry gave a knowing look to Alphonse from the corner of her eye, “When you repair or tune up a limb, you can either disengage the nervous system connection and work locally or just completely take it off, so when you put it back on, all you get is the jolt of the reconnection.  But the ports are wired into the body and parts of them stay live.  Generally, you don’t notice or feel anything, but depending on what needs to be repaired on them, that will determine how much you feel it.”

Ed’s head sunk through his hands and his fingers dragged his bangs off of his face.

Al stared amused at his brother’s vicarious suffering before returning to Winry as she spoke.

“Wrath should be in agony, he jammed a lot of shit around banging this off this floor.”

“Well, he’s definitely not,” Al peered around at their captured homunculus, “whatever the connection is between my brother and Wrath, it’s strong enough to drown out the pain,” he glanced from the creature to his brother, “in one of them, at least.”

“Okay, Al?” Winry looked up, “can you secure him for me, just in case?”

Al tossed the light he was holding down to Winry.  Clapping his hands, Al put them down on the floor and wrapped Wrath in the cement floor he laid on.

Winry tossed the light back up to Al as he stood up, “It's still weird seeing you do that.”

“I second that,” Ed added, “also Wrath doesn’t seem to give two shits about being half in the floor now either.”

Taking a few steps towards his brother, Al peered into the eyes of the homunculus reduced to a singular focus, “This is absolutely baffling.  What in the world is it about you…”

“Okay, let me know if he does anything,” Winry called.

Al looked down to his stiffened brother, “Do you want to hold my hand?”

“Fuck off,” Ed squawked.

Al laughed and his brother cringed when the sound of Winry re-engaging Wrath’s AutoMail leg echoed in the room.

“Hmm… it looks like the overall circuitry is okay,” Winry sat up and looked over to the brothers, “I need him to test it though.”

Al went back to Winry, took her under the arms, and pulled her along the floor until she was out of Wrath’s range.  Ed rose as well; going over to Winry, he picked her up off the floor and helped her over to the wall while Al clapped his hands and released Wrath from his cement bindings.

Ed rejoined the vigil at his brother's side and together the Elrics stood and watched as Wrath seemed to be confused between his desire to visually dissect Ed and the new appendage he had available to him.  They watched as he stumbled around, figuring out how to stand, but struggled to understand that his right leg was tethered by chain around a pillar to his left arm.  Al resumed shining the light on Wrath while Ed began to circle around, watching the homunculus follow him, occasionally stumbling or falling from his inability to grasp his new physical situation. 

Ed gave a wave of his hand to Al; his younger brother backed up with the light and Ed started picking up his pace.  From his toes he dodged and dashed left and right around the perimeter of Wrath’s reach, occasionally dipping into the homunculus’ range.  Wrath was forced to scramble to keep up, trying desperately to coordinate his balance and still reach for his target.  The clumsy clunk and crash of Wrath’s AutoMail created a near deafening echo as Ed forced him through motion after motion for both Winry and his brother to study.  Without warning, Ed pivoted and advanced on Wrath, deliberately coming to a stop inside his reach.  He let the creature arrive at his feet and wrench his neck to stare up mindlessly at the intense golden glare Ed locked him beneath.  As the room stood in silence, Al’s light never wavering, an incurable curiosity fueled Ed’s decision to squat down on his toes, forcing Wrath to crouch as well.  To everyone's surprise, whatever it was fueling the homunculus' desire, it caused Wrath to press his forehead against Ed’s with enough pressure that Ed needed to push back to stay balanced. 

Wide golden pupils stared straight on into untamed purple ones that twitched around, unable to completely find their focus.

“Look at me,” Ed murmured.

Wrath's wild eyes continued to dance around.

“Look at me.”

The creature's breathing heaved.

“Ed…” Winry called below the echo.

“Brother…” Al slowly lowered the light as he watched.

“Look at me!” Ed pushed forwards and was met with equal resistance; Wrath’s feet dug into the floor behind Ed’s pressure and his voice tore through the tension, “What are you looking for, Wrath!?”

“Ed!”

Al dropped the light, clapped his hands, and watched his brother jump back onto his feet.  Wrath stumbled forwards through the tumbling beam of Al's discarded light until the younger brother ensnared the homunculus on his stomach in the floor once again.

Ed straightened himself and walked back to Winry, but got his hand slapped when he reached out to help her.

“Don’t do that again,” Winry met him with a glare for his actions.

Ignoring the quip, Ed gave a nod to Wrath, “Did it look okay?”

“Yeah, it looks like the leg’s infrastructure is working fine,” Winry nodded and Ed reached around her back as she hung onto his shoulder, and he walked her back to her AutoMail project.

Getting let down onto her knees, Winry pulled out her wrench and set to work removing his leg again while the Elric brothers sat themselves on the floor in front of Wrath.

Al looked to his brother, “Sensei’s going to have a lot more trouble getting that thing on him than we just did.”

Ed plopped his chin down into the palm of his hand, “We can talk to her about bringing me along, maybe.”

Al wrinkled his nose, “Yeah, I’m not sure she’s going to like that idea.”

Ed relented, “Yeah… probably not.”

The brothers resumed their perplexed staring at Wrath with a near synchronous ‘hmmm’.

“He did have your real arm and leg for a while,” Al thought aloud, “now that you have them back, I wonder if that’s related…”

“Maybe…” Ed debated the idea.

Al’s brow wove tight as he tried to find something that would solve their odd puzzle, “I'd say maybe the rebound transmutation was responsible, but he didn't react like this with Winry and I didn’t do anything differently when I brought you two to the Gate.  Whatever’s going on is specific to you.”

Ed could only grumble, “Well, as long as I’m not around, he doesn’t turn into this statue.  Maybe we can use that to our advantage at some point.”

“Wrath attacks and you render him useless by simply being there,” Al gave a laugh to the absurd, yet strangely feasible idea.  The exceedingly specific nature of Wrath's behaviour, triggered by his brother's near presence, was as baffling as it was suspicious; something was going on that affected only Ed.  Alphonse glanced to his older brother and eyed his hands resting on his knees.

The unannounced sound of Winry disconnecting the AutoMail leg shot through the cement room, seizing Ed up and sending Al into a fit of laughter at the sight of him.  Ed could only hang his head while Al let his laughter run on overtop Winry’s apology as she finished up.  At her call, the younger brother stood up, went over to grab Winry under the arms, and he dragged her along the floor.  With the AutoMail limb on her lap, Al pulled Winry until she was next to his brother and safely outside of Wrath’s range.  Sitting back down beside her on the dusty floor once again, Al clapped his hands one last time and released their homunculus to his singular chain binding.

The trio sat together for a moment and stared perplexed at the creature’s unending focus on Ed.

“Well, I slapped a cap on his port so he can’t wreck it more while I keep working,” Winry put a hand on Ed’s knee, “provided you haven’t made this permanent, once I finish replacing all the parts damaged by abuse, rust, and neglect, he'll be refurbished and can get going.”

Ed looked at her, “Thanks for fixing him, Win.”

Her gaze narrowed slyly back, “At some point, when all the bullshit is settled down, you’re going to have to pay for it.”

“What!?” Ed blurted, his eyes popping, “why me?  Charge Mustang!”

Winry raised her nose and slapped on a serious expression, “Al told me you volunteered me for this exercise in frustration.”

His expression widened in protest, “Yeah, but—”

“My time and my skill are valuable and not free, Edward Elric,” the AutoMail mechanic tossed her gaze to the ceiling. 

Ed gawked at her, sputtering half words while Alphonse once again filled the room with laughter.

“Alright, let’s get going!” Al spoke through his amusement and ushered his now scowling brother up to his feet while Winry lost control of her serious expression and started giggling.

The mystery of Wrath fell to the wayside as the trio rose.  Al collected the AutoMail leg from Winry and ran up the stairs, taking every second step. Winry took Ed’s hand as she wobbled onto her one good leg, wrapping her arms around his neck and then hopping onto his back as she’d done to get down there.  Ed gave her a little bounce to settle her into place and looked up with a grin to Al, who stood holding open the door, mockingly impatient with his hand free fist on his hip.  Ed climbed the stairs and Al released the door behind them, none of them looking back at the defective homunculus trying to mindlessly watch them leave.

 


 

“And it is with that, my fellow Amestrians, as representative of the Armstrong Family, who have long stood as a pillar in this great nation, I implore the Central government to step forth and explain its actions of neglect,” the man's huge arm swung down, his fist hitting the podium with just enough impact he didn’t knock it astray, “explain the lack of conscience they display by not only refusing to address the nation’s people like I have done today, but explain why they have chosen to cower away in the remote East, conferencing over mining resources, while the city at the heart of our nation is embattled with itself.  The government owes you, its people, an explanation for why they’re showing no signs of compassion or consideration to our capitol’s citizens in these clearly desperate times.”

Armstrong deliberately waited a beat for his words to clear the air before continuing.

“And I implore the Central government to either step up and govern this nation like any self-respecting elected body or step down and turn this nation’s helm over to another governance, one that can and will resume taking care of the citizens of this great land!”

From a window perch across the street from the media circus, Lieutenant Breda nodded, gnawing on the end of a pen, “That was great, I’d vote for him.”

Havoc snickered, “You’re going to be inspired by cries of glory and bountiful greatness daily, my friend.”

“I don’t inspire the lot of you?” Mustang cocked his brow, looking back into the room his crew had gathered in to watch from.

Hawkeye grinned, “Your type of inspiration isn’t the kind that gets bellowed for several city blocks.”

Mustang accepted that counterpoint, “So, how’s this going over?”

Walking up to his vantage point, Hawkeye leaned against the window frame, “There’s the impatience we anticipated.  The general murmur wonders why we’re standing on the doorsteps and stalling.”

Offering a reluctant nod of acceptance, Mustang spoke, if only to remind himself, “Asking the government to either step up or relinquish control works in our favour.  It forces Dante to continue playing this game and ultimately allows us to be perceived as less hostile in people's eyes.  If she gives up on the game, that gives us more power in the people’s perception than she’d probably like.”

“We’re going to have to start keeping an eye out for any challengers now,” Havoc reiterated his concerns, “we’re weakening our position and someone else’s eyes are going to light up at the opportunity.”

“And I will force all those eyes to look at the puppets in Xenotime first,” Mustang cast a dark gaze over the charade going on outside, “I want to see how much pressure I can put Dante under before she’s forced to make her toys dance.”

Breda’s brow creased with a hint of concern and he looked out at the spectacle, “Scary thing though, even her half assed plans seem to work.  She really did just dump Alphonse at the Gate-thing in no-where's-land, told him to get Ed home, and he did.  I can’t imagine she could have schemed that up.”

“Not in detail, no,” Mustang wouldn’t disagree, and then offered, “but, if you’ve studied your assets well enough, you can be confident in their capabilities.  I think her study of the human condition over time has given her some blind faith in our singular behaviours that she uses to her advantage,” the senior most officer looked over to the lieutenant with a smug grin, “and so we are here to usurp those conditions.  And the nation.”

“Somethings are still beyond Dante’s control at least – she clearly had no way of predicting how, when, or where Ed and Al would come back,” watching Armstrong’s scene begin to disperse, Hawkeye shook her head at a chaotic memory, “We were beyond lucky to get them out of there without encountering any resistance.”

“Says the lady who carried the unconscious one,” Havoc nearly spat out his cigarette, “I’ve cleared out addicts in slums with less trouble than those two were.  They had no idea what was up or down.”

Mustang lost interest in the dwindling entertainment outside when his officers directed his thoughts back to the jarring, frantic memories of that rescue.  They should thank all of their lucky stars that they'd been able to collect those three before Dante could secure them.  The bullets removed from Winry's leg didn't match the gun Ed came home with, so those stars needed to be thanked again since Al hadn't been forced to bring home whoever shot her.  What the hell had transpired before Al reached into the Gate for them?  Mustang sighed, he wasn't in a position to dig into that story right now.  “All things considered, they came back more or less in one piece.  Dante looking at us so soon is just an unfortunate hurdle we need to overcome.”

A playful grin worked its way through Havoc as he moved his cigarette from one side to the other, “So, how’s everyone been feeling about having the non-metallic version of the pipsqueak suddenly stand taller than you all?  Probably one of the more interesting turns in this ride.”

“I’m feeling that, considering the occupation he had over there, he’s probably better qualified to do all the paperwork normally given to you, Lieutenant,” Hawkeye peaked her brow at him, “or would it be more interesting to be Sergeant?”

“Hey…”

Havoc feigned agony while the small room of officers laughed at the only one of them who remained taller than Ed.

A knock on the door came and attention turned to Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong letting himself into their dilapidated, but vacated vantage point.

“Bravo,” Breda led a mock round of applause to Armstrong’s slow shake of his head.

“Well done,” Mustang concurred, “I’m glad your family agreed to get on board with all that.”

“As am I,” the towering alchemist folded his arms.

“So, we’ll let that settle, let the papers run their evening editions, and let Dante squirm,” the brigadier general revelled in the idea of their Xenotime terror in discomfort, then swept his finger around for Hawkeye and Havoc, “overnight, the three of us are going to vanish for a few days.”

The two involved nodded.

With a firm step forwards, Mustang moved to lead his officers out of the room, “Let’s have a good lunch before we start to claw a few of our things back.”

“Might I suggest,” Armstrong’s proud voice rose, “a menu.”

“A menu?” a number of voices repeated while everyone stopped.

With as dramatic of flourish as he’d offered his podium presentation, the mighty officer proudly produced and presented: “The Armstrong Family’s Peak Performance Meal Selections Menu…”

Everyone stood and held their expressions free of amusement as best they could while Mustang was handed a very well-decorated menu sheet. 

“…Six highly refined meal selections from the cookbook published by my beautiful great aunt on my father’s side, praised for its intensity and nourishment quality by battlefield Generals in both the Armstrong and Gardiner families alike, now passed down.”

Mustang stared blankly at the menu, “We don’t have this kind of food available.”

“Indeed we don’t,” Armstrong admitted, “but a friend of a second cousin owns a chain of restaurants up two streets and will gladly offer the selections to us for the afternoon.” 

One by one, a set of officers' eyes flickered over to Mustang standing in the doorway of the vacant room they occupied with great interest as he read over the menu. 

A grin fighting its way into him, the superior officer finally snapped the menu paper and offered it to his troupe, “Lunch is on Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong, it seems.”

 


 

When Ed, Al, and Winry got back to the third floor, Izumi was already waiting for them in Alphonse’s room.  Initially, the brothers were excited that she was joining them that afternoon, but she was actually there to ask a very important question: had Ed given Al enough information to work things out on his own for a while?  The answer was technically yes, but it was easier for Al to have his brother around to help troubleshoot and problem solve.  

That led to asking if Al could troubleshoot and problem solve on his own?  Well, of course he could.

Then, the challenge their teacher gave to the younger brother for the rest of the day was to stop relying on his older brother and see how well he could manage on his own.  Al wasn’t opposed to the challenge, but weren’t they under a bit of a time crunch?  What else was his brother supposed to do?  Ed was already starved by not being able to get his hands into any alchemy, or anything else for that matter.

Izumi told the brothers not to worry and that she had some important work she wanted Ed to do.  Without any further questions from them, she excused Ed from the room.

The task Izumi had in mind for Ed took them to the quiet second floor - the military personnel that normally buzzed around there had gone out for some reason she’d ignored.  To Ed’s jaw-dropping shock, Izumi clapped her hands to let herself into the room Mustang would have normally been working in, if he weren’t out trying to mangle the government system even further.  The teacher turned on the light and marched into the stuffy room early that afternoon with a very confused Elric trailing behind her.  

Picking up a clipboard filled with paper from Mustang’s desk, Izumi leafed through the top few pages, “That looks like everything I asked for.”

Ed gave Mustang’s military logistics room, with no military officers in it, a baffled look over, “What the heck did you need from here?”

Tearing off the top sheet from the clipboard, Izumi walked over and handed it to Ed, “You need to get this done in an hour.”

His fingers slowly taking the sheet, Ed staring blankly at her while his mind processed what was going on.  He looked down at the sheet, read it twice, re-read it a third time, then raised his puzzled gaze to his teacher.  When the realization properly hit, Ed’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull, “Woah woah w-wait, WHAT?  ME?”

“You have one hour to get that done,” Izumi reiterated, tucking the clipboard under her arm, “and in an hour, when you are done, get your backside back here, because there’s more.”

Ed’s jaw hung loose as he stared at her - she was serious .  Again looking down at what he’d been handed, he re-read it once more in disbelief, “Th-they have people for this already,” his brow slowly knotting, Ed gawked at his teacher, “Mustang has people for this.  This building has people for this.  This isn’t my job.  We have alchemy to study and Dante to deal with, I don’t have time for this.”

“Today you do, Mr. Elric,” Izumi’s blank expression was somehow both intimidating and terrifying, “I understand you can do a menial job well enough to not get yourself fired, so don’t make me fire you.”

Sinking back on his heels and at a loss for words, Ed paled at her threat and looked at the papers in his hands again, “An hour?”

“The clock is ticking,” Izumi snatched up one of the waiting chairs in the room and placed it against the front of Mustang’s desk, facing the door, and she sat down, “don’t make me come and fetch you in an hour.”

His jaw still hung, Ed backed himself out of the room, eyes flying from Izumi, to the paper in his hand, and back again, before he took off.

Looking over her shoulder, Izumi’s eyes wandered through the mess on Mustang’s desk until she found a book amongst his things.  Delighted it was still there, she picked it up, flipped to the first page, and started reading while she let Ed run around on his mission.  

The task he’d been given was comprised of unloading a shipment of supplies that had arrived about a half an hour prior to his arrival, inspecting and cataloguing the inventory for what both Mustang and the hotel had received, and then sorting and running half the contents up to the storage suites on the third floor and the rest to the basement.  Ed had the boxes in the shipment unloaded fairly quickly, it was cataloguing the inventory that took forever to figure out, but once he had, he realized he had barely any time left.  Wasting no time, Ed ran box after box either up two flights of stairs or down one into storage.  Ed managed to return to Izumi huffing and puffing a minute before his time was up.

Izumi sipped a cup of coffee she’d helped herself to while Ed had been running around, put it down on Mustang’s desk, and re-crossed her legs, “Good job.”

“Why am I doing this?” Ed frowned at her, took a deep breath, and straightened his shirt, “I should be helping Al.”

“Your brother is perfectly capable on his own,” the woman tore out the next sheet and handed it to Ed, “one hour.”

Ed begrudgingly took the sheet, but he planted his feet and rolled his head back, “Why?”

Setting her clipboard aside again, Izumi clasped her hands together, put the bundle on her knee, and the woman looked at him without a readable expression, “Because, I’m telling you to.”

“Okay fine, but…” Ed’s posture sagged and he finally looked at his next assignment list.  His face contorted and his arm dropped to his side as he looked pleadingly at his teacher, “laundry?”

“Collecting all the linens is simple enough,” Izumi picked up her book again.

“Come on…” Ed groaned.

“Stop complaining and get to work,” remaining hardened and unfazed, Izumi turned a page in the book, “you have fifty eight minutes now and I don’t want to fire you.”

Ed nearly snored fire out of his nose; he clenched the paper in his hand and hauled himself out of the room.

Everyone under Mustang’s supervision had received a notice to leave their doors unlocked for laundry the day before, so while she tried to enjoy her book, sometimes Izumi was more occupied by the sound of Ed thundering around, ripping sheets off beds, and slamming them into the squeaky hamper he dragged around while he cursed and bemoaned the exercise.  Every time he filled it, Ed let the oversized hamper clatter down the stairs as he dragged it to the basement level.  Izumi either wanted to laugh at the tantrum he was too old for or drop him on his ass for it - ultimately, she did neither.  But, the escapade kept him occupied on both the second and third floor for nearly an hour.

Ed returned fifty two minutes later with his arms crossed and squarely planted his feet in front of his teacher.

Izumi didn’t even look up from her book to hand him his next task, “One hour.”

Remaining where he stood, Ed neither unfolded his arms nor took the paper, “There are a million better uses of my time right now.”

Picking her head up from her book, Izumi finally looked up at the older Elric trying to make his presence imposing - she had to say, he was a lot better at it than he used to be and the height certainly helped, “Today, there isn’t, and this is what you’re doing today.”

“Why?” Ed’s voice rose.

Prompted by the surge in his tone, Izumi stood up, put her book down carefully on the chair, and then slammed her hands on her hips, “Because I’m telling you to Mr. Elric and that’s all you need to know.  Now, you have fifty eight minutes to get all those beds re-dressed in fresh sheets, and that’s going to require a hell of a lot more effort than just taking them off.  My advice is to dump the attitude and focus on what you have to do, or you’re going to find out what I mean when I say I’m going to fire you.” 

Ed took a step back and glared at her.  Izumi held her position unfazed.  Turning on his toes, Ed marched out without another word and slammed the door.  Izumi picked up her book again and happily sat back down.  

Again, the chaotic sound of Ed storming around echoed through the floor as he ran fresh sheets into rooms and scrambled to get his assignment done in time while Izumi thoroughly enjoyed the book she’d borrowed off Mustang’s desk.  Around the fifty-fifth minute mark of the hour-long assignment, the door to the room flew open again.  Izumi picked her eyes up to watch Roy Mustang take two steps into his office and stop dead.

“You’re finally back,” she greeted him dryly, “took you long enough.”

Standing dumbfounded just past the entry, Mustang’s one wide eye looked at her with equal parts confusion and shock.  He abruptly glanced around the room to see if anything else was amiss and ended up finally returning her greeting with a very dull, “What the hell?”

“This is a good book, by the way,” Izumi held up what she’d taken, “I’ve been meaning to read it.”

The officer straightened up, got his composure back in order, and continued to stare at her.  His tone dropped harshly, “What the hell are you doing in my office?  Who let you in here?”

“I let myself in,” was her flat answer, “it felt like an appropriate place to order someone around from.”

Mustang walked deeper into the room and circled his desk, growing more annoyed with her intrusion, since it didn’t appear that she intended to leave now that he was there, “What makes you think you have any authority to order people around from my office?”

Opening the book again, Izumi nestled in the chair and searched for the paragraph she’d left off on, “I’m making sure that task list I asked for this morning is getting done.”

Frowning further, Mustang’s eye twitched at her empty coffee cup adding to the clutter on his desk.  He moved a coaster under it and glared at the back of her head, “Get out.  I assigned you your own quarters and you can mind your own business from there.”

“I prefer to sleep and relax in my bedroom and do my curriculars elsewhere,” Izumi replied then turned a page.

Mustang sat down at his desk, “I hope your husband’s okay with that.”

The book in her hand was snapped shut and Izumi snapped a fierce look over her shoulder.

Unbeknownst to him, Mustang’s life was saved by the intrusion of Edward Elric.  At exactly the fifty eighth minute mark, the frustrated, frazzled Elric with a few frayed hairs blew into the room with a gasp for air.  He’d wanted to slam his hands down on his knees and take a moment to catch his breath, but he took one look at the man at the desk behind his teacher, let out the loudest groan he could manage with the air he had left, and turned to walk out of the room.

“You’re done?” Izumi asked.

“YES,” Ed yelled, grabbing the door handle so he could slam it on his way out.

“Get back here!” Izumi’s voice boomed off the walls.

Mustang leaned back in his chair and quickly decided he had nothing else to do at that moment.

After Ed paused to debate his next move, he turned back into the room to scowl at his teacher and slammed the door behind himself, “Now what?”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Izumi tore the next sheet and held it up for him, “one hour.”

Ed surged up to her, snatched the paper away, and looked at what task he’d been given.  Grinding his teeth, he crushed the paper in his hand and threw his voice to the ceiling, “For fucks sake…”

“Get on it,” she again ordered.

Ed said nothing to his teacher, or Mustang - he didn’t look at either of them, he just thundered out of the room, ripping the door open and slamming it behind himself as he left.

Within the four walls of his normally uninteresting office, Mustang tried to find a good beginning point for his mountain of questions, “You seem to be agitating him.”

“That’s unfortunate for him,” Izumi opened the book again and settled into her borrowed chair.

Folding his arms atop his desk, Mustang leaned forwards and reluctantly accepted he was going to have to work to get answers from her, “Why are you agitating him?  Considering the bind we’re in, I don’t think this is the best use of Ed’s time.”

“Al is quite capable of figuring things out on his own,” Izumi’s reply was blunt and direct while she kept her nose in the book, “and Ed is going to spend his afternoon and evening doing as he’s told whether he likes it or not.”

Mustang wanted to reply with an exasperated huff, but he was far too intrigued by this infuriating woman’s assertion that she was going to somehow wrangle an entire days worth of volatile complicity out of their stubborn Elric, “In five or six hours I am leaving for Xenotime to rescue our people.  Why do you have the person, who is most critical to luring Dante away so I can do my job, doing menial tasks that I have people for?”

Once again, Izumi closed her book.  She put it down on her thigh, put her arm over the back of the chair, and turned around to address him, “Because I’m tired of fighting with him, Al’s tired of fighting with him, and you’re tired of fighting with him, so I’m going to tire him out and then get him out of our hair.”

Sitting back in his chair, Mustang cautiously entertained Izumi’s declaration, “Those work orders I had Havoc put together for you are going to take him hours on his own.”

“Yes, they will,” Izumi straightened herself back around on the chair and brought up her book again, “it’ll be a brisk eight hour work day for him.”

Mustang suddenly doubted he would be able to get Izumi out of his office any time soon or remain in Central long enough to see the end result of her efforts.

 


 

Dante turned herself around in the mirror. 

She was precious, wasn’t she?

Yes, fully dressed she was full of utter charm, childish innocence, and the visual reflection of youthful purity.  She could make men and women swoon. 

It was a far less useful kind of swoon though. 

Dante had started to miss the ability to make mankind offer themselves to her in a developed body.  It was much easier to seduce a man or woman with the right words or well-placed touch.  It was much easier to coerce anyone to sway or bend by offering to shine a light on what they wanted to hear at a moment of any sort of weakness.  She had spent centuries practicing how to mold mankind’s sorrows from behind a curtain, where at any given point, Dante could disappear again and watch them wallow.  At first hoping, then anticipating, and finally expecting, how the grief she led them to would shatter them.

Dante decorated her world with their pieces and made it her art.

But she’d practiced that art with glass men for so long that a change seemed interesting.  Dante had no interest in invading a man, so when the empty body of a child became available, it was beyond perfect.

A manufactured, soulless doll. 

No impurities like a homunculus. 

A soulless doll made from the disturbed and twisted shards of shattered regret and perverse love.  With no soul to subjugate, Dante slipped the flesh outfit on like it was a fresh robe.  It was so effortless and the centuries of frustration she’d suffered through with her body’s rot was gone – she was free to grow up in this guise and see how many good years she could get out of it. 

At the beginning, a child’s persona offered her so many freedoms she hadn’t experienced in hundreds of years.  Dante gained new perspectives into the flaws that came with innocent trust people freely gave her.   It was the most useful insight she’d gotten into humanity in quite some time.

Though, her guise came with just as many drawbacks.  She had to behave like a child.  Dante had to act ignorant.  She had no problem acting innocent and youthful, but her own pride struggled with ignorance.  Dante understood everyone who looked at her in a way they never could, and she knew at what points she could have woven in her seeds with little more than a shift in tone of voice or a moment of thoughtless words.  Guiding these fully developed pawns into their places was a lot harder to do with youthful ignorance in play.  Her word choice had to be precise.  Her calculations needed to be flawless.  It was occasionally tiresome.

Like all the other challenges she faced every one hundred years or so, she would learn to adapt – and learning something new would always come with benefits.  The one card she always kept near and dear to her heart that never failed her: everyone unquestionably trusted a small, seven-year-old girl.  And if she perverted that trust, they would never know it. 

She was innocent.

The problem now was the sight of her perfect body.  The rot growing through the middle of her slowly worsened.  Eating at her.  Enraging her.  She could heal it, she could slow it, she could waste the Philosopher’s Stone on it, but like all the other bodies lost to the rot, this soulless concoction now withered too.  This shouldn’t be happening.  There was nothing to support this.  It was scientifically wrong.  She shouldn’t need to be hunting for a new body for another sixty years.  Her reserve on the Philosopher’s Stone was below what made her feel at ease.  Even with Izumi’s horrendous interference, there should be enough remaining in Aisa to spend on a new body and vanish again.  The stone around Dante’s neck would be for Edward Elric, in the event he was less than forthcoming with what she wanted to know, which she didn't doubt he would be.

Or, could she expend a little and refresh her stock somewhat with the town of Xenotime?  Was she that uncomfortable with things that she would openly and blatantly extinguish the place?  She could end Aisa’s purpose and vanish easily, letting the people puzzle and wonder and argue and fall into anarchy amongst themselves.  It wouldn’t be the first time she’d let that happen.  Dante could find some innocent fool to take in this poor, lost child and use the Xenotime Stone to procure the new body.  But, what then of Ed?  The extent of his knowledge was unknown.  The impact he might have on her, and those around him, was incalculable.  The sooner they met, the far better position she’d be in.

People like Edward Elric were fun to play with.  They were hot headed, impulsive, and emotional about what they believed in.  She could toy with them, they would hold fast to their morals and higher grounds until their dying breath, and rather than give them the death they’d fought towards, Dante would collapse their pedestals and let them shatter.  Ed could easily be lured if she waited long enough, or hung enough heads out on the lawn, or dangled Brigitte out once in a while. 

In something that must be as vast as the world beyond, how did they know each other?  Brigitte didn’t seem to have any interest or knowledge of alchemy, perhaps she was too young?  In those ten months he’d been gone, how had he gotten to know her?  Specifically her, who’d landed in Dante’s lap unknowingly.  It was a shame Dante couldn’t simply use the girl’s mind to get a foothold on some of her answers, but she suspected Brigitte’s thoughts were as unintelligible as her words.

And though there was no telling how much knowledge Edward was able to gain while he’d been away, the most intriguing part of it all was that Alphonse had retrieved him using her exit plan.  The fact that Envy had even seen the need to lay down that transmutation circle in the first place told her that those beyond the Gate would be less than cooperative in allowing someone to return.

Dante needed into Edward’s mind to know just what obstacles lay in wait for her beyond the Gate.

Putting her nightgown on, Dante walked to her bedroom window and stared down at the nighttime lights of the Xenotime town below.  They were extra bright tonight: car lights, window lights, lantern lights …

She had too many of these overstuffed men to make dance around.  People, press, from East City had arrived in the evening.

A press conference ?  Her lip twitched.  Of these fools she needed to bring along, because this ‘father’ of hers couldn’t seem to accomplish anything without an entourage, who the hell thought a press conference was a good idea for tomorrow morning?  She wanted to go to bed, but she needed to think up some words to put in their mouths first.

Dante didn’t care what the radio kept putting on repeat.  The Armstrong family only had as much sway as she felt like giving them.  Diplomacy was just the polite window-dressing of mankind wishing it had morals; just take this forsaken country Mustang, and get out of the way.

A soft knock came to her door and Dante put her darkening scowl towards it.

“Miss?”

“Come in,” Dante stole a glance back out her window once more, before putting her focus into the room.

Aisa let herself in and allowed the door to click shut behind her.

“What do you need?” Dante wasn’t interested in keeping company too long.

Aisa held her unwavering, proper posture, “There are a few gentlemen we have gathered downstairs who seem… befuddled.”

“Befuddled?” Dante repeated dryly.

“Yes,” Aisa confirmed, “perhaps you should entertain one or two of them before you retire and offer guidance.”

Dante rolled her eyes in exasperation, “Yes, I should do that.  And write their song and dance for tomorrow as well.  Aisa, I’ve never been fond of acting as a playwright.”

The generally cold woman offered a hint of a smile, “It’s always good to hone the skills we’re weakest at.”

Lowering her head, Dante stared blankly back at Aisa from beneath her tiny brow for the comment.  She considered a counter argument, but it felt beneath her since her consort technically wasn’t wrong and Dante had probably offered that same advice to someone along the way, it just wasn’t something she wanted to hear.

Dante shook it off, “Seems I’m going to be spending far too much time and effort organizing my side of this pissing contest I’ve been strong armed into.”

“Armstrong’d into.”

Dante pivoted on her toes, put her tiny fists down on her small hips, offered a wicked grin at Aisa and squeaked, “Since when did you have a sense of humour?”

Aisa bowed her head, “I look to surprise you now and again, Miss.”

Dante finally laughed.

The cold, otherwise emotionless woman picked her head up, “And considering the state of things, might I offer a suggestion?”

“Ohhh,” Dante embellished her intrigue, “and you’ve come willing to council me too.  I am very interested.”

Aisa nodded, “The Philosopher’s Stone eaten by Gluttony has finished digesting and the final portions have begun to crystalize…”

Dante’s devilish blue eyes widened.

“… and I believe that makes me available to suggest a course of action that might suit your interests.”

If children’s delight honestly sparkled the way they were written about, Dante would have likened herself to a shooting star.

 


 

Since Ed’s return, the most thankful sight Izumi had been gifted was what it looked like to watch the boys work together.  Watching the boys work always made her smile; sometimes on the outside, but certainly on the inside.  From across Alphonse’s room that night, the teacher just stood and watched for a while as the boys pressed their hands into their faces, occasionally peeping, occasionally writing, but otherwise glaring intensely at whatever was on the paper between them.  Izumi dearly wished she could take them home just like this.  She wished she could just hit the stop button - this was good enough.  But, she didn’t have that ability and they weren’t there yet; Izumi had to raise her voice.

“So?” she asked.

“Interesting…” the Elric brothers replied in unison.

Izumi put her shoulder against the wall, “Well, that makes me feel safe.”  Despite the assurances from Ed and the confirmation from their tests that the symbols were indeed benign, the concept of foreign alchemy scared her fiercely, “Before you get too much farther, Ed, I’d like to talk to you.”

A wary golden eye peeked over his shoulder at her, “I did everything you asked already…”

“Yes, you did,” Izumi had freed him from that a few hours ago, “but I still need to talk to you.”

Ed glanced at his younger brother, who could only shrug, and the older brother reluctantly got to his feet to follow his teacher out of the room once again.

“What did you need to talk to me about?” Ed lagged behind her, folding his arms as they started down the stairs.

“I’ll explain in a minute,” Izumi continued the descent ahead of him.

Taking him all the way down to the main floor this time, Izumi turned down an adjacent corridor and let Ed follow at his own pace.  Stopping at a door that looked like all the others, she waited for the agitated older brother to catch up before she turned the knob and went in.  The pair stepped into a fairly spacious, slightly musty, yet completely emptied meeting room.  Ed’s apprehension fell to suspicion, eyeing the drawn curtains as his teacher closed the door behind him.

“What did you want to talk about?” Ed bluntly repeated his question.

With the door clicking shut, Izumi came around to face Ed and gave him a declaration that had been as firm as the one he’d once given her, “After I get back dispatching Wrath, you and Winry are heading north, then Al and I will join you once we’re done.”

Ed’s brow crashed down and his tone grew firm, “This isn’t something I should be running from.”

“Why not?” Izumi asked.

“Because I—”

Without letting Ed ready himself for it, Izumi moved on him.  She made sure he felt the iron grip on his wrist that spun him, and knew full well he didn’t feel her foot knock out his left knee that dropped him.  Ed’s knee hit the ground and Izumi pinned his left arm to his back.

“What if Dante bypasses me and Al entirely and zeroes in on you?  Rationale be damned,” Izumi tightened her grip, “what if we bring her out here and she decides to just simply see if you’re here instead?  Show me how you intend on defending yourself.”

Ed scowled and shifted his balance over his free right leg, filled his chest with air, and thrust himself upwards, attempting to hoist Izumi off the ground and flip her over his back.

Izumi willingly let go and popped off.  The teacher let Ed square around on her before she began throwing her hands, watching how he blocked, dodged, and countered almost exclusively with his left side.  The right seemed to be used for balance and at several points…

Lunging in at an opening, Izumi caught Ed’s right arm, put him off balance, twisted him around, forced his feet out from under him, and let Ed land on his back on the floor.

“You’re letting one side do all the work, Edward,” Izumi rose up, held her head high, looked down at him and barked, “Get up!”

Ed swung around on his knees and, by the time he was on his feet focussed on Izumi, she’d hopped up on her toes and was already on the move.  The teacher watched Ed widen his stance as she moved around him, blocking her first few jabs before she changed her strategy and started targeting his legs.  With each kick and each lunge she made to force Ed to move his feet, blocking or evading the occasional counter attack, Izumi got to see exactly what she had expected.  Feigning an opening for Ed to take, Izumi pivoted on his move and took out the back of his unfeeling left knee again and sent him down to all fours with a swift arm thumping across his back.

“You’re not balanced, Edward,” Izumi’s feet landed squarely and she slammed her hands down on her hips, ordering, “GET UP!”

Flaring back up onto his feet, Ed squared off again with a scowl.

The fire and frustration showing on his face was exactly what Izumi had hoped for.

This time, Ed moved on her first; swinging in on Izumi, the more practiced of the two evaded and blocked everything he tried.  Reaching around, Ed nearly caught her at the elbow, but Izumi snatched his exposed right arm, wrenched it behind him once again, and ran him into the wall.

“Can you tell me how hard I’m gripping this?  How much of this shoulder can you actually feel me yanking on?”

With his stronger left arm planted and a knee to the wall, Ed pushed back and freed himself.  Izumi bounced away from him, stepping back as she watched him turn, his frustration clearly mounting.

Izumi’s arm flew out, finger pointed, “You spent ten years not having that arm and most of the last five years with nothing at all, where do you expect to suddenly get any strength or reflexes from?”

Ed clenched his jaw as he breathed and Izumi watched his eyes dart around and weigh options.  She would have grinned had the situation allowed it – Ed would still carry himself through a fight on stubbornness and adrenalin alone if he could.

The teacher took a wide stance, “COME ON.”

The authority in her voice drew Ed in and he charged, planting his right leg and kicking in with his left.  Izumi absorbed the move, caught the leg, and spun him over with it.  She let go and watched Ed control how he came down, absorbing the landing through his arms, and still finding the strength to kick out his anchor leg to push her back.  Ed swept back to his feet and forced Izumi away farther as the pair exchanged blocks, and then Ed’s eyes lit as he caught her arm.  He tried to force it around behind her, but Izumi’s foot shot out and took out Ed’s left ankle. 

As Ed momentarily lost his balance Izumi grinned; he still had fire and his head could do the game, but he was also…

Izumi put a heavy flat palm to his chest,

…just horribly…

Threw a knee into his stomach,

…horribly…

and flipped both of his legs out from under him.

…out of practice.

Izumi let Ed land face-first on the ground beneath his own weight.

She rose up over him and took a step back, her brow flat and voice pounding, “When was the last time you practiced sparring with anyone other than a pedestrian street thug, Edward Elric?  GET UP.”

The teacher didn’t need to see the infuriated look on Ed’s face to know he was angry; she’d riled him long before they’d even started and she could tell he was hot by the way he moved on her.  And while that fueled him, it also made him easier to deal with – the less focus he had, the more his current imbalances would show.  Despite the wounds she’d read he in Mustang’s assessments, and the ones she could see, Izumi decided to clearly land every punch she drove in, every kick she swung, and every other move she chose to make, until she bounced him off on the wall, helped him fall, and finally pinned Ed to the ground on his stomach.  

“I want to know from you how much physical conditioning a one-armed, one-legged university office assistant could actually do,” Izumi tightened her grip and leaned down, “Come on, fight me off and GET UP.”

With the only limb he had available, Ed’s left palm slammed into the floor as he tried to push up.  Watching his fingers curl on the floor and listening to the noise he made as he fought to find a way to get her off, Izumi refused to let him gain anything on her as he struggled. 

“Ed,” she watched his eye fly open and lock on furiously to her.  Izumi leaned down, her voice calmed, and she let him in on the first lesson, “you’re out of breath.”

She watched a golden Elric eye look around absently for a moment, examining her assessment as he stopped his struggle and just heaved through his breaths.

“If you can’t force me off, I won’t let you get up,” Izumi refused to let him budge, “and I haven’t clapped my hands yet.”

Ed rolled his forehead into the ground, the fingers of his left hand scraped off the floor into his palm, and he slammed his fist down in frustration.

“FUCK.”

“Watch your mouth.”

Holding him for a few seconds longer to let her point settle, Izumi finally released her grip.  The teacher sat back, settled on the floor, and let Ed collect himself.  Izumi watched while he pulled himself to his knees, gathered his breath, and then she waited until he sat around and looked at her, frustration etched into his face.  She was a touch sad looking at him; when he was younger, Ed’s look of defeat used to have a childish pout to it, but he didn’t have that any more - now, he just looked mad.

“Nothing we are getting ourselves into is easy,” Izumi crossed her legs and entertained the Elric scowl she was getting, “and it requires the kind of energy and stamina that you haven’t needed in years.”

The bridge of Ed’s nose wrinkled when he realized something and he cast an annoyed look at his teacher, “You had me do all that shit earlier to try and wear me down before you actually kicked my ass.”

Izumi considered smirking, but left her expression flat, “I couldn’t make you run through town, so I made you run through the building.”

Ed rolled his eyes to the ceiling and dropped his head back.

Sitting up a little taller, Izumi let her shoulders ease, “Fighting makes you feel like you have control, but if you can’t even meet me at a near draw, you’re physically in no condition to be involved in anything.  We both know Dante picks people off at their weaknesses.  She either finds them or creates them.  Even if you feel alright, or tell yourself you’ll be alright, that’s not where you are, and we will lose you.  Considering how far you’ve come, I can’t imagine why you’d risk that now.” 

Sinking into the collar of his shirt, Ed took a breath like he had something to say, but then thought better of it and discarded the idea, opting to say nothing at all.

“You’ve been pretty confined since you got back, so the things I had you doing this afternoon were to get your blood going and get you operating both arms and both legs.  I constricted your time so you’d be forced to focus on what you needed to do, rather than thinking about how to do it,” Izumi pulled in a sharp breath through her nose and handed out her grade, “because it’s clear you’ve taught yourself how to be exclusively left handed and you don’t trust your numb leg to balance you.  You can’t notice it if you’re not doing much, but all of it was very obvious when we fought and I'm sure you felt it.  You’re going to have to unlearn and relearn a few things or you’re going to get hurt.”

Ed looked through the corners of the room as he slowly swallowed his instructor’s assessment, “That just makes me pretty useless.”

“No,” Izumi corrected, “you came back exactly as the conditions around you needed you to be to survive.  That didn’t mean maintaining your military training or mine, but actually learning how to live without your right arm and left leg.” 

Ed nearly scoffed - it was a humbling situation that he hadn’t given into willingly.  He had fought to reject everything he had to put up with while he’d been gone, including accepting his physical impairments, until he either superseded his conditions or succumbed to what he’d been subjected to.  Most of the time, he’d been forced to kneel, like he was being forced to with his teacher.  Ed could only sigh.

Getting to her feet, Izumi rose up and placed her hands comfortably on her hips, “The time you need to adjust doesn’t exist right now.  So, for you, that means taking a back seat and using your head for a while, not your fists or your emotions. The other skills that had to be let go along the way can be re-learnt with time and effort once we’re settled elsewhere.”

Izumi offered a hand for the seated Elric to take.  He stared at it frustrated, debating his willingness to step aside now that he was home, until he finally bowed his head and took the hand that helped hoist him back to his feet.

“I’m demoted to office duty,” Ed dusted himself off.

Izumi narrowed an eye at him while he tucked his shirt back in, “I’d chain you to a desk for the rest of your life if I had things my way,” she nearly laughed at the pained look she got from him for the comment, “for now though, you’re going north or I will put you in a condition where you’re forced to go north.  Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ed surrendered.

“Good,” the teacher nodded.

“But, everything we’re doing is just buying time,” Ed’s thumbs caught the edge of his slacks’ pockets, “when is anyone planning on doing something about Dante herself?”

“I don’t know,” Izumi couldn’t answer that.  Dante was a far bigger problem than safely extracting anyone from her vicinity, which they had to focus on first, “she has red stones, the Philosopher’s Stone, a place that can nurture both of those, five hundred years of practice, alchemy skills I’ve never conceived of, a lack of respect for humanity as we are, all packaged behind the shield of an innocent child.”

The assessment sounded more bleak audibly than it had in her head, Izumi had to admit.  So much had been going on that it wasn’t until Ed had returned that anyone had even conceived of actually addressing Dante.  Most of the people involved didn’t even know she’d existed until recently.  There was no plan, and not even much for ideas…

Still, Ed made an offer with a shrug, “You have me.”

Izumi didn't hesitate to swat him.

 


To Be Continued...


 

Notes:

This chapter is alternately titled Izumi’s Revenge Tour. Ed has no one to blame but himself.

I accidentally demoted Armstrong at some point. He’s supposed to be Lieutenant Colonel *goes back a whole pile of chapters and corrects*

A reminder that Dante doesn’t know that time moved faster beyond the Gate.

Chapter 47: What Lies Between

Summary:

Mustang and company try to make their way to Xenotime, while Ed tries to figure out what's causing Wrath's odd behaviour.

Chapter Text

That morning, in Izumi’s room, the culmination of many days worth of effort was presented in its entirety to her by her former pupils.

“Our brand new, twelve-character alchemy chart,” Al presented the sheet in both hands before turning it over to her.

“Scientifically tested and proven to be some of the most basic alchemical symbols you’ll ever find, now available for exploitation on this side of the Gate,” Ed bowed his head with a smug grin.

Izumi laughed to herself.  Unfolding her arms to take the page from Al’s hands, she looked it over more than once, “Certainly not something I knew I would see in my lifetime, let alone play a part in.”

“And it's a part that keeps on playing too,” Al grinned, “we’re going to have an entire theatre feature ready by the time we’re done.”

“Alright alright,” she waved a hand to tame Al’s enthusiasm and looked at Ed, “how’s Winry coming with Wrath’s leg?”

He shrugged his shoulders, “Last I heard, she’s on target for this evening.”

“Perfect,” Izumi nodded and put her hands on her hips to address her audience, “with the people Lt. Colonel Armstrong’s left with, he’s thin on ones he can trust with us and expend for driving duty, so I’ll head out with the military chauffeurs around noon tomorrow.  We’ve got a set location we’re sending Wrath out from that we should hit at about midnight.  I’ll send him out and then we’re turning around and heading straight back.  As far as I can tell, he hasn’t had time to re-contact her for another feeding since he lured you out to meet Dante, so his stomach should motivate him if nothing else.”

Despite how things had turned out, Al still lowered his head in shame of his innocent eleven-year-old self’s easy deception.

“When I get back: Ed, you and Winry are heading out at sunset.  Lt. Colonel Armstrong wants as much of your journey buried in darkness as possible.  By the time the sun rises, you should be far enough away from civilization’s watchful eye that it shouldn’t be a problem.” 

“Alright…” he reluctantly accepted.

The teacher’s focus ventured back to her other student, “Al, I want to ask you…”

“No,” Alphonse refused the request even before hearing it, “I’m going with you.  I have these now,” the small Elric presented his young hands, “and I got this,” he tapped his forehead, “and Dante doesn’t know I have either of them.”

Ed turned to his brother, “I’m going to bet Dante knows you can clap your hands now.  She was the one who ditched you at the Gate.”

Nodding his agreement, Al countered, “True, but she doesn’t know I have the extra years in my head to power my hands.  I can surprise her.”

A satisfied grin found Ed and he returned his attention to his teacher, “You're heading down to the Empty City today, right?”

“This afternoon I’ll head down,” Izumi scowled, “I’m going to turn off that wretched music she plays and we’ll keep tabs on the city after that.  When it comes back on, we’ll know she’s back in Central,” her brow rose and she looked to Al, “and we’ll continue our little play.”

Alphonse gave a large Elric grin.

Izumi clapped her hands together, but dismissed the alchemical sparks that came from it, “Alright, you boys go have breakfast, find something to entertain yourselves in your down time, and don’t distract Winry.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

The young men in her life left the room in the warmth of their own chatter.  Izumi stood up - what was ‘morning’ to some people was well into the day for her already, and she figured she better check on Wrath before heading out to silence the infernal noise polluting the Empty City.  Leaving the room Mustang had assigned her, still able to hear the brothers’ chatter down the hall, and Izumi made her way down the stairs.  

At the second floor she stopped and looked out into the floor.  Things had a different aura today, she could feel it, so the woman took a detour before descending further to see Wrath.  Coming to a stop at the second door on the right, she turned the handle and let herself in.

Armstrong looked up from a desk, “Well, well!  Ms. Curtis!” his large voice welcomed her grandly.

Izumi smiled.  She preferred Lt. Colonel Armstrong to his superior officer; at the very least, he had charm.  Of the dogs these men were, Mustang was an angry and noisy bulldog, but Armstrong was a large and loyal wolfdog.

“I’ve rarely seen you down here,” the huge man stood up and offered her a seat.

“Well,” Izumi sat down in the offering at the corner of his desk, “the floor doesn’t smell so rank today.  I thought I’d stop in and see if there were any changes in Xenotime we need to know about.”

Armstrong solemnly shook his head, “None, other than the ‘reassuring’ press conference.  It ended up being more of a publicity spectacle of their mining conference.  Seems a nearby gold deposit has appeared that promises financial revitalization to the area.”

“Oh, how interesting,” Izumi threw one leg over the other in her chair, “with Dante out there I’m sure that’ll be a bountiful distraction.”

“I assume so as well,” Armstrong concluded.

Sighing, Izumi’s hands patted over her top knee, “Well, she’s still playing the politics game for the moment.  At least we know she isn’t entirely sick of it.  Our heroes got out with no fuss last night I heard, have they made it through their first checkpoint?”

“They have, yes,” the officer confirmed, “we were lucky and they arrived early enough that there wasn’t much congestion on the telecom lines.”

“Small favours,” Izumi mulled over Mustang’s progress; he was making decent time and would probably be settled in Xenotime long before Wrath showed up.  It would give him time to get the lay of the land in order hopefully.  With all of that boding well for them, Izumi turned away from her thoughts and offered a smile to Armstrong as she stood up, “well, I won’t trouble you much more.  I have a homunculus to eyeball and some noise to silence.”

Armstrong rose to his feet and walked ahead of her to the door, “You are no trouble, Ms. Curtis, I assure you.”

What Izumi wouldn’t give to have the authority for twenty minutes just to swap the ranks of the two dogs who’d both sat in this room.

As Armstrong reached for the doorknob and Izumi approached, both their ears heard a thunderous set of footsteps pound along the floor.  They exchanged a puzzled glance before it became clear the noise was gaining and sounding like it was headed straight for them.

Izumi and Armstrong stepped back defensively when Lieutenant Breda burst through the door.

Coming to a stop, huffing and puffing with his hands on his knees, the Lieutenant took a deep gasp for air and looked up to his superior officer, “SIR, I have Russell Tringham on the phone downstairs!”

The expressions of the two occupants in the room flew wide in unison, “WHAT?”

 


 

Set to the tone of a perfect working atmosphere, Winry and Alphonse worked through their tasks in silent harmony.  Winry lay atop Al’s bed with pieces of Wrath’s foot organized around her and trying to find some comfort in the fan Alphonse had lodged in the window with the clap of his hands.  The younger Elric studied away on a myriad of things with the otherworld alchemy, tangling and re-tangling the elements, wondering if there were any way that he could find to make the conductivity flow faster.  Maybe he was able to think up something that the ancient alchemists over there had missed.  So far… he hadn’t had much luck.  

Alphonse’s failed luck led him down a rabbit hole in history.  Like all things in alchemy, ‘understanding’ was key, so if he could analyze the history of certain transmutation processes based on the twelve historical factors that he now had from beyond the Gate, and maybe he could learn something from it.

The harmonious hum of work came to a crashing halt when Ed walked through the door and stopped at the opening of the room.  The working pair looked to each other wide eyed before turning their emphatic, curious expressions to the elder brother as he stood before them: his gaze flat, arms folded, and shifting an anticipatory blank stare between them both.

“Amazing,” Al marvelled.

Winry straightened herself up and eyed him, “Is he real?  Did he actually survive?”

“Could we not do this?” Ed pinched his gaze.  This was his own fault though… 

“Wow, he’s just like a whole new man,” Al gawked and leaned around in his chair theatrically.

“It must have been so torturous,” Winry inched herself towards him, her face full of playful wonder, “I can’t wait for you to tell the tale.”

Ed’s right eye twitched.  If they’d just given him some warning… 

Alphonse’s arms flew out, presenting that afternoon’s headline, “Edward Elric and the Removed Stitches.”

Winry clapped her hands, “Best seller!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Ed’s exasperation rang out and gave rise to the room’s laughter.  If someone had just told him less than a few minutes before it was going to happen that the doctor was going to take out his stitches, he would have had time to mentally prepare.  Instead, it was a bit of an embarrassing scene.

Shimmying herself to the edge of the bed, Winry hopped up on her knees, “Come here,” she waved him over, “I want to see.”

Arms still folded, Ed walked up to the side of the bed.  Deliberately clunking his shins against the bed frame, he met her eye to eye and tipped his head forwards so he could stare at Winry from beneath a flat brow, “Are you patronizing me?”

“No,” her reply was laughed, “I really want to see,” and she promptly swept away the hair shielding the left side of his face.

Ed blinked, “It was the other side, Win.”

“I know,” she put a finger down on his forehead, “just checking to make sure the other side was all healed first.”

He snorted a laugh over injuries from another life he’d all but forgotten about.  Ed rolled his eyes to the wall, turned his head to offer the right side of his face, and Winry moved the other side of his hair.  His blank gaze wandered through the patterns of the faded wallpaper as her assessment was conducted and Winry re-captured his attention by putting her palm down on his cheek and her thumb on the healing wound.  Only Ed’s eyes moved to her while he worked to keep himself from discolouring; could he not react so embarrassingly with her at least once?  Al was here… 

“You know,” she found his eyes and wove her brow with disappointment, “it might leave a permanent mark.”

The statement turned Ed’s head to look at her squarely - of all the things for Winry to be concerned about given the state of her leg.  Ed realized he’d surprised her by abruptly moving; Winry pulled her hand away and stared at him a little taken aback.  Ed eyed her and held his expression to a flat brow, feeling the need to say something , but finding himself dancing between only replying with nothing at all or saying something along the lines of ‘what about yours?’.  He didn’t think he wanted to see the look in her eyes if he brought it up like that. 

“It’s fine.  Doesn’t matter,” Ed voiced something harmless and looked beyond her shoulder, “how’s that going?”

Winry looked back to Wrath’s mess, “Every time I pulled a part off, there was more underneath.  I needed to send someone to get me some different parts for the foot arch and pick up some wiring for the last three toes that need replacing.  If I’d known it was like this, I would have just made him a whole new one instead,” she returned to Ed with a crooked frown, “sorry it’s taking so long.”

“Don’t worry about it,” suddenly, a wry grin popped into Ed’s face and he leaned forwards, “do I get a discount for the delay?”

Winry puffed up and leaned back as the encroaching Elric grin grew several sizes larger.  Her hand flew into his face and she shoved Ed away as he cackled to himself beneath Winry’s screech of ‘No Discounts!’

Ed sauntered to the table Al occupied and sat down in the empty chair across from his brother.  The elder brother opened his mouth to ask something, but stopped and warily eyed the pert smile Al was giving him.

“What?” Ed asked cautiously, picking up a sheet of paper and pencil.

With a large breath, Al filled his lungs and sat back in his chair with his own papers, “Well, I guess if Dr. Rockbell passes you, everything is fine.”

“He’s damaged goods, but he passes,” Winry chirped as she settled back to her work.

“Har har, thanks,” Ed sneered before refocusing on Al, “you’re working on something else now?”

“Yeah,” Al’s brow bounced high, “while you were out I got curious and I’ve been trying to map out some history.  I’m comparing the older symbols to our newer ones that replaced them and trying to draft matching transmutations to track their strengths and weaknesses to chart their evolution.”

Ed wanted to laugh; that was something he’d done beyond the Gate, too.  He grinned wide and leaned against the table, “So, what’d you find?”

“I can see why they did away with the old markers,” the younger brother frowned, “every transmutation I’ve used to compare them with, either stand alone or in combination with others, just makes the older ones more complicated.  The end result is the same; the older style transmutations are slower, more cumbersome to calculate, but they feel richer to transmute, while our newer variants are more straightforward and get the transmutation executed a bit quicker.”

Looking back at Alphonse, Ed processed one of the most rewarding and validating things he’d heard anyone say about the alchemy he’d studied beyond the Gate.  He’d theorized so much and rarely did anybody listen, let alone believe him; yet, here was his little brother, spitting back his own conclusions to him, without a hint or whisper of doubt.  Ed had spent so many months burrowing through the bountiful, endless leads within the history of the other world, but the people there were so far removed from practical alchemy they no longer knew how to see it.  It had been exhilarating to spend those months between London and Munich drowning in the wealth of forbidden texts in the unwanted corners of Europe.  Yet, every time he looked up, wishing someone with competent ears could hear him, nobody was around.  The urge for Ed to sink his hands into what his brother was learning to accomplish was so tantalizing, but… 

Al laughed, “No wonder the Gate was so stubborn about you.  With all those resources available to you, understanding the history of something is a whole power all on its own.”

Giving a half smirk, Ed turned the pencil around in his fingers and looked at the blank sheet on the table in front of him.

“Maybe that’s why Wrath is so enthralled with you,” Al mused, “you render him useless because he can sense you came back with too much power and he’s drawn to it.”

Ed nearly dropped his pencil, “That’s insane, Al.  I don’t want that.  Find another explanation for Wrath.”

The boy who’d just spent so many days with his head in scientific formulas and permutations, where the constant state of the incorporated factors all mattered, looked at his journeyed brother, “Brother, when it comes right down to it, unless Dante’s feeding him something we don’t know about, the only thing that’s changed in some way is you.”

A wary, adventure-worn set of golden eyes cast its gaze over the voice of unsettling words.  

“Physically, psychologically, and emotionally you’re technically not the same, because five years have elapsed and you’ve undergone a full transmutation more than once,” Al looked off in thought as his voice ran on, “and maybe you’ve even changed quintessentially, since the bonds of your mind, body, and soul had to come apart to exist in the other world and be put back together when you came home.  Maybe something, within all of that, or the sum of all of that, has changed your existence in some way fundamentally, and that’s causing Wrath to behave the way he does around you.”

Ed took his brother’s words and bundled them up into a ball of ideas.  He had a kind of journey through alchemy like none other in recorded history.  His existence had been deconstructed and reconstructed like no other, not even Dante or his father.  And when he looked at the most important part - the need for understanding - for both his own transmutations, and those of his brother, Ed was absolutely certain every one of their transmutations had been executed precisely as they’d been designed.  There was nothing he could see in either the theories or calculations that would have an effect on a homunculus .   

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, Wrath seemed to be captured by something that overrode his behaviour in Ed’s presence and that drew the creature to meet him eye to eye.  Ed had watched Wrath struggle to find what he was looking for in his frustrated gaze, and he couldn’t shake the sensation that it felt more and more like the homunculus wasn’t failing to focus on him, but that he was trying to focus on something behind… 

“That’s terrifying, Al,” Ed put his pencil down.

“It is, yeah,” Al’s brow scrunched up, “at least he’ll be gone soon.  And if Dante does send him back, at least we know you can neutralize him.”

“Yeah well,” Ed slouched in his chair, his thoughts touring his eyes absently around the room, “the further away from me he is, the better.”

Drawn back into his curiosities and studies, Alphonse once again slipped into the working silence he’d enjoyed with Winry.  His brother remained carelessly seated in his chair, caught somewhere between studying something he’d already studied and still couldn't do anything about, and returning to his room for a nap.  Even with so little to go on, Ed was certain that the educational journey his younger brother was taking would keep Al blissfully entertained for hours.  With practical alchemy not an option for the older brother, Ed opted for his nap.

He paused before standing again, curiously caught by the stare he was getting from Winry from the corner of her eye.  At the moment Ed acknowledged her watching him, the stare drifted away to the mess of Wrath’s leg and didn’t peek up again.  Gripping the arms of the chair, Ed kept a curious eye on her as he got up and left the room.

 


 

Beneath the clear sky overhead and dusty, forgotten township surrounding things, the chimes above an old wooden door rang.  Stepping into the small, outdated building, Riza tipped her hat to the two middle-aged men minding the post office.  One fairly rounded stood behind a counter, the other thinner, but much more drab and taller, standing to the side; both postmen watched the woman tuck her hat under her arm before exchanging an intrigued glance.

“Good morning!”

“Good afternoon,” Riza greeted them.

The one behind the counter looked startled, “Is it afternoon already?”

“Only just,” she smiled and walked up to their counter.

The man to the side slipped behind a double hinged door to join his colleague behind the counter, eyeing their well-to-do visitor, “What can I do for a lovely young lady in a suit this afternoon?”

Paying no mind to the eyeballing she was getting from the older men, Riza pulled her gloves off and clasped them neatly in two hands, “I’m wondering how much it would cost to send a telegram?”

Obviously not what either man was expecting for a request at their postal outlet, the pair exchanged a curious glance before the rounder of the two attendants entertained her request, “A couple of bits, but our connection has been shoddy at times.  Why not take another twenty klicks and get’er issued from a post closer to the main routes?”

The masquerading officer let her posture slip a touch, “Well, you see, I’m not entirely sure my car will make it and I didn’t find an AutoShop in the hamlet.”  

The narrower of the two stroked his mustache, “No ma’am, we certainly don’t have one of those.”

Riza nodded her acceptance, “I promised my mother that I’d telegram her - to let her know when I’d arrived at my hotel.  She’s housesitting for me and I don’t want her to fall into a panic if I wind up short and need to walk the rest of the way.”

“Oh, well,” the rounder man waddled his way down to the opposite end of the counter, “we have a phone you can try to give her a ring with.”

Riza raised a hand to her chest, “Sir, have you ever tried to convince an old, rural, western woman to accept the telephone?”

The pair let out a resounding ‘ahhh’ at the argument.

“Even if I called my own home, she would just curse the ‘noisy contraption’,” Riza laughed lightly at her fabricated story, “I promise you.”

With the shrug of his shoulders to relent, the attendant waddled back over to his spot alongside his co-worker, “Well, taking a shot in the dark with the telegram from here is better than nothing,” he smiled, cleared some papers off a wooden box, and lifted the lid on their post office’s telegraph machine, “What be your mother’s surname?”

“Samson,” Riza answered, “first name: Mary.”

Both men stopped in unison and stared back at her with utter confusion and, for no reason Riza could explain, it set off a number of her caution signals.  She fought the urge to abort the telegram attempt until she understood why their reaction made her so uneasy.

The taller of the pair again stroked his mustache, “Well isn’t that something.”

Beneath her honestly confused, “Hm?” the officer began running scenarios.

The man put his elbow down on the counter and pointed a finger at her, “We transcribed a telegram for a Mary Samson not more than an hour ago, but there was no local or county address to deliver it to.”

What?  Riza’s thoughts raced while she held on to her act, “That is a fascinating coincidence.”  The coincidence was too great - someone from Central had to be reaching out to them, but what in the world for?  “Of all the names in the world that could have come your way,” but this name had to have been specifically sent here. Riza tried a direct approach, “What did you do with it?”

The rounder man looked down behind the counter, “Tossed it.”

She smiled as amused and entertained as she could manage, and her tone toyed sweetly with the older men, “May I see what was destined for my mother’s doppelganger?”

The men exchanged glances, shrugging in unison, and the crumpled telegram was retrieved from an otherwise empty trash bin and handed to her.

Riza’s confusion grew heavier as she read it aloud, “Contact Mr A Behal.”

Who was A Behal?  She didn’t know anyone with the surname of Behal.  She re-read the telegram again, indeed meant for Mary Samson with no provided address… with only ‘CONTACT MR A BEHAL’ typed on it.  What was going on?

“Well, how odd.  It certainly isn’t for my mother, we’ve never met anyone with the surname of Behal,” she returned it to the men and let them discard it once again.

“Of all the names to end up in our laps today,” the rounder of the two laughed as his companion continued stroking his mustache with intrigue, “might be some misdirected communications coming into us though, the telephone and telegraph lines have gotten pretty unstable with things the way they are.  What message would you like coded, Ma’am?”

“Indeed,” her head swarming with ideas and concerns, Riza put them aside for a moment and drafted an alternate message, “Car trouble.  May be late.  Will contact you again soon.  Love Liz.”  

“And where are we headed with the message?” was the final question.

“Central-East Post and Telegram Office, please.  If I can get a pen and paper I can write down the delivery address.”

The other attendant collected a stack of clipped papers before turning the requested tools over to their guest.  The paper stack was handed to his associate and together the postal men leafed through the bundle until the number for the Central-East Office was found.  Riza finished writing the address and resumed holding her posture tall, though she clenched her hands behind her back as she tried to figure out what meaning lay behind A Behal.  

Nothing would come of her mental investigation while she stood in the aging postal building in the middle of nowhere.  The telegram was sent out to find its rendezvous in Central and the men were paid and thanked with a smile they both enjoyed.  The officer left them to debate their noon hour with the ringing of the door chimes and she marched herself down the dusty dirt roadway beneath the powerful July sun.  She rounded the corner of the next building and marched to the car Mustang and Havoc remained in.  Tucked away in the remnants of a shrinking shadow cast by a grain elevator, Riza let herself back into the driver’s side back seat.

“What took you so long?” Havoc turned from the wheel and looked to his two superior officers in the back.

“We have a problem,” she fished around in a bag of their things for a pen and paper, “someone from Central sent a blind telegram to that outlet using our middleman’s code name.”

“What!?” both men sputtered in unison.

She slapped a page down between them and wrote out… “The message on the telegram addressed to ‘her’ was ‘CONTACT MR A BEHAL’.”

Mustang swiftly picked up the sheet and gave it an interrogative eye, “…Who?”

Hawkeye sat back, “I don’t know anyone named Behal.”

Havoc shook his head, “Me neither.”

A sinking feeling began to swell in the car of civilian clothed officers, “If our people in Central had to blindly use that contact name for us to pick up by chance, something’s changed between our last checkin and this,” Mustang’s eye on the page began to darken, “Behal…”

“You want me to start heading us back?” Havoc asked.

Mustang waved his hand, “No, no… whoever A Behal is, he’s probably out here, or the message would have been worded differently,” his gaze slowly turned from the paper to the view of a eastern Amestrist hamlet, “... somewhere out here.”

 


 

Laying on his bare back, arms spread out at his sides, and untied hair everywhere, Ed stared at the ceiling of his room.  He’d drawn the curtains, but hadn’t bothered to shut the window.  It didn’t matter much anymore, it was just as hot inside as it was outside, but at least he could shade things with the curtains.  Ed hadn’t sweat in this kind of heat in far too long - there was nowhere he'd gone in Europe that could match an Amestris day late in July.  Contently melting in a summer he'd missed, his shirt had been tossed to the floor and strands of his hair stuck to his face as Ed’s gaze wove through the speckled ceiling.

While he lay there in the late-day heat, Edward entertained and dismissed his brother’s words over and over, going through each one with a fine tooth, logical comb.  Their transmutations had been correct.  Ed redid them again and again in his head.  There was no mistake, there was nothing incorrect done; both Ed and Winry had taken the rebound home.  The length of time he’d been away shouldn’t factor in.  Both brothers had successfully performed human transmutation.  The only remaining variable he questioned was his own transaction with the Gate to get himself and Winry home, but there was nothing in that Ed could find that made enough sense to explain Wrath’s behaviour.

Wrath was looking for something beyond him.  Ed could feel it.  The creature was trying to see behind his eyes…

A knock came to his door.  Ed flickered his attention to the sound, “Yeah?”

“Are you awake?” Winry asked, “Can I come in?”

For a brief moment, the inescapable conservative behaviourisms of the other world tried to move Ed - he’d nearly gone and collected his shirt before letting her in.  Annoyed with himself for that, because he could honestly walk around in just his shorts here and have no one care, Ed decided he didn’t have the energy to unstick himself from the top sheet of his bed to meet Winry at the door. 

“Yeah.”

Winry clattered in around the door, pushing it open and shoving it shut in her wake as she struggled to look like she knew how to maneuver with her crutches.  Ed laughed to himself as she got back in order and moved into the room.  The laugh became more pronounced at the horrendous sound of Winry mercilessly discarding her crutches to the floor and hopping up onto the bed.

“You’re like a herd of elephants everywhere you go.”

“Shut up,” she hissed and settled on her backside, “this room is disgusting, go get Al to put a fan in your window.”

Ed rolled his head as she slid up next to him, “That would mean getting up and I’m comfortable where I am.”  He nearly started laughing again as he watched Winry’s thought process go through offering to go get Al and then giving up on it once she figured out she’d have to collect her crutches and manage the door again.

“What’s up?” Ed asked, “Wrath’s leg done?”

“Almost,” she tucked her good leg in under her knee-length skirt, “I sent someone to pick up a couple final pieces and it’ll be good to go for tomorrow.”

“Great,” Ed nodded, “we can get him gone and head to our prison in the north.”

Winry frowned at him, “It’s not going to be that bad.  At least we’ll have some sort of freedom, rather than having to stay cooped up here all the time.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” 

Sighing, Ed put his focus back to the ceiling.  He’d rather stay in Central - he hated this useless predicament and going north only made it worse.  He trusted his teacher and his brother explicitly, but it felt wrong to leave them behind.  The revelation that morning that everyone but Brigitte had escaped Xenotime made the situation surrounding the rescue attempt less stressful, but it also showed Dante in a light that made Ed question how she was playing her game.  By letting her captives go, and leaving them alive to tell their stories, it told him they were meant to be mouthpieces letting everyone know she was refocusing her resources.  At some point she’d be coming for him, and it would be easier to just prepare himself to meet--

Ed flinched and startled when Winry’s fingers touched one of the thick, round scars along his collar bone.

“Is it sensitive?” her hand pulled back.

“No,” Ed hesitated, “your hand’s cold.”

She smiled, “Sorry.”

Ed closed his eyes, rolled his head away, but did answer, “Sensitive sometimes.”

Winry frowned and tucked her hands in her lap.  She looked at the two frontside scars left by crude AutoMail technology that had been forcefully removed in what felt like years ago now, “I guess I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to anchor your arm now,” she gave a nod to an old concern.

“I didn’t know you were worried about that,” Ed opened an eye - he'd had that worry once himself, but never brought it up.

She shrugged, “I had lots of little worries that I worked around.  For the anchor though, I was worried about compromising your clavicle bone more than it might have already been.  Not like we could easily get anyone there to safely do an x-ray and find out,” she looked off in thought, “probably too well healed to do a bone graft later… we should still get an x-ray done at some point to find out how badly they damaged the bone, though.”

“Win,” Ed opened both his eyes and waited for her to look at him, “why are we talking about AutoMail that I don’t ever plan on needing again?”

Winry smiled, though her posture sank a bit, “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

“If I was okay?” Ed picked his head up, “why am I not okay?”

Winry’s smile softened, “You looked a little spooked when Al started talking about how maybe there was something about you that isn’t exactly right, because of everything you’ve had to go through to get home and maybe that’s what is causing Wrath to act weird.”

Ed pried his torso off the sheets; propping himself upon his elbows, he stared at her without anything to say.

“I know you wanted to come back and just go home, but things aren’t really working out that way,” she frowned a little and leaned forwards, “I don’t want you worrying too much about what Al said.  I don’t think you came back wrong.”

Staring back at her without words to follow up with, Ed looked at the humbling fact that, despite everything that had been done to her, Winry still tried to find ways to try and care for him.  She had actions she took on without prompting and words she used to fill the inbetweens; it was something she’d started after his dad had died and now she’d brought it home with her.  Ed quietly cursed himself - earlier he couldn’t even find a way to address the leg she couldn’t stand on, and here Winry was making sure Al’s words hadn’t bothered him.

Sitting up, Ed matched the frown he was getting, “I’m not worried about what Al said.”

“You looked worried, though.”

“I’m not that worried,” he sighed, shook his hair sticking to his shoulders, and tried to organize the words he needed to explain, “no matter how I look at the information, there’s nothing that Al or I did wrong.  I haven’t come back in any way other than how I’d intended when we crossed the Gate,” which left only one conclusion Ed could find, “so, if there’s nothing wrong with what we’ve done, then it’s Wrath who’s acting for a reason we haven’t thought of yet, we just don’t know what that is.”

Ed looked down to the wounded leg Winry was forced to leave out, no matter how she sat, then moved his sights to her hands that held the knee of the leg she could tuck in beneath her skirt.  At times like this, so many basic, interpersonal things were just easy for her to do somehow; Ed didn’t know how she managed to make it all seem simple.  Whenever he wanted to borrow a page from her book, it was like he had to fight to tear out the sheet.

Ed took a breath, reached out with his left hand, picked up a hand from her knee, and held it in his, “I’m not worrying that something’s wrong with me.”

The hand was squeezed and her grip tightened in return, and a smile was found for the warm one he was receiving.

“Maybe…” he looked off slyly, “I came back even better.”

Winry’s face contorted, “Oh boy, everyone’s in trouble now.”

When Ed grinned, Winry pulled her legs around and rose on her knees.  She steadied herself with the hand she held, before moving it to his shoulder as she leaned forwards to hug him.  More to her delight than his reluctance, Ed negotiated his usual unease into welcoming it. 

Then, caught in mid action, Winry squeaked and froze.  She leaned back sharply, her arms held out to her sides, and hands above her shoulders with her fingers curled.  Winry looked at her hand that had been on Ed’s shoulder, then looked him over uneasily.

“I changed my mind, I’m not hugging you,” she gawked, “You’re all gross and sweaty.”

Ed’s composure collapsed like a house of cards.  Looking at her aghast, he turned beet red, “What the fuck, Winry!?”

“I’m not touching you!” she squealed and tried to bounce off the bed to get away.  

Caught somewhere between unprecedented embarrassment and ‘what just happened?’, Ed’s hand flew out, caught her by the upper arm, and yanked her back as she wailed with laughter.  Scrambling to her knees Winry turned, slapped both hands down on his chest, and she shoved him back.  Ed let himself fall like a rag doll back onto the bed.  Eyes cast to the ceiling, he humoured her with the momentary victory.  Through breaths of laughter, and the commotion she made while she wiped her hands on the sheets, Winry half slid, half tumbled off the side of the bed and onto the floor.  

With the swing of his legs, Ed brought himself up and hopped off the foot of the bed.  Bending down, he yanked away both of her carelessly discarded crutches before she could get a good grip on them, tucked them under his arm, and came around to stand over Winry where she sat.  Defenceless and too busy laughing, Winry’s face fell into her hands as she battled her giggles instead of him.  Still some annoying shade of red, Ed cocked a brow, curled a corner of his expression into a troublesome grin, and he marched away into the washroom with her crutches.  Winry’s eyes peered out from above her fingers curiously when Ed re-emerged, without her crutches, but drying himself with a towel, and he shut the washroom door.

Winry’s fingers slid down her face, “Rinse yourself off in the shower!”

“No time.”  

Scratching the towel through his hair, Ed tossed it over Winry’s head and onto the bed.  He found the shirt he’d left to the floor, picked it up, snapped it out, slipped it on, and started buttoning it.  Ed looked back to Winry as she watched him.  Her giggles were still woven into her smile and he took a fantastic amount of satisfaction from realizing the face she haphazardly hid in her hands was more noticeably coloured than his.

Ed glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table, then left the last two buttons, tucked the shirt in, and squatted down, “Let’s go downstairs for dinner.”

“Now?” Winry’s reddened face widened.

“Yeah now, before all of Mustang’s people show up for the dinner rush,” Ed started to tie his hair.

Winry eyed him cautiously, “That ‘Mustang’ is going to kill us if someone tells him we went down there at this time of day.”

“Fuck Mustang.  All the senior officers are in Armstrong’s briefing for another twenty minutes anyways, no one’ll notice us going down,” Ed yanked his ponytail tight, “we haven’t sat down for dinner since the night before we got back here.  We’ll have dinner at a table like civilized people.”

This time it was Winry’s turn for the wry grin, “That’s the other world in you talking.”

“Every time I got in shit for not eating at a table,” Ed grinned and offered his hand to her, “c’mon.”

Ed waited while Winry eyed the hand he’d extended for his sudden whimsy.  He waited as she lifted her eyes to look at him and examine a kind of spirited grin she’d never seen on this man before.  Winry stole from Ed’s time and looked at him, wondering if this lighter air he suddenly carried reflected the person buried beneath all the exhaustive burdens.  The person who could be dug out from the rubble now that they were home.  Her hand slapped down into his emphatically and Ed rose to his feet, pulling her up to one leg.  Turning, he let her hop on his back.  Ed remained on the receiving end of Winry’s investigative eye when she put her chin down on his shoulder, but he said nothing and only gave her a sideways grin to think about before they headed out of the room.

 


 

Allanite, a hamlet Mustang had never heard of until he picked it out at random on the map, had two things he now knew about: it had a post office and it had a restaurant where the two casually dressed men and one overly dressed woman sat.  It honestly looked like every place described in a book, painting, or picture depicting lost rural life.  The nearly empty building came complete with thirty-year-old décor, noisy iron chairs, a slightly dirty table, lace café curtains, a few noisy fans to blow the air around, every smell the kitchen had to offer, and a fifty-year-old waitress who kindly kept topping up their coffees and occasionally asked if they wanted to order any more food.  They were going to have to tip her well based solely on how long they’d been allowed to sit there.

By dinner hour Mr. A Behal remained a complete mystery.  Havoc had talked his way into the phonebook the restaurant had and, while it compiled the directories for several neighbouring counties, there were only four Behals.  Hawkeye managed to contact all of them from the pay phone and came to the conclusion they were not involved.  None of the officers could even say they’d ever met someone with the surname Behal, so the man remained a complete mystery.

“If it’s a man at all… ” Roy tossed out the idea.

Jean strummed his fingers on the table top to think, “If it’s no one we can find and it’s not a code name any of us have ever used, what is it?”

Flipping to a fresh page on his notepad, Roy handed it over to Riza, “Write the message out exactly as it had been typed.”

Taking the pen, on the top line she wrote out ‘CONTACT MR A BEHAL’ and handed it back, “That was it, nothing more.”

“Contact is probably the word we can be most certain of then,” he turned it around in his hand, “it’s the MR A BEHAL we have to decipher.”

“If A BEHAL isn’t a person, what is it?” Jean questioned.

Roy narrowed his eye at the single line of writing at the top of his page.  Taking up the pen, he added a colon after the word ‘contact’, “A Behal on its own could be a man or a woman, but Mister was included on purpose; therefore, the M & R are important.  Our question is what is MR A BEHAL.”

“What sort of things would we contact?” Riza offered a question to the table.

“People… and places,” Jean offered, “contact headquarters, call home… MR A BEHAL won’t be any sort of arbitrary thing, it’ll be a place we would engage.”

Taking the notepad back from Roy, Riza read and re-read the single line she’d seen printed on the telegram.  Her brow suddenly lightened and she looked up to the men across from her, “It’s an anagram.”

Jean slouched in his chair, “I hate those…”

Pulling out three sheets from the back of the notepad, Riza took one and distributed the others across the table.  

Jean left his sheet on the table and pulled out his folded area map, “Are we looking for a city?  Town?  Business?”

“A business, building, or structure, even a landmark, would be too difficult for us to identify with what we have at our disposal.  It would need to be something, like a location, that we currently have the tools to find,” Roy looked over to the map being unfolded, “Circle out an area with roughly a fifty kilometre radius of here.  Then, write down the name of every city, town, village, hamlet, and hole in the wall that’s printed on there.  If it is a location, hopefully we’re not needed to go too far off course or else we may as well just drive back to Central.” 

Sitting back in her seat, Riza eyed the puzzle she’d written out without formatting: M R A B E H A L

“Two A’s and an E, the rest are consonants…” Roy read it over thoughtfully before his elbow nudged his neighbour, “Write down all the locations, but strike out any that contain an S, T, N, I, O, and U.  That should leave us something we can narrow down to and match.”

Obviously the anagram wouldn’t be easily deciphered backwards or forwards, so the first thing Riza and Roy did on their sheets was scramble the letters.  

HARBAMEL 
RAMEHBAL 
BHALERAM 
MABELRAH 

“There are no obvious words in this…” Roy tapped his pencil off the top of the table and decided to see what he could create for smaller words using the characters.  And so a new list began: BAREL, LAB, LAMB, LEAH, HEAL, HERB, HAREM, MARBLE, MEAL, RABEL, RAMBLE, REBEL, REALM… 

“So?” Jean spoke up to extinguish the intense silence his two superior officers’ troubleshooting skills were creating inside the restaurant.

Roy held up his sheet to eye level and he tipped a proud grin over to Jean, “With these letters, I can successfully spell: LAB HAREM.”

“Heeyyy,” the lowest ranked officer of the bunch cheered lightly as he looked over his boss’s wordsmithing, “I’ll take that mission, thanks.”

Riza’s eyes lifted up from her page and locked onto the two men from beneath her brow, “I highly doubt…”

The idea was immediately dismissed with Roy’s shrug, “I could never get that lucky, anyways.”

Riza’s brow lifted a touch, “And what makes you think it would have been a harem of women?”

The two men seated next to each other both gave a curious eye to the woman who just shrugged her shoulders and continued on with her word puzzle.

Jean resumed his locations list until he’d collected the names of everything he could find.  With Roy’s specifications to narrow things down, the list of locations was re-written to cover only what remained.  Riza compiled hers and Roy’s brainstorming into a single list and turned it over to Jean to scour through.  

With a handful of additional customers in the restaurant for a later dinner, coffee made its rounds again.  Roy took the top-up, Riza switched to water and kindly requested a salad, and Jean went off the menu and casually wondered if they had any beer.  To his delight, a glass bottle appeared alongside Riza’s salad.  Roy suddenly wasn’t so interested in his coffee anymore and hoped their lovely old waitress would make the rounds again.

After a few scrolls of both lists and the elimination of a number of towns, Jean stopped on an item and referred back to his map.

“Hey guys, I think LEAH is a winner,” picking up his pen, Jean circled a village on the outer reaches of their search criteria, “we have a speck using all the letters called Bramleah.  It’s south-west of Xenotime.”

Taking the map, Roy looked at the location too suspiciously close to Xenotime to not be their target point.  With no contact person or foreseeable motive leading them to the town, other than they seemed to need to go there, Roy began to worry how much of a setback it would be for them and their mission in Xenotime.  But, if Armstrong had gone so far out of his way to blindly send a telegram ahead of their one-way check-in, he would certainly have already deemed the detour worth the risk.

“It looks like we need to divert south first,” Roy folded his arms, “since the original request was for a person, I suspect we’re going to need to find someone in Bramleah that’s relevant to us.”

Riza nodded in agreement, but added, “By the time we get there, it’ll be well past nightfall.  We should probably find somewhere to stay the night before going in.”

The time of day was not something any of them could do much about, so Roy agreed, “but we’ve loitered in this backwater place for far too long.  We’ll find somewhere to stay along the way and get to Bramleah in the morning.”

 


 

The drizzle that fell overnight came down straight, without wind to push it.  The thick, plump droplets squeezed from the sky blotched the dirt covering the window of Wrath’s chamber.  Each splash added another distorted pocket for the street light to filter in through.  The homunculus confined to the basement room paid no attention to what lay beyond a window he couldn’t reach, he was only interested in giving a malevolent, toothy grin to his visitor that night.

Ed approached with a dull, echoless sound as he descended the stairs, and his focus locked on Wrath in the unlit room.  The creature’s giggle echoed above the clatter he made when he moved and he welcomed his guest with crass greetings.  At the bottom of the stairs, the older Elric brother stood at the farthest reaches of the room, not allowing his presence to affect Wrath.  He watched the defective creature leer at him, studying it like the scientist he was, trying to see if there was something he’d missed.

“Thanks for the plate,” Wrath offered in a high, shrill tone, showing how he could stand on his left leg stump thanks to the flat casing Winry had screwed on.

Listening to words that bounced off the walls like rubber toys, the bridge of his nose creased and Ed’s gaze hardened, “Do you even remember what you’ve been trying to look at when you zone out with me?”

“No?” Wrath used his chain to pivot himself on the plate, “why would I?”

“Of course not,” Ed mumbled.  That would be too easy.

“Are you here to give me my arm and leg back?” Wrath asked, as habitual as the rise and fall of the sun.

His feet still planted at the base of the stairs, Ed’s chest swelled with a deep, heavy breath.  The faint glow of his golden glare faded as his eyes narrowed behind the shields of his bangs.  Tightening his jaw, Ed’s hands clenched and he surged into the heart of the homunculus’ prison.  Ed’s advance took Wrath by surprise - walking right up to him, the elder Elric’s presence submerged the homunculus as he loomed over him.  Letting his knees go, Ed dropped to squat on his toes, meeting Wrath at eye level.

“No.”

Wrath’s aggressive posture gave way and he slipped into whatever trance Ed’s close presence put him under.  Fat droplets of sparse rain smacked off the windows and echoed in the chamber as neither moved.

“What the hell is this,” frustrated, Ed looked Wrath over, searching for something that might be a clue, “what are you trying to see?” 

The homunculus again tried to lock his unstable gaze to Ed’s.  As Wrath crawled and pushed towards his target in a chamber impotently lit, Ed grabbed him by the front of his meagre black shirt and shook him.  When nothing happened, Ed took the creature at the shoulders and rattled him.  When that sparked nothing, Ed grabbed Wrath at the throat and gave a half-hearted attempt at strangling him.  

Nothing broke the enchantment.  

Ed kept Wrath at arm’s length and settled back into a squat.  With unsettled nerves, his eyes ran over Wrath again and again, making sure there was absolutely nothing visual to investigate further.  Putting a knee down for balance, Ed permitted the homunculus to reconnect at his brow, his bangs shielding their connection.  Ed settled on his knees in the basement chamber, this time without Al’s light and Winry’s voice, and stared into wild purple eyes that shivered around him, unable to focus.

“What are you trying to see?”

Ed pushed his forehead against Wrath’s and felt him push back. The more force he exerted, the more the creature dug in and countered. The longer Wrath was held at eye level and was forced to struggle to gain focus, the more Ed started to believe that Wrath wasn’t actually trying to see what was in front of him -  Wrath sought something within him, beyond his gaze.   

Ed’s heart jumped into his throat and he snapped his arms out to the sides, shaking out hands he hadn’t realized were clenched so tight.  Sweeping up to his feet, Ed moved away and let Wrath tumble over onto his face.  Spliced into the intermittent raindrops accosting the window, the sound of Ed’s shoes scraped off the floor as he paced beyond the homunculus’ reach.  Every time he looked back down at Wrath clamouring around on the floor, Ed’s jaw clenched tighter.

He had a theory.    

He had an idea how to confirm it.  

His darkened gaze cast downward, Ed brought his hands up, turning his palms to face him.  He looked at the dichotomy of his two hands: the left hand that stayed with him, that he’d solely relied on for so long, was strong, worn, and aged, and the right hand gifted to him, that had no feeling or sense of existence, looked fresh and young, but it was marred with a wicked gash Ed did not regret making.  He snapped his darkened gaze back up to Wrath.

The clap of his shoes grew louder with each step as Ed paced around, keeping his focus locked on the chained homunculus straining uselessly towards him.  There was an option available and Ed knew he was avoiding it.  He would rather confront Dante to find out, but if Wrath was actually trying to see what he’d done…  

The journeyed Elric brother’s brow crashed down over his eyes, his teeth grit, his fists clenched, and he strode back into Wrath’s range.  His feet landing with authority, Ed’s golden ponytail flew out as he pivoted, sunk down onto his toes, and he met Wrath’s feverish gaze at his brow in the midnight chamber again.  

Ed’s heart thumped against his chest louder than the rain pounded against the window, and the once famed alchemist threw his arms out at his sides, flaring his hands.

“Okay you mindless troll, if you are looking for something back there, can I make you see it?”

Above eyes that couldn’t meet, at the seam of the connection above their heads, Ed clapped his hands.

No spark was seen, no power emerged, but for the length of time that the echo of Edward Elric’s handclap lasted, he captured Wrath’s violet pupils looking straight on through him – absolutely, completely, and utterly terrified.

Wrath’s scream shattered the moment of silence that followed the echo.  

Edward tumbled forwards onto his hands and knees as Wrath threw himself away and flailed towards the far wall.  Ed snapped his head up, desperately swept his bangs aside, and watched in alarm as the homunculus lurched around like a fish out of water, trying to get farther away.  The scream he wailed with crashed off the walls, trying to shatter the windows with sheer force, and the horrific echo rained down around Ed from all angles.  Frozen by the reaction, Ed stared wide-eyed at the panic Wrath threw his body with, watching his bindings cut into the flesh at his joints as he tried to rip free.

Finally picking up a few of his senses, Ed scrambled to his feet, “Wrath stop!”

“GO AWAY,” the wailing creature threw his body uselessly, “IT’S SO LOUD, GO AWAY.”

Stepping back, Ed looked around the room frantically.  The only sound needing any silencing was the horrendous one Wrath was making.  Again, he stepped back, his heart trying to pound in his ears louder than Wrath’s cries, drowning out the rain, silencing his feet, submerging him in the dark.  Ed backed away until he found the bottom of the staircase and that’s where he stopped.  Standing silent, he continued to watch Wrath heave his body around, until the creature finally came to rest at the farthest point away he could reach.  Staring wide-eyed as Wrath slowly tempered, simply laying on the ground to bawl and gasp for air, Ed acknowledged that he had been the source emanating what Wrath was trying to get away from.

Ed’s dark scowl returned to sink his gaze and he turned that look over to the noisy homunculus.

“What did you see, Wrath?”

“GO AWAY,” he screeched.

Ed’s chest expanded with a deep breath.  He shoved down his pounding heart, told his concerns to wait, and stepped back into the room, “You saw it, didn’t you?”

“Stop…” Wrath cried.

Ed took another step forwards, his words demanding, “How can you sense that through me?”

The approach sent Wrath into a wailing frenzy again and he didn’t answer.

Steps became strides and Edward Elric marched himself through the room, storming towards the only noise he could hear.  Wrath panicked at the advance; his cries grew wordless and shrill while he flailed his tethered body uselessly along the ground, unable to escape Ed’s approach.  The older Elric brother crashed down over the imprisoned homunculus.  His firm left hand clamped over Wrath’s mouth to shut out the noise, the other held the creature’s free arm, and his knee pinned the homunculus on its back.  Ed leaned over Wrath, expression tight, creased with frustration, but his eyes wide with command. 

“LOOK AT ME, WRATH.”

The struggling creature writhed in unknown agony before his eyes cracked open to peek at Ed.  The golden Elric gaze slit behind the hair falling through his face, hiding his pupils in the dark, tired caves of his eyes, and his hand moved off Wrath’s mouth.

“Did you see the Gate?”

Wrath’s head rocked against the cold, unforgiving ground as he whimpered, eyes looking back at Ed still frightened, before the homunculus finally let his head and eyes roll away with a whine.  Ed didn’t ask again.  As the vibrating tone of the overnight rainfall grew steady, he let go of Wrath’s arm and sat back on his knees, allowing the creature to crawl away again.  

“It scares you?” Ed asked below the echoes.

“YES,” Wrath cried.

Sinking on his knees, Ed looked down and placed his hands on his thighs, turning them palm up.  He stared at them: the worn left and torn right.  The hands were brought up and Ed’s left thumb ran through his damaged palm, only able to feel it when his other hand touched it.  The cut was closed, but the wound wasn’t fully healed, and the scar hadn’t formed yet.  Ed clenched his right hand and turned his attention back to Wrath. 

“Yeah, me too.”

Ed pushed to his feet.

In the darkened basement room, Ed stood and stared at a soulless creature ‘raised’ in the darkness of the Gate.  There was a Gate available to every person born, regardless of skill, aptitude, or potential, it existed equally in every one.  It was the same Gate shared among all the people in not just Amestris, but their entire world.  It was a central abstract entity at the heart of their existence that, in some ways, linked everyone.  

The Gate Dante had abused.  The Gate Alphonse had breached.  The Gate Edward had crossed.

By his own doing, the relationship Edward Elric shared with the Gate had been altered, and through that act, Ed concluded that it allowed the Gate within him to be sensed by Wrath alone.  He theorized it was because the Gate had nurtured the creature’s physical growth for over a decade, until he'd collected Ed's limbs and became strong enough to force his way out, and it was through Ed that the Gate could idly lure Wrath back to his unwanted ‘home’.  The broken homunculus lying in agony on the floor gave tangible, undeniable confirmation that the transmutation Edward had done on himself to open the Gate’s doors and return home had been flawless.


To Be Continued...


 

Chapter 48: Before the Calm Storm

Summary:

Mustang finds what he's looking for in Bramleah while Al gives his brother a push to figure out why Winry seems unhappy.

Chapter Text

 

Ducking out of the light rain falling, Izumi brought herself beneath the roof of their transport van and looked over at the side door.  A handful of Mustang’s newer loyalists quietly ducked out and slipped away for lunch, paying no mind to the activities of the van.  Izumi preferred the halls when they'd been quieter, but there was nothing she could do about a growing military uprising she had no interest in.  Refocusing on her task, the alchemy teacher took one last look at their bound and gagged homunculus.  Unexpectedly, Wrath hadn’t been as feisty to tie up as she’d expected - no wailing, no crying, no thrashing.  

When she’d gotten to the basement, Izumi had found less of a homunculus and something more along the lines of a spooked wild animal.  Greeted by a disturbed, cautious gaze, Wrath inexplicably kept his distance, rather than lash out at her.  He’d said nothing the entire time and, uncertain what his end game was, the teacher chose not to play with him and clapped her hands to secure him.  Even now, as he lay bound, gagged, and secured to the floor of the van, Wrath was still guarded.  He’d barely yelled at her and the look in his eyes told Izumi he wanted her far, far away.

Izumi decided to count herself lucky in that regard - the less fight she got from Wrath, the less of a chore this long, long drive would be.  She ducked out of the vehicle, grabbed the large back doors, and slammed them shut on the warry purple eyes watching her.

Dusting her hands off, the teacher headed back to the hotel’s side exit, and she knocked on the metal door to be let back in.

Winry popped open the door for her with a smile.  Izumi stepped in and helped the girl balance the few steps she needed to sit back on the bottom stairs.

“Are you good?” Izumi asked, her voice echoing in the side stairwell.

“Yup,” Winry settled down, “all good.”

Izumi sat down next to her as Winry reached behind herself and pulled Wrath’s AutoMail leg off a higher step.

Winry placed it down in her lap and unwrapped the leg from the blanket she’d concealed it in, “Sorry it took so long, I could have gotten it done a lot faster if we were home.”

The apology was shaken off, “Don’t worry about it.  We owe you for getting this done for us at all.”

And at that, Izumi suddenly found a small wrench in her hand.

Winry pointed at the grip on the end of the tool, “You’ll need that to get the two screws on the leg cap off.”

“Okay,” the teacher momentarily became a student as she took her next instructions from Winry.  Next, a much more industrial, and far heavier, AutoMail wrench in hand was handed to her.

“That’s Wrath’s master AutoMail wrench,” Winry straightened up and stood the AutoMail leg up between her knees, showing the socket connection to Wrath’s thigh, “the leg is intuitive to line up, so it can’t be put on wrong.  Knee forwards, obviously.  Taking it off is more of a hassle than putting it on, so you don't have much to worry about.  You just line it up and all the notches and everything will just click into place and lock.”

Izumi nodded again, “Okay, good.  Simple is good.”

Winry gave herself a little pat on the back for her simplicity and offered a bit more, “I did Wrath’s model a little differently than Ed’s, so you won’t need to take off the kneecap to re-engage the nervous system.  It’ll keep you from having problems if he’s putting up a fight,” Winry brought the leg out and pointed to the knee, “on the medial side of the kneecap you can use this notch to engage it with the master wrench,” she held out her hand for the wench Izumi returned to her.  Winry turned it around and pointed out a divot in the wrench’s body, “That notch fits in here.  Make sure the leg is completely straight and you grab it like so, turn left to unlatch, slide it down, and turn right to re-engage.  After that, his leg is mobile and he’ll probably try to kick you with it.”

Izumi gave a short laugh to a very accurate assumption and was handed back the AutoMail wrench, “Seems simple enough.”

“I offer nothing less,” Winry smiled, “and that’s pretty much it.”

“Excellent,” Izumi collected the metallic leg from Winry and stood it on its foot on the floor between her legs.  The woman eyed it while she mulled over a question lingering in her head, “How’s your leg doing?”

“Mine?” Winry glanced down to it, “it’s uh… getting along.  Taking its time.”

Izumi nodded her head slowly and looked at the girl also without a functional left leg, “I read in the medical exams the military had done when you and Ed came back that you had some muscle damage from the bullets.”

Winry laughed uncomfortably and lightly bounced her shoulders, “Well, something in there had to get damaged,” she cleared her throat and tried to shake the discomfort in her tone, “it is improving though.  I can put some weight on it.  It’ll heal.”

“How much longer are you on your crutches for?” 

Winry gave a sour face, “Two more weeks at least.”

Poor girl , Izumi thought.  

The fact that Winry had been with Ed beyond the Gate had been blindsiding; never in her wildest dreams would Izumi have guessed that had been her fate.  And for her to return in the state she was in was unfortunate and disappointing, but there was little any of them could do about it other than try to move on.  It wasn’t a challenge they could go back to, though she was looking forward to joining them up north and finding out what in the world had happened.  Mustang’s medical reports only told her the surface damage and Izumi had read all those reports.  She didn’t need to be asking any questions of Winry, but the teacher was more interested in seeing how Winry answered them without the boys around. 

“Just because it’s your calf muscle?” 

Winry nodded, “Because it carries so much weight you need to make sure the muscle fibres are healed before you strain them,” her brow perked, “it’s a bit like post-surgery AutoMail recovery.  You need to let the body heal around the new sockets before you can strain them too much.  Takes a few weeks at least.”

Looking at Wrath’s leg between her knees, Izumi turned it a quarter way around before glancing back to Winry, asking a question below the echo of the stairwell, “Must have hurt, though?”

Before Winry turned away with an awkward laugh, Izumi got to see the look in her eye that gave away how much she did not want to talk about it.

“Yeah, it did,” her uncomfortable laugh faded, “but I’m glad we have really great doctors here.  I can’t imagine what getting my leg treated like there would have been like.”

“Well, it’ll be a nice vacation for you up north and you won’t have to think about that place,” Izumi tried to brighten the mood and she picked up the AutoMail leg, putting it across her lap, “your worries from the journey are gone and you won’t have to stress about your work.  You can focus on rest and rehab.”

“I love my work though, it’s not a worry for me - fixing Wrath’s leg was a nice distraction. I’m kind of sad to see our goblin go,” Winry’s tone sullied as her thoughts moved, “there’ll be nobody around who needs my work.”

“I’m sure you’ll find something to keep you occupied,” Izumi reassured her, re-wrapping the leg in its cloth.  It was time to look ahead to her bleak future, and it was just a long, long car ride with a low ranking military dog that she’d never spoken to.  The teacher decided to get on with it and stood up, “do you need a hand with your crutches?”

Winry remained seated and shook her head, “No, I can handle it.”

“Tell the boys to behave themselves,” with her final instructions, the teacher tucked Wrath’s leg under her arm, opened the door, and stepped out into the dreary day, “don’t let them get into trouble before I get back.”

Laughing at a request that was usually easier said than done, Winry waved at her, “I will.  Have a safe trip.  Good luck with Wrath.”

“Thank you,” Izumi let the weighted door shut behind herself.  Turning to the van Wrath was encased in, the teacher let her posture sag and she gave herself permission to groan at her mission just once.  Dipping her head down in the thinly falling rain, Izumi walked around to the passenger’s side of the vehicle and her ears picked up the tired, slow wipe of the windshield wipers.

Izumi popped the door open and hopped in.

Warrant Officer Falman looked at the wrapped leg Izumi put down at her feet, “That’s it?”

“It is.  Let’s get going,” Izumi folded her arms and cast a hardened look straight out the streak-smeared front windshield.

 


 

Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye, and Jean Havoc all stood at what appeared to be the main street within the graciously titled ‘town’ of Bramleah.  It must have been a town at one point, because it certainly wasn’t any longer.  Built into soft rolling hills, once rich with thick green grass earlier in the year, the town was now parched and burnt brown beneath the summer sun.  It was some sort of farming community, though none of them could tell what exactly.  Grain elevators existed around the town, and a fresh sign for a milk farm was proudly displayed, something that was possibly one of the few remaining local employers.  

The trio silently gawked at a town that didn’t have a single paved road.

“Who the hell are we supposed to find here?” Havoc decided to put out his cigarette, the last thing he needed to do was start a brush fire.

“I suppose,” Hawkeye looked around, “someone who sticks out.  Maybe someone who wasn’t here until recently.”

Mustang brought his hand up to his mouth as he took in the sleepy town, “It would have to be someone who’d stand out in this.  Armstrong wouldn’t send us hunting door to door.”

Havoc ducked into their car, turned off the engine, took the keys out of the ignition, and tucked them away in his pocket - the roads weren’t in good enough condition to lurk around the town in a vehicle, “We’ll need to head through town and find spots a tourist or traveller might hit up: gas, grocery, bed and breakfast places.”

Mustang gave a nod in agreement.  Looking over his shoulder, the officer cast his gaze west and eyed the heavy clouds billowing up into the sky, “Okay, Havoc, I want you to walk the northern perimeter of town, Hawkeye, you’ll traverse through the town’s core, and I’ll take the southern perimeter.  We should all meet up on this…” he looked around in the blazing sun for a street sign and found none, “main road through the town on the other side in around an hour or two.  If one of us doesn’t turn up after two hours, we’ll head in your direction until you’re found.”

Popping open the vehicle’s trunk, Havoc dug out a few wide brimmed hats, “Hats on gang, it’s toasty out.”

Mustang wagged a finger at the white plumes off in the western sky, “Keep an eye on that.  Ground wind is low, but that might be some much needed rain heading our way.”

The trio disbursed on that final sentiment and headed out on foot to scour the town of Bramleah.

 

Jean immediately headed to a spot he had seen shortly before he’d parked.  At the northwest corner of the town, just off the road they’d driven in on, was a gas station. 

The trek to the station took him on a walk through someone’s unkept front yard; the weeds and brush coming up halfway to his knees.  The rotting, wooden porch of the tattered, single story house was besieged with uncared for plant life that forced its ways through the cracks.  If it hadn’t been for the elder man wearing only overalls who stared at him from the wooden rocking chair in the middle of the mess, Jean would have thought the building had been abandoned.  He tipped his hat with a nervous grin and walked faster.

Solid ground was welcomed and the officer eased his stride as he sauntered into the gas station’s payment shack.  Jean nearly coughed at the thick air inside, somehow hotter than it was outside even with the doors and windows opened.  In the center of everything was a tiny display stand that offered a dusty assortment of packaged snacks, jerky, and cigarettes.  Down at his feet, a random assortment of individually priced tools and containers were displayed on the floor; items that someone lost in their journey might need.  The officer needed none of it and had to carefully step through the mess to navigate the small space.

“Help ya there, son?” the gravelly voice from behind the counter asked.

“Hey,” Jean turned to eye an older, scraggly man with his face hanging off him, “just curious, any stragglers or out of towners pop by in the last forty-eight hours that caught your eye?”

The man’s wiry brow raised, “Just you.  Nobody else comes in but the truck haulers.”

Jean swept his hair off his brow in the heat, debated picking up another pack of cigarettes to make the place worth his while, but decided he’d rather be outside under the sun.  Thanking the attendant, he ducked out and continued his wander around the outskirts.

 

At the centre of town, Riza’s weave offered her the scenery of a tired, under-maintained part of the world that time forgot.  Rusty tractors and trucks from last century existed in the dirt and weeds of improvised driveways.  Dilapidated, crumbling houses all had their curtains closed, but were so comfortable with their surroundings, their doors were thrown wide open.  Her drift through the area in the mid-day did show signs of life - a collection of barely-dressed, school aged children ran barefoot through the dirt roads and yards, squealing and tossing tin buckets of water around.  There wasn’t an adult in sight.

A drab market came into view when Riza turned down her next street.  It’s produce out on display in wicker bins at the storefront was haphazardly shielded from the sun by an overhang propped up with a couple of planks of wood.  The closer she got, the more she came to realize the sign of ‘Fresh Produce’ was less than fresh and more like semi-cooked, if the state of the outdoor bins were any indication.  Riza slipped in through the opened door and looked at the cramped store, aisled barely wide enough to get down and semi-stocked with canned and boxed foods.  The uncirculated hot air inside wreaked of cigarettes.

Her cautious intrusion was noted by the shopkeep who spoke up.

“Can’t say I know your face,” the hoarse, middle-aged woman said.

Riza looked to her, “I’m just passing through.”

“Through my store?”

Riza smiled, “I’m actually trying to find someone.”

“Ain’t nobody lost in my store, dear,” the woman put her cigarette to her lips.

“Has anybody been lost in your store the last couple of days?  Any unfamiliar faces?” Riza tried to coax something more out of her, “I’m looking for someone.”

The woman wrinkled her nose and shook her head, “Nobody lost wandered my way.”

“Damn,” Riza sighed, “well thank-”

“Hope ya find’em before the storm rolls in.” 

Riza peeked out the door to the clouds growing in the west, “Those are heading our way?”

“Oh yeah,” she coughed and tapped the crown off her cigarette, “been too thick here lately for ‘em not to come by.”

The woman, whose entire aura had been off putting, was actually somewhat personable, so Riza tried to push the engagement, “Is there an inn or a lodge in town that someone might go to if they’re stranded here?”

Bouncing her fuzzy eyebrows as she thought, the shopkeep gave a nod over her shoulder, “About fifteen on foot that-a-way is Madeline’s.  She has a B&B sometimes if it’s needed.  Otherwise, she’s closed unless it’s Sunday brunch.  Nowhere else to eat or sleep here though unless you have a tent and can cook it yourself.”

Riza tipped her hat, “Thank you so much, ma’am.”

The woman’s boney fingers waved Riza out of her store.

 

While Jean and Riza wandered through civilization, Roy found himself standing at the edge of what he thought might be a canola field.  It went on through the rolling hills as far south as his one eye could see and it looked fairly magnificent.  Considering how dry it seemed to be elsewhere, there must have been some mechanism hydrating it from the lake he could see shimmering off further to the east, beyond the farmer’s barn.  The view to the south was peaceful, and the view to the north, where the mountains began to rise, would have been a spectacular view too if it hadn’t been for this tattered town between them.  Xenotime itself wasn’t fully in the mountains, it was a lower range before the fuller northeastern landscape rose up.  This town seemed to lay on the point where the mountain hills ended and a bit of farmable prairie existed.

Roy walked through what seemed like endless backyards of houses that had no fences to separate them - only dirt paths created by foot treads, brush, or nothing at all.  Laundry hung out back on a number of houses, like they’d all collectively decided it was laundry day, but with nobody minding them.  He trudged through the lands of houses and barns that made up the southern, uneven edge of Bramleah, discovering that nothing remotely caught his attention.  The only thing he found of interest was the storm growing towards them.

Stepping past a heavy white sheet out on a line, Roy startled to a stop when he nearly tripped over a woman hunched over her wash bin.  

“My apologies, Ma’am,” he tipped his hat.

She said nothing to him as she continued in her rhythm, grinding the fabric in her hands against her soapy washboard.

Roy stepped past her uneasily, but decided to stop and turn back, “I’m not sure that’ll have time to dry before the storm rolls in.”

“If it’s not dry,” she huffed through her motions, “the rain won’t hurt it and it’ll be fresh by noon tomorrow.”

He grinned at the logic.  Since she was the only person Roy had encountered in his walk thus far, he decided to ask, “Have you seen any unfamiliar faces in town recently?”

“Beyond yours?” she asked with a sassy tone.

“Yes.” 

Taking a hand off her work, the woman pointed a pruned, soapy finger back at him, “That one right there.”

Roy frowned at her for the exasperation he didn’t need.  The frustration quickly flashed to confusion when the woman’s hand flared out and she looked at him like he was daft.  Perplexed, Roy glanced around, finally turning completely around, and he gazed through the lines of lightly waving linens.  

In the growing afternoon breeze, the officer looked out at the gobsmacked face of Fletcher Tringham staring back at him, until the sheet he was trying to hang over the line slipped off and buried him.

 


 

The Elric brothers had decided to spend their free day practicing their fighting skills together and the large room Izumi had cleared out days earlier was invaded for the task.  The activity had been Ed’s idea, since it had been made obvious to him that he needed it, but Al was the one having a much better time.  

So, the first thing Al took note of during the event was that his brother’s patience seemed to have gotten a bit shorter in the time he’d been gone.  He was going to keep that in mind a bit more often.

The second thing he took note of was that Ed’s focus sometimes waned - every so often he’d get distracted by Winry, who sat by the door in a chair with a rain cloud over her head.  Al found it extremely amusing, because it wasn’t the first time she’d occupied part of his attention, today was just the first time gloom accompanied her.  

Al had spent the entire time Winry had been gone worrying that Dante had her and was either going to, or in the process of, doing something to her.  Even though Al had been the one to pull her out of the other world, he still had to remind himself from time to time that she’d been gone.  Unlike his older brother, Winry returned pretty much as Al remembered her.  The only significant difference she returned with, other than the wound on her leg, was that Winry came back with an invite to exist comfortably with his brother.  Al was well aware he was the only one Ed kept within arms reach.  His brother was uncomfortable opening up to people, his emotional state even before he’d left was damaged, and while Winry was Winry, the older brother Al remembered had kept her at arm’s length.  So, to watch Winry reappear and suddenly be close with him without any sign of protest was fascinating and Al had a growing list of questions for the both of them. 

When Al re-focussed on their sparring, he found himself without a combatant.  The young man looked around and found his brother walking away.  Al followed for a few strides, but was content to remain back in the private room and watch; it seems his brother had finally talked himself into addressing Winry with her rain cloud.

“Watching me get my ass kicked by an eleven-year-old isn’t cutting it?” Ed sat down in a chair next to her.

“What?” Winry zoned back in and looked at him blankly, “no… not really.”

Puzzled by the bland reaction, the elder brother detoured, “Well, it’s late enough, the three of us can grab some food.”

“I’m not hungry,” Winry looked straight out into the room and sharply took a breath in through her nose, “I’m tired.  I’m going to go lay down.”

And with that, Winry grabbed her crutches from the wall next to her and stood up.  Looking a little bewildered as he watched her turn to leave, Ed slowly got back to his feet as she made her way to the door.

“You want a hand back upstairs?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Fine.” 

Ed’s hands sunk into his pockets and he watched as Winry managed the door on her own and closed it behind herself.

Al frowned at what he’d just watched, “That was odd.”

Ed’s frown was a fair bit deeper, “She did work late last night finishing up Wrath’s leg.  A nap’s probably a good idea.”

Al wasn’t entirely sure about that, “I don’t know, Brother.  She’s been grumpy all afternoon.”

Staring at the closed door, Ed was clearly hesitant, “Well, she said she was tired.”

Walking back to the middle of the emptied room, Alphonse sat down on the floor, stretched his legs out in front of himself, and stared at his unmoving statue of a brother.  Al had a feeling his older brother was doubting Winry’s excuse as much as he did, but for some reason he’d stalled doing anything about it.  

Curiosity got the better of him and Al gave his brother a poke with a question, “How’d you end up finding Winry beyond the Gate when she got there?”

Ed rolled his shoulders back and abruptly chilled the aura of the room over.

A curious eyebrow popped up on Al as his brother made the air between them crisp, “I mean, there was no way you could have known she was showing up.”

Turning on his toes, Ed promptly swept away the aura and strolled back into the core of the room, “Dad found her before I did.”

The answer brought Al up high on his backside with a bounce, “Dad did?”

“Yeah,” Ed sat himself down on the floor, “she turned up in the Thule Hall on the rebound circle and the guy who found her called all his friends to come see her, Dad included.”

Sitting forwards, Al pulled his feet in, “Good thing Dad was there to help, then.  She was probably scared.”

Creasing his upper lip, Ed’s memories took his eyes into the corners of the room.  He cracked open his mouth, entertained something he wanted to say, and ultimately decided against it, “Yeah, she was.”

Unable to pinpoint what it was about the response that felt so uncomfortable, Al shook it off.  Pulling his legs around behind himself, he stretched out on his stomach, “Did you do a lot of things together after she got there?”

Scrunching his expression, Ed slowly bobbed his head from shoulder to shoulder before he finally shrugged, “I suppose.”

Al tucked his chin in and looked out disappointed from beneath his low brow, “Brother, that is not an answer.”

“I don’t know,” Ed huffed at the foolish look he was getting.  Sitting forwards, he crossed his legs and garbled out another blank reply, “yeah, we did stuff.” 

“What stuff?” Al playfully smacked the palms of his hands on the floor, “tell me something!”

“I guess...” Ed chewed on his words as he looked around the room in thought, finally offering, “I guess I showed her around Munich on the weekends.  Um, we went out to eat sometimes, and I took her shopping for parts and tools she needed.”

The blandest, most disinterested expression Al could muster smeared over his face, “That just sounds like normal stuff.”

“We didn’t really do anything not normal,” groaning, Ed continued to struggle to find something to entertain his nagging little brother, “I brought her to school sometimes, otherwise she stayed home and that’s not noteworthy.”

His shoulders swaying over his elbows, Al gave his brother’s storytelling ability a shove, “Winry told Sensei you guys went travelling?”

“Yeah,” his posture easing, Ed kicked his feet out and sat back on his hands, “we went to London for a few weeks, the city I told you I arrived in.  Being there was a bit of a mess, but we did wander around.”

“So you went on a vacation for a few weeks and didn’t do anything interesting while you were there?” the younger brother pestered for something with a little more detail. 

Frowning at the nuisance Al was making of himself, Ed scratched his head as he debated over what was worthy to tell, “Well, Winry finished making me a decent leg to get around on, and everyone marvelled over that.  It was a show and tell piece for a bit.  Then, I guess, we went to this birthday party we had to get dressed up for.  There were a ton of people and Winry had a good time.” 

Al narrowed an eye at his older brother, "Did you have a good time?"

Ed pinched his expression, "I guess."

Letting his brother escape the question, Al pushed forwards, "What else did you guys do?"

Sinking back on his hands, he let his shoulders ride up to his ears and offered his brother a grin, “You remember how when we were doing our assignments under Mustang, we’d use alchemy to fix things and people would repay us with food or a bed for the night - Winry did that when we were in this place called France.  We got stuck in the countryside and she’d fix people’s broken things while we were going through, and they’d just hand over food and wine.”

Al grinned wider at the story he’d finally coaxed out of his brother, “You didn’t help her?”

“Nah, I only had one arm,” Ed waved him off, “I just carried everything and tried to talk to people.”

Alphonse giggled at the idea of his brother playing second fiddle to Winry, “Sounds like it was fun though.”

“No,” Ed denied it with a laugh, “it was a disaster, we came back with a bunch of wine and no money.  Dad was not impressed.”

Listening to the words fade, Al watched the entertained light in his brother’s eyes continue to flicker as he played through his memories.  It was a nice change, Al thought, to actually have a bit of time to talk and listen.  And in his brother’s thoughtful eyes, Al could see something still there, entertaining his mind, so he helped it along with another slight nudge. 

“And?”

Ed’s gaze ventured to the ceiling and his voice lightened, “There was a holiday just before new years called Christmas.  It’s the loudest, most extravagant holiday I saw there.  Everything gets decorated, there’s tons of food, choirs sing in the streets, and every church makes a spectacle out of it.  It’s a religious holiday everyone’s expected to take part in.  I took Win out to see the carollers a couple of times - they’re the people who’d get dressed up and sing.  We don’t have anything like it here and she thought it was the neatest thing.  She didn’t understand what they were singing about, she just said it looked and sounded pretty.  She thought the whole holiday was fun.”

Relaxing his shoulders and folding his arms on the floor, Al put his chin down as he listened.  It was honestly the first time Al’d heard his brother speak about anything that had happened in the other world and sound nostalgic about it, “Did you have fun?”

Ed wrinkled his nose, “I didn’t really care for the holiday, it was excessive,” as the words left his mouth the wrinkle cleared and took some weight away with it, “it was nice to see her enjoy it though.”

Al watched the sense of nostalgia linger around his older brother, tethered to the present by his words and whatever story it was that kept playing out in his head after his voice faded.  

“Brother…” Al tilted his head and saw Ed’s attention return to the room.  Holding onto his voice, Al considered the journey two people had taken together, then gave a thought to his older brother’s words, and asked, “do you think the reason Winry was miserable all afternoon was because she was tired?”

Ed blinked, “That's what she said.”

Dipping his head forwards, Al’s brow rose high and he looked at his older brother with clarity in his new golden eyes, “Brother, you've been with her every day for the last five months, I think you know her better than that.  Do you really think she was tired?”

The memories that had entertained Ed behind his eyes abandoned him and he hastily tossed his gaze off his brother and into the corner of the open sparring room.  Al watched, trying to withhold his amusement, as Ed’s mouth tightened, but his jaw rocked around, and his thoughts picked away at the question.  As Ed’s chin slowly sank into his collar, Al saw his older brother quietly come to his own conclusion.

Planting his hands to the floor, Al popped up onto his knees and threw his arms out at his brother, “Get up.”

Caught off guard by Al’s sudden command, Ed only managed to get to his knees.

“Get up!” Al ushered, flailing his hands and standing up.

Ed rose, holding suspicion over his brother, “What?”

Marching to the corner of the room, Al passed his brother without another word.  Reaching the closed door, he threw it open, turned on his toes, and returned to the core of the room.  Ed watched as Al came around behind him, grabbed him by his upper arms, turned him to face the exit, and suddenly started shoving him towards the door. 

“Go find Winry.”

“What?” Ed squawked, trying to break free and turn back, “what for?”

Even if Ed had tried hard enough to break free, Al still would have clapped his hands and dumped him out of the room.  Shoving his older brother clear of the doorway, Al planted his feet at the entry, “To cheer her up.”

Spinning around in the hall, a muddled scowl, equal parts frustration and dismay, consumed Ed’s face.  He glanced down the busy hall more than once before he snapped his attention back to his brother. “By doing what!?”

“Talk to her,” Al told him with the bounce of his shoulders and a smile, “you’ll think of something.”

Again and again, Ed’s mouth popped open like he was going to reply or say something - something to counter his younger brother with, something to keep him from turning down the hall.  He never managed to get any words into his voice.  Al put one hand on the doorknob and the other on his hip, waiting and watching as his brother negotiated the wherewithal to get going.  Finally sputtering a few noises, but no words, the downturned edges of Ed’s mouth slashed across his face after he clamped his jaw shut.  Turning abruptly over his left shoulder, Ed stormed off down the hall.  Grinning, Al peered out from the doorway and watched his brother get his posture back in order as he walked away.

 


 

Standing at the centre of a barn filled with dry hay, encased in old wooden walls that were meant to protect crop, Mustang held a dark vigil over the occupants who’d hid themselves away there.  Furious didn’t begin to describe how he felt and his enraged gaze burned in what he saw.

Seated on a pile against the back wall, beneath a refurbished wooden platform that the Tringham brothers had restored, Roze sat on a bed of hay piled high and kept an eye on the man who had fire pumping through his veins.  At her side, Maria Ross lay motionless, sleeping quietly as Hawkeye returned the woman’s hand to her stomach.

“Her pulse seems stable,” the officer looked from Maria out at Mustang who stood rigid and firm at the middle of the structure, while Havoc loitered near the barn doors, chewing on a cigarette he couldn’t light.

Roze smiled and put a hand on Maria’s forehead, “It seems to be very exhausting for her.  But, she’s been slowly growing more and more responsive, like whatever was done to tangle her up is coming undone bit by bit.”

The single, dark eye Mustang possessed locked on to Roze, “Can it be completely undone?”

Pursing her lips, Roze brushed her hair behind her shoulders and looked Maria over, “I don’t know exactly what’s happened to her, so I can’t say.”

“You know Dante better than anyone here,” the senior officer’s voice rose, “what do you think?”

Roze ran her hands over her knees and looked the man straight on, “I think Dante tried to extract information from her and she fought back.  Dante became frustrated with her fortitude and pressed harder, and this is the result.  If it can be undone, I don’t know, because what’s happened to her has never happened to anyone before.”

Mustang tisk’d and turned his deepening scowl up to Russell, “What did Brigitte say exactly?”

Seated next to his brother on a thick wooden beam anchoring a platform overhead, the older of the pair looked through the rafters while he recalled, “Not much.  She just said ‘Nina!’ and she mock-clapped her hands and touched Ms. Ross.  I guess she saw what happened and she’s terrified of alchemy or something now,” his shoulders sagged, “if she hadn’t run off, we might have been able to get out with her too.”

The party that had managed to escape Xenotime were permitted refuge in the barn in exchange for either the labour or services the Tringham brother's alchemy could provide.  Russell had managed to reach Central shortly after Mustang and his party had passed their first checkpoint and, with no other way to communicate an update in the situation, the brigadier general surmised that the only thing Armstrong was able to do was encode a message and send it to Allanite ahead of them.  

The situation in Xenotime was suddenly drastically different.  If the times lined up as Mustang thought they did, Dante already knew Ed was back when she decided not to pursue her prisoners and Brigitte remained captive only due to the girl’s own fears.  That left the officers enroute to Xenotime with the distinct understanding that Dante’s interest in playing games with too many pawns was dwindling.  Dante was honing her focus, undoubtedly towards Ed, and getting Brigitte out would either become a very easy or a very difficult task, depending on how much value Dante placed in her ability to lure their journeyed Elric.  

Mustang continued grilling his new company for answers, “How long were you separated from Lieutenant Ross before you managed to get out?”

Russell looked to the rafters overhead as he tried to remember, “Not even twenty four hours.  Dante had the five of us locked up and she and Aisa turned up to take Ms. Ross out of the room,” he cringed at the memory, “Aisa’s got some colossal strength in her if she actually uses that red water running through her.  Ms. Ross had no chance and I still have welts on my neck.”

An intriguing thought passed through Mustang’s good eye, “Aisa would have to run out at some point then, if she’s actively using the red water in her system?  And when that runs out, she will… end?  Cease to exist?” the officer cursed things again and took a few frustrated steps though the barn, “the damn woman’s already dead, what more is there for her?”

Both Russell and Fletcher exchanged a glance before Fletcher continued, “Aisa will just end.  Her body will shut down and she’ll cease functioning.”

“Can Dante…” Mustang waved his hand around in the air as he began to pace, trying to find a way to word his concern, “fill her back up again?”

The brothers took a moment together to try and puzzle the question out, and both came to the same conclusion, “Doubtful,” Russell replied, “even if there was some way to ‘refill’ her, the red water manufacturing infrastructure in Xenotime is shut down.  She’d have to dig up some knowledgeable people to get it operational again and even then, it’d take a fair bit of time to get it processing anything.  If I was some crazy alchemist who gave no damn about anyone else, I wouldn’t waste my time on it.”

“I can’t bring myself to understand why Dante would have done such a thing to a woman simply for the convenience of crystalizing red stones,” Roze shook her head at things.

Roze’s words reminded Mustang of something.  He stopped his pacing and looked up at the boys in the rafters, “If you two end up encountering her again, you’re not to perform any alchemy around her, understood?”

“Why not?” they asked in near unison.

The brigadier general’s brow flattened, “She may have the red water for a purpose, but Aisa also has a portion of Philosopher’s Stone in her.”

“WHAT?” Fletcher screeched and frantically wiped his hands off on his pants.

Russell leaned as far forwards as he could without falling, “What the hell is she doing with that?”

“It is just more convoluted bullshit,” it had taken Mustang a few tries to comprehend what Alphonse had told them about the circumstances of his memory recovery, “but the fact of the matter is, if you perform alchemy around her, the stone will send you on a trip you don’t want to take.”

Fletcher blinked, “No, it won’t,” the young man looked at his hands, “I did alchemy around Aisa and I didn’t go anywhere.”

Mustang’s arms unfolded, “Pardon?” 

The younger of the two brothers examined his hands, “I ran a transmutation on the floorboards, because I knew the red water in Aisa would pick it up and use her to keep fueling the wild transmutation while we got out.  The only way the transmutation would stop using her as a fuel source would be if she left the room, and she did.”

His good eye darted around, trying to figure out how two people could have both executed transmutations in Aisa’s presence, but only one of them had ended up at the Gate, “Ms. Curtis warned us that she executed a transmutation in Aisa’s presence that sent her away.  Aisa even warned her it would happen; she knew that the woman’s actions would trigger the trip.”

“Fletcher?” Roze peered out and up at the younger brother, “you drew out your transmutation, didn’t you?”

The young blonde fished around in his pocket and produced what was left of his chalk stub, “Yeah, I even have this.”

Roze refocused on Mustang, “Izumi claps her hands, like Ed and Dante can, to conduct her alchemy.”

His arms drawing up across his chest again, the brigadier general suddenly had a very intriguing piece of information available to him.  If what Fletcher said held true, that meant, while Izumi, Edward, and Alphonse couldn’t clap their hands in Aisa’s presence, Mustang didn’t face the same threat of ending up at the Gate, because he didn’t have the hand clap ability for alchemy.  He wouldn't have to worry about the Philosopher's Stone's implications unless he was in actual possession of it, so then the only thing he would have to navigate would be the presence of Aisa’s red stones.

An audible hum was the only acknowledgement Mustang gave to his new insights.

Suddenly flinching, Fletcher glanced up to the wooden roof overhead, and he flinched again when a raindrop landed in the corner of his eye.

“Oh, here we go,” Russell turned away from his perch and eyed the collection of hay on their platform.  The brothers got to their feet and waded through the knee deep hay until they got to the wall of the barn.  The older brother produced his own stick of chalk and looked at his younger brother, “alright?”

Fletcher put his chalk stub down on the wall and began to draw out a transmutation circle.  When both brothers were done, they put their palms flat to the wall and the hay surrounding them moved like a nearly liquid mass, slicking up the wall and flooding into the cracks in the roof overhead.

Russell stepped back and admired their handiwork, “There we are.  And now we have our free roof repair.  Should keep us dry.”

For the first time since they’d arrived, Havoc finally moved, pushing open the barn door a bit to eye the wall of rain making its way towards them, “We’re not making it to Xenotime tonight either.”

Turning over his shoulder, Mustang slowly walked up to stand next to Havoc and peer out at the storm blanketing the landscape, “I’d like you to stay with this group.”

Havoc turned over his shoulder to his superior officer.

The brigadier general kept his voice low and tightened his folded arms, “Take the lot of them if you can, but find a way to get Maria into East City - you know who our contacts are there.  Get her an alchemist doctor and see if anyone has any idea how to help her.”

“I can do that,” Havoc matched Mustang’s low tone, “but you aren’t going to need a third eye in Xenotime to watch your back?”

Mustang pulled the door shut again before addressing Havoc’s concern, “Our jobs just got a hell of a lot easier - we only need to find Brigitte.  And after we find the girl and get her out, I’ll burn the mountainside to the ground.” 

Havoc’s brow shot up as he took a moment to process his commander’s change in plan, "You really want to light that place up with all the people she has gathered there?"

Mustang's gaze darkened, "At this point, it's safe to assume she's gotten her hands into most of them.  If she loses access to them, or if she only loses that perch she has in Xenotime, she loses resources she could fall back on.”

Havoc put his back against the wooden wall and looked out at the mess of displaced people sealed in a barn in the middle of nowhere on this rainy Amestris night, “What’ll you do if Dante’s turns up?”

Mustang’s good eye twitched as he followed Havoc’s gaze, “Shoot her.”

 


 

The windows and doors in most of the rooms in the commandeered hotel had been thrown for the dreary day and left open for the steady downpour that night.  The light breeze circulated the sticky, hot air out and finally let things cool a few degrees after another day in the relentless heat.  

Pushing the hair stuck to his forehead away, Ed refolded his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling in one of the vacant rooms at the opposite end of the third floor hall, tucked behind the central staircase of the building.  He could hear the ambience created by the rainfall landing in the damp streets below, the constant tone of the shower on the roof overhead, and the rush of the water running through the drain pipes that spilled into the sewers.  What he listened to was Winry, who was bubbling with ideas.  At his side, Winry rolled around atop the bed in the vacant room she’d invaded, growing more alive with each grand idea that came her way.  

It hadn’t started out this way.  A combination of silent frustration with the state of her leg, Wrath’s departure leaving her with nothing to contribute, and the slow release of anxiety that the otherworld had subjected them both to had built up into a miserable feeling she didn't have words for.  In this randomly chosen open room, Winry put herself to be alone and sulk for a while, until Ed turned up to try and dig her out.  

To Ed’s total dismay, he was still lousy with words.  Ed understood very well the frustration of existing on one leg, he just bumbled his way through verbalizing his empathy for something he’d been dealing with for ten years.  He was unsure how to explain to Winry that their lack of need for an AutoMail mechanic didn’t mean she herself wasn’t needed.  Even though Ed would have preferred to keep her out of any danger, there wasn’t much either of them could do about the situation they’d come home to and, for that, Ed was honestly glad to have her around, he just didn’t know how to translate that into making her feel useful.  And when it came to how she was having trouble letting the stress of the other world go, Ed didn’t have a solution, because he didn’t even know where to begin explaining how tense he still felt.  At least she seemed to be draining; Ed likened himself to the clogged eavestrough out the window.

Ed’s inability to express himself to comfort Winry was salvaged by the bright idea to convince her to replicate the airplane blueprint his father had given her for Christmas, since she’d spent weeks studying the thing she’d nailed to her wall like a trophy.  It was an idea that snowballed and, for the next two and a half hours, Ed laid on his back across the foot of the bed at the opposite end of the hall and listened to Winry plot her mechanical and financial conquest of Amestris.

Winry’s head whomp’d down on a pillow she’d thrown into the centre of the mattress and she looked at her fingers splayed wide, “Okay, that’s way too many.  I’m going to have to make a list of all the patents I’m going to need to file.”

“We can probably get someone to run them into North City once you’re ready,” Ed suggested.

“Under whose name?” Winry squawked and rolled her head to see him looking down his nose at her, “I’m missing or dead or both.”

“Oh yeah…” 

Winry grumbled at her situation, “Somebody better do something about Dante quick so I can file my patents before somebody else does.”

Ed choked on the laugh that gave him, “I’m glad your priorities are in order.  Also,” he tipped his head to look at her, “who in their right fucking mind is going to think any of that up in the next couple months?”

Scrunching her face, Winry scowled at him, “I don’t know what they’re inventing in the rest of the country.  Or any other country for that matter.”

“Probably nothing,” Ed raised an eyebrow at her, “if I remember right, it’s just the south that’s big on industrial and mechanical type innovation.”

“Well, that’s still true,” Winry looked back to the ceiling and folded her arms with a huff, “I just don’t want anybody to beat me to my monopoly of airplane technology.”

“For our unimagined, non-existent aviation industry.”

Winry’s eyes suddenly lit, “I can give it a new name.”

“Yeah?” Ed looked back over and watched the gears in her head take off into the sky.

“We have AutoMail, AutoMobile, why not AutoSky?  AutoAir?  AutoPlane?  Maybe AutoAir, AA would be a neat shorthand for a logo, but AutoPlane fits the naming scheme better,” Winry sat up abruptly, re-folded her arms, and started to hum and haw over an outpouring of ideas just as intense as the rainfall outside.

Watching Winry vanish into her thoughts once again, Ed relaxed the back of his head into his arms, shut his eyes, and listened to the pouring rain in the alley outside the wide open window.  There hadn’t been a single rumble of thunder or any heavy blasts of wind, only the constant torrent from the sky.  Ed never found the rain in London to be very soothing - it just always felt dreary.  Germany wasn’t much better, just somewhat less humid.  Until he’d started wanting it, Ed hadn’t realized how nice the sound of the rain was over the Resembool fields.  In his memory, the sound of a heavy night of rain landing in the parched fields after a hot summer’s day was soothing and easy to fall asleep to, and his mom always left their windows open for it.  Even here in the city, Ed was discovering he didn’t mind it so much, even if it was much louder.  The sound of the rain’s constant buzz off the roof, the tone of the waterfall landing in the soaked streets, and the flush of water flooding through the overflowing eaves filled his ears.  Ed lay silently, arms tucked behind his head, and let himself drown in the deafening rain.  

The only thing that began to stand out in the numbing sound was how he could feel what felt like Winry’s hand tap softly off his cheek. 

Ed cracked an eye open and found a bright, vibrant smile cast down on him.

“I have too many ideas, I need to go back to my room and write them all down,” she patted his cheek once more, “don’t pass out on me.”

Popping his arms out above his head, Ed stretched before sitting himself up.  He dumped his legs off the corner of the bed and looked back to Winry, “I take it you want a lift back to your room, ma’am?”

Winry recoiled, “‘Ma’am’ is for older ladies.”

Ed stood up, “Fine… Miss?”

“That’s for little girls.” 

Ed came around, walked up to where Winry had settled, and put his shoulders back, “ Mademoiselle ?”

Winry’s grin suddenly flew wide, “Isn’t that what they all called me in France?”

“Yeah, it’s French for… uh… average aged girl,” Ed had absolutely no idea, it was just the girl word.

Winry laughed, “It sounds too fancy.”

“You want a ride or not?” Ed rolled his eyes and offered his back to her, “C’mon, it’s late, let’s get out of here.” 

Winry put her hands on Ed’s shoulders and hopped on his back, getting a light bounce as Ed settled her comfortably.  With his arms hooked under her knees, Ed swung by her crutches and Winry collected them before they went out into the hall.  After his first few strides, Ed glanced to his shoulder when he felt Winry’s relax against him and she put her head down.  He smiled to himself; despite things he wished he had the wherewithal for, Ed wasn’t entirely disappointed with his efforts.  He was glad she’d cheered up and he’d hadn't minded the way his evening had gone at all, even if he hadn’t done much other than listen to Winry talk.  

The sound of the rain echoed through the hall from beyond the windows and off the roof overhead; whatever time of day it was, there was no one lingering outside their rooms and Ed carried Winry silently back into their familiar end of the floor.  Her door had been left open to let things circulate, but Ed tapped it closed with his foot after he’d gone by.  Winry let her crutches drop from her hand near her bed and they clattered to the floor as Ed shook his head.  He turned around and deposited Winry atop her bed.

“Don’t stay up too late trying to accomplish stuff, we’re leaving tomorrow,” Ed bent down and collected her crutches.

“I just need to make sure I get everything down before I sleep and forget it all,” Winry crawled across her bed and snatched up a pen and clipboard from the table she’s put at the window, frowning at the water wrinkles the open window had caused, “are you up to anything?”

“No,” Ed shook his head, put her crutches against the wall, and looked to the door, “just probably going to head to bed.”

His head swung back over his shoulder when Winry captured his free hand and pulled him back. 

“Stay and keep me company for a bit then,” she settled back down and put the clipboard aside.

Ed looked down his arm at her, “It’s late, Win.  You don’t need me here for this.”

“No, not really,” Winry gazed around the room thoughtfully and Ed watched a very relaxed, content look wash over her.  The trail of her wandering gaze ended when Winry found Ed's eyes, smiled, and adjusted how she held his hand, “I’d just like you to stay.”

Ed stared at Winry.  Oh .  He blinked and his brow wandered a little high in surprise.  He didn’t have any reason he couldn’t stay.  He didn’t really have to sleep yet, there just wasn’t much else to do.  He didn’t mind being company if she wanted it. 

“Sure,” he stared at the hand she held while his words came out, “if you want, I can hang around.”

Winry beamed, tugged him over, and bounced onto her stomach.  Climbing up and stretching out alongside her, Ed folded his arms atop the sheets and put his chin down.  The bottom end of her clipboard landed with authority at his elbow and Winry reached out, tapping the end of her pencil off the top sheet as she scooched herself up against his right side.

“Which do you like better, AutoAir or AutoPlane?”

Ed’s chin sunk into his arms and he grumbled, “Neither.  I hate the idea of flying, I want my feet on the ground.”

Grinning, Winry shoved her shoulder into his, “I know that.  Objectively though…”

Ed refolded his arms and stared at the edge of the clipboard in Winry’s hand, offering an answer or opinion here and there when she asked, while the calming sound of steady midnight rain poured down beyond her open window and filled the street below.  Ed’s ears filled Winry’s chatter - she bubbled on and on with a kind of excitement that could only be found at home.

More persistent than the rain, more interesting than her imagination, and more outspoken than her voice, what Ed ended up listening to was Winry’s bandaged left leg.  The still-wrapped lower leg rested against his calf and the bridge of Winry’s foot had tucked in above Ed’s heel, at the dip of his achilles, and stayed there.  Her foot would twitch with her thoughts, she’d stretch her toes and tap him if she got excited, but she never moved it away.  Louder than anything else that night, the healing wound had Edward’s undivided attention.  

 


 

If Izumi were being perfectly honest, Vato Falman was far better company than she’d been dreading.  His conversation skills were kind of bland, but he knew a great deal about a surprising number of things, and was quietly a family man behind the scenes.  He was an older officer for his rank than most; he'd chosen a more stable career in the military once he had kids, though she suspected ‘stable’ was probably a term that was a few years out of date.  Izumi forced herself to give Mustang some credit for the quality of people he kept in his circle.

The other unexpected occurrence Izumi kept her mind on was Wrath.  As far as she’d been able to tell, he’d caused no commotion in the back of the van, not even a yelp when the road got bumpy.  She wouldn’t go so far as to think he was intelligent enough to be plotting something stealthy, so her conclusion was that his red stones had finally run out.  For her, it was easier to deal with Wrath when he was high on his red stones - she had no problems dealing with a feral homunculus.  The version of Wrath that was more child-like was much harder for Izumi to stomach and the woman started to steel herself for what lay in store. 

With a spin of the steering wheel, their vehicle pulled off the road and clattered down an unmarked dirt road, slowly sinking into the trees and bush the farther they went.  At the point where Falman concluded their rear lights wouldn’t be noticed from the highway, the van came to a stop.

“Do you need a hand with anything?” Falman asked.

Izumi opened her door, stepped out into the night, and collected Wrath’s leg and wrenches off the passenger’s side floor, “I’ll be fine.”

Tucking the leg under her arm, Izumi gripped Winry's tools and headed towards the back of the van, her sandals sticking in the dirt that had been soaked in rain hours ago.  The air still smelled fresh from the rain and the thin canopy of trees and heavier bush radiated a thick, damp scent.  Izumi cast her gaze skyward; not a city light as far as the eye could see and, on nights like tonight, the stars were the brightest.  The moon even shone well enough to cast shadows.  The alchemy teacher filled her nostrils and lungs with the rich air in the middle of nowhere and threw open the cab doors.

“Time for your next adventure, Wrath.”

From behind a mess of wiry black hair falling everywhere, annoyed purple pupils glared at her, but the homunculus said nothing.

Izumi’s brow wrinkled in confusion.  The red stones were still in effect?  Why was Wrath acting so docile?  There was still no verbal or physical rise out of him at all.  Her dark eyes examining a puzzle tied down before her, Izumi decided she would do what she needed to do first and then figure Wrath’s behaviour out after.

Except, doing everything she needed to do with Wrath enlarged the puzzle.  He didn’t struggle when she removed the leg cap, he didn’t protest or wiggle his leg stump when she reattached the AutoMail, and he only flinched when Izumi re-engaged the nervous system.  Completing an unexpectedly easy task, the woman stood up and stepped back from him, her head with barely any clearance beneath the ceiling of their van, and she watched as Wrath simply tested and flexed his new appendage.

This was damn peculiar and the longer it went on, the less Izumi liked it.  

Kneeling down, the teacher undid his manual bindings, not yet addressing how she’d sealed him into the floor of the van through alchemy.  The release of his bindings offered Wrath a bit more freedom and the mystery deepened when he chose not to use it.  Izumi eyeballed the harsh purple gaze that stared at her from behind his untamed mop of black hair.  Every inclination in her body told her there was something she was missing and Izumi couldn’t pinpoint it.  She didn’t have the luxury to entertain Wrath’s docile behaviour, though - she had to get their messenger going.

Crouching down, Izumi put herself in Wrath’s line of sight, “Alright, I’m going to give you some information and, when you take it to Dante, it’s going to get you all the red stones you can eat.”

Wrath’s eyes traced over her, clearly curious, but still silent.

A grumble rumbled through Izumi’s chest at the pacified reaction, but she continued, “you’re going to tell Dante that Al and I want to meet her in that empty underground city you guys use.”

“Why would I help you?” Wrath's voice came out from behind his mess of hair.

Izumi’s brow lifted; finally this creature had something to say, “Because, Dante will let you eat all the red stones you want when you tell her that we will give her a dozen alchemy characters from beyond the Gate in exchange for Brigitte.”

The wild purple gaze flashed away from Izumi and darted around the inside of the van, “Where is it?”

Izumi pulled her shoulders back, momentarily following Wrath’s focus around at nothing, before settling back on him, “Where’s what?”

“My arm and leg,” Wrath hissed, flashing his teeth behind his matted hair.

The alchemy teacher couldn’t figure out what that had to do with anything, “You mean Ed?”

“Where are they!?” finally, Wrath tried to thrash around in his bindings.

“Not here.” 

Again, the puzzle surrounding Wrath grew and Izumi watched as the answer seemed to visually calm him.  Yet, she found herself with nothing available that would explain why

“You can’t have his arm and leg,” Izumi told him flatly.

The homunculus bore his fangs and snapped uselessly at her, “I don’t want them.”

“Excuse me?” that was simply one too many things for Wrath’s mystery.  Sitting down on the floor of the van, Izumi crossed her legs, clamped her hands down on her knees, and leaned in to get some information out of Wrath, “why not?”

“I don’t like them anymore,” the creature twisted his head and leered back at her.

That answered nothing.  Izumi scowled, “Great.  Everyone will be relieved to hear this and, I promise you, no one will try to give them to you.  If we’re lucky, you’ll never see them again.  Now, why don’t you like them?”

Wrath started to growl, the wrinkles creasing his expression hidden behind hair he couldn’t move out of the way, “They’re too loud.”

“Too loud ?” Izumi’s eyes widened unexpectedly - there was no context where that answer could make any sense.

Wrath thrashed in his alchemized bindings again, “Let me go!”

“We’re getting to that,” Izumi barked, “but first explain how they’re too loud.”

Releasing himself from the compliance he’d given until then, Wrath reverted to the lengthy wails and impossible struggles Izumi had grown accustomed to seeing in the basement.  Grimacing at the wretched noise that crashed off the metallic walls of the van around her and scattered the wildlife outside, Izumi realized she would have to let this go.  Wrath's nonsensical change in opinion on Ed's arm and leg may be a mystery, but it was ultimately irrelevant to why they were out here, and the teacher swallowed the fact that she didn’t have the luxury of time to deal with Wrath's tantrums at this point - they were out here with an objective to accomplish.

“Listen up,” her arm flew out and she snagged him by the hair.  In the depths of a motorized cave, in the middle of the Amestris eastern outback at the midnight hour, the alchemy teacher put herself eye to eye with the last homunculus, “I’ll let you out of here, but you need to listen to me for a few seconds first.”

Wrath hissed at her, but quieted, and he glared at the woman who’d snared him.  Izumi watched his dilated purple pupils practically glow in the dark as they danced over her face. 

“You’re going to book your ass over to a place called Xenotime and find Dante.  You’re going to tell her that we want to meet her in the empty underground city to exchange twelve alchemy characters from beyond the Gate for Brigitte.”

Wrath flashed his teeth at her from behind his mop of hair, “I hate the Gate.”

“Me too,” with her hand still securing his head by his hair, Izumi turned the growling homunculus to face out the van doors, showing him the lights of vehicles passing on the main road from their position sequestered in the dark, “there’s a big road out there with cars, see them go by?  If you stay on that road long enough, it will take you straight into a place called Xenotime.  That’s where Dante and the red stones are right now.  When you tell Dante my message, she’s going to feed you all the red stones you can ask for.”

Wrath replied with a low grumble and tried to shake loose, “Why would I do something you say?”

Izumi offered him a tart smile, “Because, it’ll make Dante happy, and the happier you make Dante, the more red stones you get fed, right?”

The teacher watched Wrath eye her and reluctantly begin to accept that she was correct.  

Rising to her feet, Izumi made her way to the back doors of the van and hopped out into the night.  As she looked at the homunculus trapped in the back of their van, Izumi quietly cursed the puzzle of Wrath’s behaviour.  Begrudgingly, the teacher steeled her resolve and clapped her hands to release him.  

Instead of bolting out of the van, the teacher got to watch as Wrath’s first free movement was to put himself in the corner furthest from her at the back of the van.  His arm finally free to move the hair from his face, Wrath’s warry purple eyes dissected the inside of the vehicle like he was searching for something.  Inching herself to the side, Izumi gave Wrath an obvious option for escape, but the homunculus didn’t take the offering until he seemed satisfied with his visual interrogation of the van.

Bursting from the vehicle with a clatter and blowing by Izumi, Wrath stumbled and staggered along the muddied road before coming to a stop.  He stood slightly bewildered, taking a moment to look around and take in his midnight surroundings in the middle of nowhere, before peering over his shoulder at Izumi with eyes that glowed in the moonlight.

She threw an arm out and pointed dead east, “Xenotime is that way.  And remember, we want to trade alchemy knowledge from beyond the Gate for Brigitte in the underground city.”

Wrath’s teeth clenched.  He vented a loud wordless, verbal barrage of nothing at the woman before he finally darted east, much to Izumi’s relief. 

Standing in the dirt path of a forgotten side road, Izumi looked up at the clear night sky and listened to silence re-settle on the landscape as the sound of Wrath tearing through the bush alongside the road faded.  She breathed in the clean, refreshing air, and allowed her mind to take a moment and discard all the questions, concerns, and worries she’d accumulated that night thanks to Wrath.  

As her gaze wandering the stars, Izumi realized, after all that, she still had to get back in the vehicle and endure the exhaustive ride back to Central City.  The teacher collected a heaping mountain of questions and an excessive number of thoughts that would keep her mind occupied the entire trip, and headed back around to the passenger side door.

 


To Be Continued...


Chapter 49: Caution Signs

Summary:

Izumi returns and Ed & Winry prepare to head out while Mustang and Hawkeye settle in to the mission in Xenotime

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

With a knee on the chair, a foot on the floor, his forearm on the table, a pencil behind his ear, and another in his hand, Alphonse carefully etched out the final lines of a transmutation circle.  Al leaned back from his latest with a grin, rather proud of himself for his ingenuity on it, and added it to his pile of transmutations he was going to test out when he joined his brother north.  Grabbing another sheet, Al laid down a perfect circle in graphite and leaned over the table as he tried to think up which of the many experiments with the otherworld’s alchemy he wanted to plot out next.

Al didn’t even flinch when a knock came to the door, he just called: “I’m busy!” which had been his answer all day, regardless if he was busy or not.

The knock came again and Izumi’s voice rang out, “That’s too bad.”

“Oops,” Al scrambled away from his table and stumbled to the door to let his teacher in, “you’re back!”

With tired rings under her eyes from a ride that was far too long, the woman’s hands sat firmly on her hips, “What kind of answer is ‘I’m busy’?” 

“Sorry, it wasn’t for you,” Al apologized sheepishly, “Lt. Colonel Armstrong got another batch of hands overnight and people keep coming by to make sure everything’s ‘in order’ up here.”

Izumi ruffled Al’s hair and walked in, “Armstrong barely had time to talk to me after I got in.  Hopefully nobody asks too many questions before the man in charge gets back.”

Al giggled, straightening his hair, “Yeah…”

Drawing her arms up and folding them across her chest, the young man’s teacher looked around his impressively neat and tidy room: bed made, floor clear, furniture put back in their homes, everything wiped down, curtains closed to keep the heat out, and the fan that had been transmuted into the window now sat humming on the floor.  Izumi nearly laughed, it was so impressive, “You lost all your freeloaders and now it looks like an adult lives here.”

Sitting back down at his table, Al grinned at the compliment given to his preference of a neat and tidy workspace, “They’re both all-out organizers, I think better when everything’s a bit more put together.”

Izumi turned her attention off the suite and peered over his work, “What’s all this?”

Al’s smile nearly burst.  Like a child proudly showing off his hard work, Al hopped to his knees on the chair, snatched up his stack of papers, and handed them to his teacher, “I’ve been trying to think up transmutations using the symbols from beyond the Gate and mixing them with ours.  I’m trying to push their formulas and see how far they go.  Then, I’ll test them when we get up north.” 

Leafing through the stack of papers in her hand, Izumi marvelled at the seemingly endless pool of energy Al had.  As she flipped to the bottom pages a slip of paper flew out, and Izumi put aside Al’s works to collect it from the floor.  The teacher brought the unfolded sheet of four transmutation factors drawn with precision by Ed’s hand back up to eye level.

“It’s comforting to know at least one of you isn’t on my worry list at the moment.”

Sinking back on his knees in the chair, Al didn’t like anything about that sentiment and he frowned at her, “What did my brother do now?”

Izumi sighed, folded the sheet, and handed it back to Al, “I can’t say he’s done anything.” 

Tucking the sheet into his pocket, Al’s brow fell further - Izumi wasn’t one to bring up an issue if there wasn’t something to be concerned about, “Well, did things go okay with Wrath?”

“Overall, yes.  He’s on his way,” Izumi sat down in the adjacent chair at Al’s table and strummed her fingers on the chair arm, “did you boys notice anything odd with Wrath’s behaviour right before he left?”

Everything about Wrath had been odd lately, but Al wasn’t sure if he’d noticed anything beyond how he acted around his brother, “Nothing other than the trance, why?”

“His behaviour was off,” Izumi’s brow creased as she thought back to the pinned creature in the van who silently glared at her, “he didn’t put up much of a fight when I loaded him in the van, he didn’t cause trouble during the trip, and I didn’t have any problem attaching his AutoMail either.  For the most part, there was no screaming, no fussing, no howling, just some struggling and growling until pretty much the tail end of things.”

Al rubbed his chin in thought - Wrath had spent most of his time in the basement being a howling nuisance, the only tame version the younger Elric could imagine was the one who wasn’t high on red stones, but his teacher would have thought of that, “He probably didn’t give any reason why, huh?”

The woman's heavy, dark gaze remained tangled in her memories, “the only thing he mentioned was he’d lost interest in your brother’s arm and leg.”

“Lost interest?” Al’s golden eyes popped wide as he sat up high on his knees, “how?  Getting my brother’s arm and leg was half his vocabulary.”

Still unable to make heads nor tails of her dispatch of Wrath, Izumi would have loved it if the stars had aligned and Al had given her an answer, “Yes, it was, but he didn’t want them any more.  He said they were too loud.”

Al twisted his face while he tried to rationalize what his teacher had said, “Too loud ?”

“Too loud,” sitting back in the chair and folding her arms, Izumi’s expression darkening as her brow weighed down over her eyes.

Al withdrew into his thoughts and tried to see if there had been anything in their trips to the basement that could explain Wrath’s change in desire, or even a slight change in behaviour, but he consistently came up with nothing, “… AutoMail is clearly louder.”

“And, unfortunately, I couldn’t get much more out of him,” Izumi tisked at a situation she wished had surfaced sooner, “we didn’t have the luxury of buggering around to find out.” 

Unable to offer his teacher any clues to solve the mystery, Al could only shrug, “At least he’s on his way to Dante’s.”

Izumi took a sharp inhale and abruptly drilled her tired gaze into the younger Elric, “And that’s something we need to talk about.”

“I’m coming with you,” every time his teacher found a reason to be concerned, she approached Alphonse again, and every time Al was prepared for it, “we’re doing this together.”

Izumi ran a hand over her hair with a sigh.

Folding his pudgy arms firmly, Al’s well-rehearsed determination set firmly in his tone, “The reason we’re here right now is because I set out and I intend to see things through.  I have these hands and this head I can use, and now that my brother is home I can protect him and you with them.”

The declaration was practically a memorized script now and Izumi had to fight to keep a stern look in her eyes, “I’m not questioning your convictions, Al.  It’s just hard for me to not see you as the little boy you started out as a few months ago.”

“I know,” a grin wormed its way into his steadfast expression, “and that’s exactly what I’m counting on working in my favour against Dante.  As long as she thinks I’m that same Alphonse she dumped at the Gate, she won’t be able to see all the extra I have on the inside to take care of things.”

Her gaze drifting off, Izumi spoke quietly, “I hope it's as big of a payoff as you’re counting on it being.”

“It will be!” Alphonse’s eleven-year-old voice squeaked out his proclamation, doing very little to bolster his teacher’s confidence.

Deciding to leave well enough alone, Izumi brought her attention back to the here and now, “Where’s your brother?  Armstrong wants to see him and he wasn’t in his room when I checked.”

“He’s probably still in Winry’s room,” Al laughed, settling down on his knees in the chair, “he was passed out there this morning when I brought her breakfast.”

Rising from the chair, Izumi left the younger brother to his own entertainment, “Okay, I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Be careful going to her room though,” Al issued the warning, his brows wiggling up and grin running wide, “the moment you walk in, Winry’s going to tell you all about Rockbell AutoPlane.”

Questioning the amused look the younger Elric wore, Izumi couldn’t help but ask, “AutoPlane?”

“I didn't quite get it,” Al answered with a laugh, “but she's really excited and I think it kept her up all night.”

Accepting the warning, Izumi cautiously headed out of the room.

 


 

Of all of the things of day-to-day life Mustang couldn’t stand, his eye patch gave all his other annoyances a new perspective.  He had no choice on the matter, his right eye was ruined and he was a far stranger sight without a patch than he was with it, but he was certain he would never, ever get used to it, or stop silently despising it.  The black facial patch he’d chosen had come after months of trial and error and, since he could never decide which one he liked, the officer chose one that was most comfortable.

So, in terms of ‘comfortable’, this new eye patch Mustang put on ranked maybe at ‘two’.  It was a small, brown, leather-bound triangle with a single thin leather cord that just felt awful.  He taped a piece of gauze over his eye to hopefully avoid giving himself a blister every time he moved his eyebrow.  And, in a way, the gauze helped make the injury look new again, and that would help with his disguise at least.  

A button-up white cotton shirt, grey workman’s overalls, some well-worn brown boots, a linen flat cap, and the wretched eye patch came courtesy of a thrift store he’d sifted through before leaving Central.  Hawkeye wore much the same, her hair tucked in tightly beneath her cap, and she added a burlap shoulder bag to her ensemble.  

Together, the duo walked the noonhour streets of Xenotime. 

By comparison to the more notable cities, Xenotime was in decline, and the deterioration was noticeable throughout a town that seemed to have more closed up shops and vacant dwellings than ones that were occupied.  Ore mining was only as lucrative as the cheapest labour would allow, but unlike the rural time capsules Mustang and his company had just gone through, Xenotime was at least alive.  People were in the streets.  Businesses were open.  Daily life looked to be happening.  And, as expected of a mining town, the people walking the streets were predominantly wives and mothers with their young children - clearly there was at least one school for the older ones.  The most abnormal thing Mustang took note of was the strange number of newer, modern vehicles that had been parked on the streets, in lots, or just tucked away in alleys.  

Other than the looming laboratory built into the mountain overlooking the town, Mustang couldn’t really tell which way the town’s men would have gone for their day’s mining work.  Nothing was plainly obvious. 

So, on a crisp summer’s day late in July, Roy Mustang found a sorry looking dive and went to the bar.  Someone had to be drowning in alcohol over the lunch hour and he would find their server and put this mission back on track.  Hawkeye opted to keep her lunch outside, so she could keep an eye on things and be free of the thick indoor stench.

The moment he stepped inside the building, Mustang had to wonder if his partner hadn’t had the better idea.  The stagnant air was heavy with heat, thick with cigarettes and alcohol, and the open windows barely circulated the stew of smells that added bad feet and body odour to the mix the deeper he moved.  The officer wondered if any of their barracks had ever smelt this repugnant.

The closer he got to the wooden bar counter, the more the smells shifted from men drowning at their tables to a rich mix of food from the kitchen - though Mustang wasn’t sure he was actually hungry given the scents lingering in his nostrils. 

With nobody else at the counter, Mustang became the only person to occupy a bar stool.  His one eye caught a plump, middle-aged woman, who must have been the daytime barkeep, and she looked him over several times, but put no effort into coming to serve him.  When she finally eyeballed him once more, the officer in disguise waved a few fingers at her.  She rolled her eyes into the back of her head before lumbering over.

“I don’t know your face,” she greeted him with a heavy voice.

Shrugging, Mustang tried to keep the conversation lighter, “Well, judging by everyone in here, I seem to need a drink as well.”

“Do you?” her words were sarcastically slow.  The woman’s brow wandered high and her eyes bulged as she seemed to be holding him in contempt.

Clearing his throat, Mustang tried to ease the tension in the air, “I get the feeling you’ve found me guilty of something, and I’d like to apologize for it, I’d just like to know what I’m apologizing for first.”

She narrowed an eye at him, “You’re certainly the smoothest talker of them.  So which is it, you with some newspaper or just some gold digger?”

Oh, that was a very interesting question Mustang hadn’t seen coming.  Newspapers would explain the cars, but gold digger was new, “Neither, to be honest.  I’m just traversing towns looking for work.”

The older woman pursed her lips, flatted her brow, and she responded flatly, “If you’re looking for gold, don’t trust what the government’s been babbling on about and get.  We got no work for leeches.”

Mustang had only been off the grid for a few days and he was already several steps behind, “Madame, I assure you, I’m not looking for gold, just looking to put my hands to work and make enough to spend the night in a decent bed before I move on.”

For no reason he could see, the woman burst out into a raucous, heavy laugh.  Mustang found nothing in his words that led to it, so he simply waited her amusement out, hoping it would die down.

“Son, the first thing I saw on you were those well-kept hands.  They ain’t good for work here in Xenotime - we do manual labour in these mountains,” the amusement in her voice abruptly died, “if you have no proper questions for me, Mister Reporter, get out or I’ll ask my husband to remove you.”

His pleasant demeanour finally beginning to crumble, Mustang both mentally cursed and praised the observant older woman.  Maybe he could rearrange his approach for a woman with a good amount of wit about her.  He cleared his throat.

“Madame, I want to assure you that I’m neither a reporter nor a gold digger.  I want nothing to do with either of those, if I’m to be perfectly honest,” Mustang gave a laugh to her concern with reporters then lowered his voice in case any of the drunkards were actually sobering up, “crossing a reporter is well off my to-do list.  I’d rather not see one and I’d very much prefer if one not see me.  That said, I haven’t seen the right side of civilization in days.  What’s the concern with reporters and since when did Xenotime have gold again?”

A little surprised with the forthright statement, the plump woman examined him once more before she folded her arms, straightened up, and stared back at him.  She offered no answer.

Reaching into his hip pocket, Mustang pulled out a handful of coins, “I’ll have whatever’s on tap and the lunch special.”

“Do you even know what my lunch special is?” she scowled.

“I’m sure it’s delicious,” Mustang smiled.

The barkeep’s eye remained on him as she stepped away to fill a foaming glass.  She slid it down the counter to him and then marched the length of her bar counter, throwing her head beyond a set of swinging doors, bellowing instructions for what Mustang assumed was the lunch special.  Her interrogative look returned to the disguised officer as Mustang taste-tested a beer that was surprisingly decent, and then put his elbow on the counter and plunked his chin down in the palm of his hand.  Wiping her hands on her apron, the woman walked the length of the counter back over to him.

“Government setting up shop in the laboratory brought those fiction writers from East City out here.  Then they called a press conference after some yahoos in Central City made them look like they couldn’t tell their asses apart from a hole in the ground.  More of those radio folk swarmed in, but they ain’t welcome up at the lab, so they’re bothering us.  Government clowns patted themselves on the back over the radios and announced gold was found in the mountains just north of here, but nobody local can confirm that.  Just sounds like a distraction so the reporters can question why the city with a history like ours is harbouring the country’s cowardly ‘political leaders’.  Everybody just wants them to go back to Central City so they can take their ass kickin’ like real men.”

Mustang loved every bitter word this cranky woman let him hear.  Nearly every syllable was gratifying - Dante was being forced to dance and the officer felt so childish about his delight over it.  Indulging in his beer once more, Mustang replied with the first self-satisfying comment that came to mind, “Forcing the government to act like a governing body is a novel concept.  I wish them all the best of luck for something so futile.”

The woman folded her arms across her heavy chest and a grumble radiated through her throat, “I just wish they’d get the hell out of here.  We’ve had enough problems, don’t need more news bullshit here.  We’re just trying to live.”

“That you are, yes,” offering a sigh to the dilemma of a woman forced to live as the plaything of someone looming over them from above, Mustang offered a sentiment, “I wouldn’t trust their reports of gold either until someone more trustworthy can verify it.  In the meantime, why not enjoy the money your annoyances bring in?”

A hearty chuckle bounced out of the barkeep, “Oh, we’ve been helping ourselves to their money, but we’d rather they all find their way back to East City at least and let us move on.”

“Personally,” Mustang sat back on his stool and stretched his arms above his head, “I would love to return to East City, too.  But, I actually am in need of work in order to get there and be damned if I can find where all your sober men have gone.”

“That’s cause they’re off busting their asses!” finally drawing something more pleasant out of her - a sassy smirk, the woman’s eyes followed his hands as they came back to the counter again, “You’re going to mess up your hands doing dirty work here in Xenotime, though.”

Mustang took a look at the well-kept state of his right hand while his left went back to his beer glass; he did take a bit of extra care to keep his hands in good condition - they served multiple important purposes, “I’m certain they’ll be able to survive a bit of a challenge.”

“Well,” the woman took a peek at her kitchen doors before looking at him again, “if you head to the north east corner of town, you’ll see a road venturing around the mountain.  Shift lets out at five-thirty and you can just follow the stench of those poor boys to their shift supervisor at the mining entrance.  Let him know you’re offering piecework labour and he’ll set you up for tomorrow’s shift.  He’s a rancid, cheap ass though - don’t expect him to pay you much.”

“Thank you,” Mustang lifted his beer glass in toast to her.

The hefty woman shook her head at the gesture.  A garbled voice bellowed and the barkeep swiftly turned and marched down her counter, taking hold of a plate handed to her through swinging doors.  A lunch made up of a toasted, meaty sandwich soaked in a runny sauce of some sort and a mashed mystery side was presented to Mustang with a knife and fork and nothing more.

“Don’t complain if you don’t like it.”

No, he wouldn’t complain at all.  Not a bit.  With his questions taken care of, all the officer had to concern himself with for the next little while was how he was going to tackle eating his mystery lunch.

 


 

Ed groaned at the sight of himself.  He looked so ridiculous.  

His reflection in the mirror was given a disgusted look.

What the hell was he doing in this getup?  How did he agree to this?  It felt like he’d finally become the brunt of a joke.  Ed wanted to change.  He wanted to take his hair out.  This was a nightmare.

Ed slogged himself back up to the third floor and dragged his overdressed self down the hall.  Considering how much he was wearing, he felt unreasonably exposed.  Maybe it was his face.  Was the floor always this bright?  He walked past Al’s door; his brother was downstairs by now.  Ed passed his own room; well, it wasn’t his room any longer.  He stopped at Winry’s door; he might need alcohol to handle her reaction to this.

With a deep breath through his nose, Ed puffed his chest and opened her door, “Win?”

Standing high on her knees, her arms folded crossly, the glare Winry had cast on her tool kit was snapped to Ed at the door, and the mechanic pointed a screwdriver at him.

“I TOLD YOU TOo… oo… what?” Winry’s voice tamed, her words tumbled, and the screwdriver went limp in her hand, “why do you look like that?”

Ed straightened up in the doorway and marched himself into the room.  He adjusted his pants at the waistline, straightened his jacket, ran his hands over his completely pulled back hair, snapped his arms straight at his sides, and put the heels of his boots together when he stopped before her.

Winry gawked at him in disbelief, “W-wh-who got you… how?  Ed, that… that is a military uniform.”

“It was Armstrong’s idea,” Ed grumbled at his undesired presentation, “he wants me ‘in disguise’.”

“Uh huh,” Winry remained a little dumbstruck at what stood before her and she waved the screwdriver at him like a magic wand, “a-and that is a disguise.  Yes.”

Ed’s grumble transformed into a grumble with a scowl.

Twirling her screwdriver through her fingers, Winry finally snatched it in her hand again, pointed it at Ed, and used it to beckon him closer.  He begrudgingly complied and marched forwards, bringing his scowl up to the edge of the bed.  Winry collected the ends of her knee length skirt and shuffled over to scan this odd looking Edward Elric with her wide, tired eyes from his knees all the way up into his exposed face, then brazenly tapped his nose with her screwdriver.

“It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore,” she tried hard to sound horrified and not grin.

Ed’s eyes slit and he growled in annoyance, “Did you even try to have a nap?”  

“I tried ,” Winry laughed.

“You better sleep in the car,” Ed looked around at Winry’s tidied room, lit bright by the opened curtains welcoming the afternoon sun, “Are you ready to go?”

Winry looked over her successfully organized belongings and closed the lid to her tool case, “I guess.  My tool kit’s not perfect but it's as good as its going to get, and I’ve packed my one whole spare shirt, skirt, undies, and nightshirt.”

Ed’s smirk curled towards her, “So, you took you two seconds to pack your things and two hours to pack your tool kit.”

Winry huffed and she pointed the screwdriver at her tool case on the bed, “It needed sorting and re-organizing.  I managed to convince some nice military helpers to buy me a couple new tools and I got a few neat new parts out of their scrounging too.  Everything needs to fit precisely.”

Ed nearly laughed when he realized what she’d done, “You used Mustang’s money to upgrade your tools?”

Winry puffed up, “Did you guys want Wrath’s leg done properly or not?”

Ed narrowed his gaze, “Where’s my discount, then?”

Winry scowled, “No discounts.”

Ed rolled his eyes.  

Turning around, Ed let Winry climb onto his back for their trip downstairs.  She wrapped her legs tightly around Ed’s waist, giving him free use of his arms to carry her things - the most awkward of which was her tool case.  The moment he tried to pick it up off her bed, Ed had a number of questions: How many tools were actually in here?  Did she really carry this around regularly?  Was it a lethal weapon?  It wasn’t that he had a problem lifting it, it was just unexpectedly heavy. 

Heaving the tool kit off Winry’s bed, the bottom latch caught her bag of personal things and spilled its contents to the floor.  Winry smacked Ed upside the head for it and he groaned, put the tool kit back down, and backed up to the bed so Winry could get off.  

Reaching down to collect the mess of papers and fabric, Ed stopped when he saw what lay in the bed of Winry’s spilt clothes: the patchworked face of the fabric doll he’d once commissioned a seamstress to make looked back at him.  Fallen at his feet like he’d last seen in his nightmares, once dirtied, bloodied, and ruined on a cold, filthy floor, the doll looked back at him with her damage patched, blood scrubbed away, and broken seams re-stitched.  Crouching down, Ed collected the gift in his hand.

His words were lost, “Where’d…”

“She came back with us,” Winry came up on her knees and grabbed the back of his blue jacket, pulling him until he sat down on the bedside.  She peered in over his shoulder and smiled, “Al stitched her up while we were recovering.”

The daylight flooding in over their shoulders, Ed held the doll in the shadow his body cast and stared at the patch Al had sewn in to repair it.  Turning it over in his hand, he examined the washed out stains on the dress of a gift he hadn’t wrapped.  He didn’t want Winry to unwrap it, it felt like too much fuss, so Ed had just slipped into her room and left it in a hat box on her bed before going downstairs.  He could remember it like he’d done it yesterday.   

Heavy golden eyes stared at the gift mended with care by hands at home, “Al did a good job fixing her up.”

Putting her chin down on his shoulder, Winry leaned against Ed's back and snuck an arm in to pinch one of the doll's feet in her fingers.  Ed sat silently and watched Winry toy with the hem of the doll's dress, eventually turning it over in his hands once more to look back at them.  Slowly running his thumb along the seam of the patch his brother had sewn into the doll's face to seal it, Ed still couldn't shut down the memory of the moment it was damaged. 

The memory of most of the damage was still very present and real.  The feeling of Winry’s white-knuckle fingers clawing into his abdomen still resonated if he let his mind wander.  The pressure of her face burrowing into his back while Envy had his way with him still existed where she rested now.  The sound of a gun firing in one ear and the sound of sick pleasure in the other still existed in the silence of Winry’s room.  The whole thing made him nauseous and was still robbing him of his sleep; it was hard to stomach how badly he’d lost to Envy and what it was like to be left at his mercy.  Ed wished he could just keep wailing on Hess, it was easier to do than look at himself on the ground as Envy’s toy and acknowledge he’d been that scared.   

Ed took a deep, staggering breath, and curled forwards, popping up to his feet.  Squatting down, he collected Winry’s things back into her bag and dropped it back on the bed.  Sitting back down in the brightly lit afternoon room, Ed looked at the doll that remained in his hand.  He told memories he didn’t want where they could go and offered Winry the gift he’d had made for her, for a holiday he didn’t celebrate, because it was supposed to remind her of home.

Winry looked at the offering, then moved the soft look up to Ed, “You’re okay?”

His voice was faintly hoarse, “Yeah.”

Carefully, Winry took her doll back and emptied his hand, then put her own hand in to fill the vacancy.  She tucked the gift away in her bag and placed the hand she’d collected on her knee, then sat back and looked into the eyes of an Elric who had too much going on in his head to remember to blush while she held his hand.  

Winry offered his burdens a distraction, “Are you going to be able to get us downstairs without dropping anything this time, Officer?”

Ed dropped his head back and groaned.  Reminded that he was dressed in this horrendous uniform, Ed got back to his feet, gave Winry’s arm a yank as she laughed at him, and met her quip with a frown, “I can go get your crutches and you can figure out how to do it yourself if you’re unhappy.”

Popping onto her knees, Winry waddled up to the edge of the bed, dipped her head down so she could look at him from beneath a forcefully flattened brow, and met him nose to nose with a sassy tone, “I’m just making sure you don’t give me a reason to complain to your supervisor, Officer Elric.”

In a flash, Winry watched the tired weight vanish from Ed’s eyes.  Maybe it was because all his hair was pulled out of his face that it created some sort of illusion, but Winry could have sworn she’d never seen Ed’s eyes light up with a much mischievous intent as they did right then.  In what felt like a single motion, Ed took a step back, grabbed Winry’s shirt at her stomach, and yanked her towards him.  He bent down as she scrambled to catch herself, put his shoulder into her stomach to catch her, wrapped an arm around her backside, and Ed heaved Winry over his shoulder as she shrieked.

“I’ll give you something to actually complain about,” Ed announced and took a few staggered steps to steady himself.  He puffed out his cheeks as he held his breath; with Winry squirming this was actually a lot harder than it was in his head.

Winry looked around in panic, her hair falling in the way of everything she tried to see as her hands gripped the back of his shirt and jacket, “EDWARD ELRIC PUT ME DOWN.”

“In a minute,” thankful for her long skirt, Ed adjusted the arm pinning her at her thighs and turned to pick up her tool case and bag of things with his free hand. 

“NO, not a minute!  Put me down,” Winry continued to scream, yanking on his shirt, “RIGHT NOW.”

“You can’t even give me a discount on the AutoMail,” Ed took a deep breath, got his balance aligned with everything he needed to carry, and marched towards Winry’s door, “and now you’re bitching about your free ride.”

“ED!”

“DUCK!”

Winry ducked as he marched her out the door.

 


 

In places like Xenotime, the town’s life faded when everyone turned in for the dinner hour.  By six-thirty, nearly nothing was alive, except those in their homes.  Around seven or eight in the evening the few bars the town survived on, the places that catered to those needing an escape, began thriving.  For everyone else, nothing but a quiet evening was in store until the sun set and everyone headed to bed.

Xenotime was holding onto the point where the sun was still up, but it had fallen behind the upper reaches of the mountains, and it blanketed the town in warm shadows.  The aging houses moving towards a quiet night exhaled their final warm breaths of dinner.  A few upstart children had either snuck out, or been kicked out, of their homes to burn off the last of their energies, all the while the minutes ticked closer and closer to bedtime at sundown.  

As the last of the sly children avoiding sleep tried to navigate the shadows of outdoor clutter, one ducked in behind a hedge to hide from her parents one last disobedient time.  As she settled quietly into her hiding spot, the bush breathed, and the child swiftly turned over her shoulder and was greeted by the bush's terrifying, wild purple eyes.

A scream heard for blocks caused the hedge to explode and Wrath flew into the air above the frightened girl’s head, then crashed through the window of her house. 

Doors throughout the neighbourhood popped open at the sound of a scream and shattered glass, everyone perplexed over what would cause a commotion so close to sundown.  Chaos in the house Wrath had entered erupted, the number of screaming and yelling voices rose, and finally the front door burst off its hinges as Wrath landed in the street.  The eyes of the neighbourhood looked at the feral homunculus; a gangly, dirty, poorly-dressed creature that stood in a wide, hunched stance.  The refreshed AutoMail leg glowed orange in the final light at sundown and his purple eyes burned through the mess of black, matted hair covering Wrath’s upper body.

The owner of the invaded house flew onto his porch and pointed his hunting rifle at what had turned his evening upside down, “JANE, get your backside into the cellar with your mother.”

The child, whose scream allerted the neighbours to the scene, dashed into the house behind her father without a word.

“You some sort of rabid, wild child?” the man demanded from Wrath, keeping note of his armed neighbours in the periphery who’d started appearing.

Wrath’s purple gaze flew wide and, with an ear-piercing wail, he charged the man pointing the rifle.  Absorbing three shots into his body like they were nothing, Wrath turned in mid air and crushed the heels of his feet into the shocked man’s chest, sending him thundering into the doorframe and crumpling to the ground.

The voices of the neighbourhood flared up and Wrath suddenly found himself facing a thin crowd approaching with their rifles ready.  Of the men who approached the homunculus, one chose to fire on Wrath again, and the accumulation of onlookers and window perched observers watched a creature that never once flinched at a gunshot that his body inexplicably swallowed.  The revelation sent a rippling shockwave through all the concerned eyes, everyone recoiling, and Wrath eventually turned to take on the next man who dared to shoot at him.  

An older, hardened, burly man with a thick beard spun his rifle around and cracked the charging homunculus across the head, batting him away.  Wrath bounced off the ground, managing to land on his feet steadily enough that he sprung at the man once again, only to be met by the butt end of the rifle thrust into his face.  Wrath landed on the dusty road, grabbing at his head.

“Don’t think some rabid child scares me, I’ve worked in these hills through five of your life times,” the older man’s deep, exasperated voice boomed for anyone witnessing the scene to hear, “if guns ain’t workin’ on it - put your kids in the cellar and get your bats!  Someone grab a rope and chains, we’re gonna need a wrangler.”

Wrath swung back to his feet and looked out at a handful of scowling, tired men who began to flank him, switching their firearms for blunt objects.  Those watching from windows shuttered their vantage points.  Instead of charging at anyone, Wrath chose to dart away.  Items in hand were thrown, bouncing off the homunculus uselessly, and Wrath effortlessly cleared a fence in a single leap.  Dashing between houses, Wrath burst out into the adjacent street and was unexpectedly flipped head over heels when someone’s unlit torch swung through his hips.  Landing flat on his back, Wrath quickly bounced up again, and he held his ground while his body swallowed gunfire directed at him from all angles.  Not a single bullet fazed him and Wrath finally offered a scowl to his onlookers while their concerns soared.

“Are we even hitting it?”

“How did something like that get AutoMail?”

“He’s not even bothered.”

“That thing can’t be human.”

“Where are the chains?”

When the sound of clanking chain links hit the dirt, Wrath took off again.  This time the growing mob began raising their voices as the event travelled through the neighbourhood.  The swelling groups of armed men chased the homunculus through streets they were far more familiar with than he was.  Wrath’s disadvantage sent him astray and he began crashing into homes as he evaded, terrorizing occupants as he failed to shake his pursuers, and each time he re-emerged from a house, a handful of angry people waited to greet him.

Immensely stronger than all of them, Wrath tired of the evasive game and turned to attack the crowds following him.  Again, Wrath was handicapped; his missing right arm became an immeasurable disadvantage.  He could rip weapons out of people’s hands, but couldn’t snap them in half.  He could try to rip the arm right off a man, but he couldn’t get enough leverage.  He could try to do anything with his left hand, but find himself subjected to whatever nuisance came at him from the right side.

The moment Wrath engaged a man and substituted his teeth in for the leverage a right arm could have offered, the homunculus was punished by his pursuers.  A thick link of chain was whipped across his body.  Hands flew in and gripped his mess of hair tightly, yanking him away from the arm he’d begun shredding.  His teeth bloodied, the homunculus turned to fight back, but suddenly found himself exposed by a lasso someone had snagged on his left wrist.  Wrath was opened up like a gift to all his pursuers.  

From that point on, Wrath was hit with things.   

The homunculus couldn’t identify what things, just heavy things - things that annoyed, and things that hurt, so he tried to run again.  With his left arm still tethered to a number of people attempting to slow him, Wrath thrust his pursuers away with his empty shoulder and laid his teeth into whatever else stood in the way.  Unable to gain speed or leap over anything, Wrath wrapped his hand around the thick lasso cord and tried to toss the men dragging him into the street.  Humanity hung on.  The weight continued to immobilize Wrath’s only arm and the sound of chain links appeared in his ear again.  Before he could react, a set of brave hands snuck in and wrapped the links around the wild homunculus’ neck.

Unable to strangle Wrath to death, the man power that swarmed to hold the chain at each end tried to bring Wrath to his knees.  Again and again the Xenotime citizens tried to force the bullet proof homunculus to his knees.  It wasn’t until Wrath started showing that, through leg power alone, he could pull this mass of humanity, and some of them realized more force was needed.

Wrath never saw the full scale of people he’d accumulated in his run through town, but the crowd that finally overpowered him did so by sheer numbers - beating him with whatever was in hand until he was brought to his knees.  Unable to fully realizing how it had happened, chains finally bound his ankles so he could not march any farther and all he could do at that point was yell while the townspeople of Xenotime conquered the invasion of Wrath.

Once satisfied he would no longer cause harm, the Xenotime mob stood over their chain-wrapped prisoner in silence, watching him gasp for his breaths and hearing him rage deafeningly, but wordlessly, until his lungs had emptied.  With the sun now fallen deep behind the mountains, the house lights and the odd flame torch tried to illuminate the scene. 

“What do we do with it?” a despondent voice asked the quiet crowd.

“Secure him in the stables,” a woman replied from the back of the scene, “it’ll keep him away from the kids and let everyone get some sleep.”

“Yeah, let’s get this show out of the streets.”

A murmur of voices bubbled up in agreement and, as Wrath continued to gasp and wail uselessly, a few brave hands reached in and secured a rope to the chains binding him.  Escorted by torchlights, the homunculus was dragged through the streets towards the stables in the Xenotime dusk.

At the back of the lingering crowd, choosing not to follow the escapade that was marching to the edge of town, Roy gave a complimentary nod to Riza as they dispersed with the crowd, “Stables were a good idea, I agree.”

She rolled her eyes, “It was your idea.”

Roy grinned, “I did not want to be hearing that creature howl all night while I tried to sleep.”

Folding her arms and looking back at the fading procession, a disappointed look came across her face, “I feel a little bad for him.”

“I don’t,” Roy scoffed, choosing to not watch the show.

Riza glanced around the tired town, homes buzzing with chatter over the chaos they’d just witnessed, “Do you think she’ll go see him tonight?  Everyone will probably be talking about this in an hour.”

“For our sake, I hope she does,” the corners of Roy’s mouth folded down, “considering the noise he made, if I were in her shoes, I’d get Wrath out of the public eye as quickly as possible with all the media from East City that's here.”

Agreeing with the sentiment, Riza peeked back at the procession, “As long as he’s gone by morning, we’ll know Dante got the message.”

“And we’ll proceed with the plan,” Roy nodded and turned to his companion that night, “dinner?”

Riza hesitated, “It might be best to just get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow.”

“My treat,” Roy offered with a half grin.

A short laugh popped out of her that night and Riza conceded with a smile that filled Roy’s grin.

 


 

Even though it came from behind him, Al could sense there was someone suddenly standing in the doorway.  However, what caught him off guard when he looked, was that the military figure in the frame was his brother.

Ed’s arms tightened across his chest, closing his eyes he grumbled at Al’s reaction.

His shoulders riding high, Al cringed a little at the sight, “There will be no lifetime I live where I will be used to seeing you dressed like that.”  

“I never want there to be another point in my lifetime where I see myself dressed like this again,” Ed winced.

Returning the last chair to its place in the room the boys once sparred in, Al backed up to admire the room their teacher had taken apart and they’d put back together.  Suddenly shuffling into the room, Ed bumped into Al as he ducked out of the way of the doorframe.  Both brothers looked back into the hall as a collection of civilian and military men and women rushed by.

“There’re still a lot of people running around this time of day,” Al tried to peer around his brother.

“Yeah, when I went to see Armstrong, Lieutenant Breda mentioned they’re juggling a lot of people trying to stall for Mustang until he gets his ass back here.” 

“At least the plan is just Brigitte now,” Alphonse still enjoyed the massive sense of relief that came when Russell had contacted Central to update them on the situation, “that should make everything easier.”  

Stepping into the room a bit farther, Ed’s increasingly heavy gaze, unmasked by the absence of the hair in his face, remained focussed out the door.  Weighed down by a number of concerns, Ed’s voice came out heavy, and it was far more audibly noticeable than normal that the older brother’s voice had changed a bit while he’d been away.

“Al, make sure you’re careful when you see Dante.”

The younger brother flashed a grin up, “I’ll be careful.”

“Extra careful,” Ed scowled, “don’t get separated from Sensei.”

“I won’t,” considering how reckless Ed had been trying to act, Al was glad to hear his brother put his concerns into words - they would be both reassuring and motivating.

“Don’t get in over your head with her and don’t let her get in your head.  She’s a master manipulator,” the words rumbled through Ed’s voice.

“We know more about the Gate than she does, I have my memories, I have you, we have Winry, and we know the brigadier general’s on her doorstep.  I think we’re getting Brigitte back with the best hand we’ve ever had,” Alphonse offered his brother his best Elric grin and held up a fist, “plus, Sensei and I barely have to spend much time with her, since the brigadier general only needs to rescue Brigitte.  We’ll be fine.”

Edward matched the Elric grin, clenched his left hand, and bumped his brother’s fist.  The boys left the room dressed in their grins and headed down the main floor hall towards the building’s side stairwell.  Bounding a few steps ahead, Al let himself through the door, his grin bursting at the sight of Winry peering around the railing at him.

“Where the hell did you two go?” her voice crashed off the cement walls, “I’ve been sitting alone in here forever!  Where’s my hug?”

“You’re so bossy,” Al laughed and he threw his arms around her, getting tightly squeezed for his efforts.

Eventually letting the younger brother go, Winry peered around the stairwell railing again as Ed let the hallway door shut behind himself.  As one shut, another opened, and the heavy sound of a door from one of the upper floors echoed in the stairwell.  

Al tossed his voice up the stairs, “Sensei?”

Winry eyed Ed as he leaned against the rail, “Coast all clear, Officer?”

Ed scowled down at her, “Yes, Miss. Rockbell.”

The trio’s attention was snagged by the expected knock on the back door.  Al reached over and turned the latch, but took a startled step back when five military officers filed in.

“Sorry sir, ma’am,” the first man who entered stopped to address them, “there’s been too much activity lately, Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong ordered extra security.”

Winry tightened herself to the railing as one officer ran past her up the stairs.  Ed backed himself up against the outside of the railing as another officer marched past him and exited into the hotel hall.  Ed narrowed his eyes at the activity and slipped a hand through the stair railing, tapping Winry on the shoulder.  

Sticking his head out the side door into the late evening, Al peered into the alley.  The van Wrath had been taken in was still parked and the vehicle his brother and Winry were meant to go in had arrived with the engine running idle.  At each end of the side alley, a single military officer stood.  Al silently questioned that decision - having the alley guarded would draw attention and they were trying to leave with as little fanfare as possible.  The military presence was given further thought by the younger Elric; what was the point of sending someone up the stairs?  The upstairs floors were nothing but military personnel.  Why post a guard in the main floor hall when Mustang wanted no official looking activities taking place there?  It was yet another decision that drew attention.  

Al looked up and down the side alley again as he came to a realization: all four major points of exit had someone at them and there were three extra bodies clogging up the stairwell with them.  The younger brother’s brow knotted; there was nothing about this that felt like it lined up with how things should be functioning and Al hated this feeling in his stomach.  

Taking a deep breath, Al turned back into the building and stole a glance of his brother who was waiting for him to make eye contact.  That told Al all he needed to know and he flashed a childish smile at the three armed officers plugging the side exit as he shut the door.

“I’m so glad you guys care so much.”

Ed suddenly raised his voice, launching it abrasively off the cement walls, and he put Armstrong’s instincts to good use, “I thought I was assigned to cover this.  Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong didn’t apprise me of any changes.”

“You haven’t been removed, Officer,” the only man of the three who spoke looked at Ed, “we’re simply providing additional support for the transport.”

It took all of Al’s willpower not to slouch against the door in disappointment while he kept an interrogative eye on the charade.

His right eyebrow twitched involuntarily and Ed gestured down to Winry, who’d placed her toolkit across her lap, “I’m escorting a wounded civilian.  The boy’s not even part of this, his mum’s more than capable of taking care of him.  It’s a bit too much fuss if you ask me.”

“We’re not concerned about this woman,” the officer looked Winry over while her hands fiddled around the handles of her tool kit.

“Oh,” Ed let his voice echo lightly in the stairwell, carefully keeping his sarcasm at bay, “the concern is for Edward Elric, then?”

The response was curt, “Yes.”

His body filling with a stew of anger, annoyance, and disappointment, Al nearly smacked the back of his head against the door in frustration. Crap.

Walking around the bottom edge of the stairwell rails, Ed held out his right hand and Winry took it, “Well, then we’ll get going and you guys can take care of Mr. Elric when he shows up.”

“I’d prefer,” the unidentified officer stepped towards Ed, “if we all go together.”

“Nah,” Ed dragged his voice out and grinned over his shoulder, “we got this.”

Ed gripped Winry’s hand and yanked her up onto one foot.  Both swung around and Winry’s right arm flew out, the handle of her tool kit locked in her hand, and she launched the weighted, rock hard casing into the face of one of the two unspoken officers while Ed’s fist drilled into the one he’d been talking to.

Al scrambled to steady Winry as she stumbled back from the momentum.  Her tool kit crashed to the ground, a scattering of bloody teeth around it, and the first of five unidentified men collapsed to the floor, followed quickly by the next one Ed dropped.  

With the older brother tied up containing the last of the loitering trio, Al kept his thoughts focussed on the additional ‘officer’ somewhere up the stairwell.  Down on his knees with Winry at the base of the stairs, Al clapped his hands to create a hole into whatever the adjacent room was for her.

At the moment his hands met, Alphonse felt the power of his transmutation roar back on him.  He’d barely gotten comfortable with the hand clap in the first place and he had no idea what was suddenly going on.  The surge ran like a cascading electrical charge that was backfiring up his arms, shooting sparks up through his wrists, his forearms, and into his elbows.  Clenching his teeth, Al tried to force his body to relax and concentrate, trying to find a way to channel the flow of energy back into the palm of his hands.

His palms landed on the wall with an explosive spark and a mangled cavity large enough for a body to squeeze through opened up.  

“Get in there!” glancing up the stairs, Al gave Winry a shove towards the hole before he flew up to deal with the challenger thundering down to him.  

Taking the man’s legs out would only send him tumbling towards Winry, so Al opted for some height.  The lighter, nimble Elric jumped onto the stairwell railing, then hopped up, landing with a foot on the man’s shoulder.  A harsh hand fished for Al’s ankle, but the child-sized Elric wrapped his arms around the man’s head, vanished behind his vision, locked his elbow in under the chin, and yanked the man’s head back.  Al managed to pop his body overhead before his assailant finished falling backwards on the cement stairs.  Stumbling down the remaining steps, Al regained his bearings on the main floor.

“The door’s locked!”

Alphonse looked to the scene with his brother, much closer to the hallway door now.  Ed was holding his own in close quarters against the final man he’d just thrown an elbow into, but the talkative one had just managed to get back up.  

Dashing in to give his brother a hand, Al snatched up Winry’s toolkit from the floor by its handle, swooped in from below, and heaved the overweight case up into the chin of the combatant who’d just risen, returning him to the floor while Ed laid the final blow down on the last of the impersonating officers.

Ed shook out his right hand and flexed his fingers.

“Did you break something?” Al asked quickly.

“I hope not,” Ed snapped his glare to the hotel hallway door, giving it a swift kick, “whoever went through there locked it.”

Al scowled at the side exit, “There are two more waiting outside."

Ed matched his brother's scowl, "I'll see if I can open any of the doors on the upper floors.  Lock this one permanently so he can't get back in.”

The younger Elric spun around and honed his eye on the hallway door, "Got it."

Ed began making his way through the heaps of fallen men and Al dusted his hands off over his thighs.  Sucking in a deep breath through his nose, telling his mind to calm, Al flexed his fingers and brought his hands up.

A gust of wind blew over Alphonse’s back - it blew straight up his shirt, ran along his spine, and danced through the fine hairs on the back of his neck.  It was a chill that went up his spine, not down, and the younger brother’s pupils dilated, his heart stopped, and body went numb for a brief moment.  He stared straight ahead, completely out of focus.  The sound that accompanied the gust of wind was thunderous; it wasn’t deafening, it wasn’t shattering, but it thundered through him and subjected every inch of Al’s body to the tremor it caused.  Inexplicably frozen by the sensation, Al fought through the feeling and he peered over his shoulder.

A figure stood firm at the bottom of the stairs, dressed sharply in the Amestris military blues, watching while Ed fell away from the wall and collapsed to the ground, never making a sound.  The seam at Al’s lips peeled apart and his voice cracked from the gasp he made as Aisa snapped a cold, deadened look over her shoulder and locked it on the small Elric.

 


 

Once the townsfolk of Xenotime moved a few horses and donkeys, Wrath was anchored to two smith’s anvils that had been hauled in - they’d needed two when the homunculus showed he had enough strength to move a single.  Wrath’s captors had tried to gag him, but his teeth shredded everything they put near his face.  It took until the moon was high for him to fall somewhat docile and the last of the men watching him decided on who would remain behind to watch their captive that night. 

As calm settled into the midnight, Dante turned up to claim him.  Neither of the night watchmen heard or saw her coming, the only sound Dante made was the handclap she offered before she stopped their hearts.

Arriving like a ghost, the tiny, annoyed devil never let Wrath know she’d appeared until she huffed at him, startling the creature.  Her petite expression cross and her eyes flaring with rage, Dante presented herself with more wrath than the homunculus to loomed over.  Dolled up in a white nightgown with ruffles that tickled her ankles and bound hair in braids with bows, if Dante had ever managed to master the skill to kill on sight, Wrath’s existence would have ended right then and there.  Glowering at the scene of a bound homunculus beneath a shoddy wooden stable canopy, she didn’t offer any words or salutations, she just simply clapped her hands and released him.  

“How did you get here?” Dante abruptly squeaked, producing the most jarring sound a child could make, “how did you manage to lose your arm?”

Gathering himself on hand and knees, Wrath rattled in the chains he’d been bound with, now a discarded mess around his body, “I don’t want my arm back.”

“Good, I wasn’t going to spend any resources to get another one for you.” Dante’s tiny voice was thick with disregard, practically echoing within the wooden structure, “what do you think you’re doing causing this much racket all the way out here?  I have enough to focus on with these government baboons.  I left you in Central for a reason.”

A high pitched, nasally whine cut through the night before Wrath finally cried to her, “I don’t want to be there anymore.” 

“That’s too bad,” Dante replied like a parent scolding their disobedient child, “that's where you’re going back to.”

“NO,” Wrath wailed in protest until his words finally managed to offer a reason to change her mind, “that woman!  That woman who’s not my mom - Izumi!  She told me to come.  She made me come.  She said you’d give me red stones if I gave you a message.”

Pausing to consider Wrath’s message, a bitter glee leached into Dante’s tone and her tiny hands found her straight hips, “Oh, really?  Is that what we’re doing now?  What was the message?”

Wrath was hesitant, rustling around in his chains while he got his thoughts in order, “She wanted me to tell you she wants to see you in the underground city.”

Dante’s tone was miserably whimsical as her expression widened, “She sent you all the way out here with an invite?  I see the favour is being returned to me.  I assume she told you why?”

“She, um, wanted to trade ‘Brigitte’ for alchemy from beyond the… G…” Wrath’s voice audibly shook, “G-gate.”

The soles of Dante’s shoes scuffed the dirt and she slowly strolled through the glowing strips of moonlight falling through the seams of the wooden canopy, “Ed’s already divulging his knowledge… and they’re going to graciously give me some if I give them Brigitte?” she offered a haughty little scoff to the plan.  Pivoting abruptly, Dante’s tiny toes carved into the dirt floor of the stables, “There’s no reason for them to even consider I’d bring Brigitte.  Izumi knows me better than that.  I won’t even humour them with it… so,” Dante tossed her last syllable around playfully, “Is this an ambush?  A brazen ambush in my own home?  Hardly.  Izumi isn’t foolish enough to try,” she squeaked before trying to force away the childish sound of her voice, “but, if Ed has already begun educating everyone with alchemy from beyond the Gate…”

Rattling through the chains around his ankles, Wrath cringed and he curled into himself uncomfortably at the mention of it.

“What is your problem, Wrath?”  Dante snapped at the unbecoming behaviour of what should have been a feral homunculus 

“The Gate was so loud!” Wrath's voice scratched around in the midnight.

Dropping her shoulders, Dante’s tiny hands snapped out to her sides in exasperation, “Yes, you’ve told me time and again that you cannot stand how noisy the Gate is.”

“No, Dante!” Wrath desperately pleaded with her, “it was different this time!”

With the breath used to utter a few short words, Wrath unexpectedly flushed away Dante’s annoyance.  Tipping her head, she carefully examined the curious wording of the homunculus before taking an intrigued step towards him, “This time?”

The panic in Wrath’s tone calmed, “Yeah.”

Dante’s arms swept up and folded across her chest.  Through the thin rays of dusty moonlight, Dante slowly dug her toes into the dirt at her feet and approached Wrath, “How were you able to see the Gate ‘this time’?” 

“It came from my arm and leg,” was the best way Wrath could explain.

“You don’t…” the frustration boiled up in Dante’s voice and her arms tightened as she continued her approach, sending her shoulders to her ears, “you don’t have an arm.”

Wrath threw out his good arm in protest, his voice so loud it unsettled every creature in earshot, “THE OTHER ONE!”

Pausing in mid-stride, Dante stared with wondrous wide eyes at the partially re-constructed homunculus.  The foul frustration that Dante had sewn into her childish face began to come undone and the stitches of a tiny smile began to show.  In the dark, silent overnight, her tight arms loosened, her tense posture eased, and Dante’s voice softened as her young, eager eyes dug into Wrath. 

“You mean the flesh ones?”

Bowing his head, Wrath nodded.

“Ed got his arm and leg back…” spoken with the childish wonder of Nina’s guise, Dante’s smile tore through her as she marvelled at the prospect. 

Was it something Al had done?  Or had it happened on the other side?  How Dante wished she could have been there when he’d extracted Edward - to have felt that power, to have seen that world, to have had everything in her grasp, and enjoyed it all with him.  Al had the kind of experience Dante had longed for: to reach into the heart of the Gate and take something .  How much easier everything would be if she hadn’t been sent away and given this wretched body rot.  Dante looked down at the last homunculus she had left - a young, defective creature that sat frightened by an entity that made her heart race with excitement, set her imagination free, and offered her an escape of the boundaries of her world if only she could conquer it.  Washing away the frustration and anger that remained on her face, Dante kicked aside the chains Wrath hadn’t quite escaped.  Orchestrating the soft moment she’d offer him, Dante eased her tone, sweetened her inflections, and she knelt down with her dishevelled homunculus and wrapped him up in false securities. 

“Don’t worry, Wrath.  I promise I will not allow anyone to send you to the Gate,” Dante slowed her words and made her speech precise as she sought clarification of the riddle Wrath gave her, “If Ed has his arm and leg back, I need to know how they managed to frighten you with the Gate this time?”

Puzzled how a detail so trivial he loathed seemed so important to her, Wrath simply stated, “He showed it to me.”

Falling deaf to the world around her, Dante’s pounding heart filled her ears with excitement.  

“Ed did that?  Really?”  

The woman who terrorized a nation’s people to gain some resemblance of even footing with the Gate scrambled to concoct a scenario for how this could even be possible.  She wasn’t sure she could.  Dante could count on a single hand how many times she’d felt this kind of enigmatic energy flow through her veins.  The kind of energy that made her knees weak and her breaths harder to come by: sheer excitement.

“Ed showed you the Gate?”  

Wrath nodded cautiously, uncertain how to interpret Dante’s reaction.

Slipping a tiny hand over her mouth, the corners of her incredulous smile leaked out.  Edward Elric had access to the Gate.  What could he have possibly learnt in the world beyond to give him such power?  Sweeping to her feet, Dante drifted away from Wrath, her toes barely touching the ground as she wandered through the seams of moonlight decorating the air in the dark midnight stables.  

If Ed had access to the Gate, then Dante didn’t need a tool like a Diana any more.  She didn’t need any ill conceived infant.  She didn’t need any of that bothersome, cumbersome trouble to make that structure show itself to her, all she needed was him .

“Well,” pursing her lips, Dante’s cheeks dimpled as she fought against the smile that sought to foolishly overwhelm her, “I want him to show me too.”

“NO DANTE,” Wrath shrieked and lunged towards her, scattering the chains that had trapped him and he hastily crawled free.  Grabbing her arm, Wrath was shoved back down into the dirt as Dante tossed him away.  From his hand and knees, Wrath looked up pleadingly into the intense, compassionless gaze she put him beneath, “Dante, you don’t want him to!”

“Oh yes, I very much do,” Dante wrung her index fingers through her long braids as she walked away from Wrath, stringing them out until they fell neatly over her shoulders.  Her hands swept up in front of her, like a conductor drawing her musicians to the ready, and the tips of her fingers landed together lightly on her lips, “And when Aisa finds him and gets here with him, I’ll have Ed show me the Gate too.”

“DANTE!”

“You wanted red stones?  Let’s go, Wrath.”

Dante sauntered away from the stable where Wrath remained on his hand and knees desperately pleading with her.  Soaked in moonlight as she stepped out from beneath the wooden canopy, the sound of Nina’s giggles rang out like church bells in the starry night.

 


To Be Continued...


 

Notes:

Welp, we’ve reached that point where I’ve caught up to myself. Chapter 50 is proving to be a challenge, so it won't be ready for next Sunday. July was fun for everyone though I hope :D I’ve never had so much ready to post before! Unfortunately, we’re on to the Waiting Game.

10K plotfic chapters are hard to schedule, but Ch 50 will be August Sometime and we’ll see how things go after that. Historically, the older chapters went up every 3-4 weeks. Feel free to subscribe (if you haven't yet) so you don’t miss anything!

Chapter 50: Best Laid Plans

Summary:

Dante's preemptive move on Ed and Al forces everyone's plans to be adjusted.

Notes:

✨ It's my 50th chapter and I've surpassed 500,000 words ✨

Thank you so much for reading this far!!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text


 

Alphonse’s cheek slammed against the metal floor of the van.  Pinned on his stomach by Aisa and frantically trying to look back, he heard the engine rev, and felt the tires spin as the vehicle fishtailed before it shot forwards.  

Above all of the deafening noises in the chaos, Al heard the familiar sound of clapped hands that preceded the crackle of life spawned by an alchemical transmutation. 

Al gasped as the vehicle suddenly became airborne, leaving all of the occupants momentarily hanging weightlessly while they flew.

The van landed heavily, like its seams were ready to burst.  It rocked wildly from the left set of wheels to the right, causing one of the open cab doors to slam shut, and yet managed to not roll over and keep going.  One of the impersonating officers from the alley, who’d thrown himself into the back of the van when all hell broke loose, rushed through the hollow vehicle and pounded on the metal wall.

"DRIVE!"

“SENSEI!!” Al’s voice tore through his throat repeatedly, until a shadow cast over him and a thickly wound cloth gag caught in his mouth.  

“I need one of the boxes,” Aisa demanded once the remaining door to the van was eventually pulled shut. 

Twisting his head as the shadow returned, Alphonse watched in alarm as the militarily dressed man answering to Aisa knelt down at his head.  Aisa forced Al’s arms out above his head, her grip impossibly firm.  Through his useless struggles, he felt two chilled, metal columns capture his wrists, and then Al’s eyes opened to see the large, cumbersome, rectangular metal box that snared his hands.  A key sealed the container leaving the young Elric's hands uselessly spread apart inside a cold cage so large that the tips of his fingers couldn’t meet.  

With his alchemy contained, the moment Aisa released control of his arms, Al tried to turn the box into a weapon.  Though his core was still pinned beneath her, the younger Elric tossed his arms around wildly, trying to hit something , then Al added his legs to the frustration driven tantrum.

“Tie his ankles,” Aisa ordered, like Al’s thrashing was more of a nuisance than a concern.

Screaming through his gag and slamming the heavy metal box containing his hands to the van floor, Alphonse lost the freedom of his legs.

“Ma’am,” a heavy voice moved around to Al’s right side, “we didn’t have enough time to get the woman out of the wall.”

“That’s fine,” Aisa answered, easing the physical constraint she placed Al under, “her presence was unexpected.”

Jerking his body as Aisa let up on him, Al was finally able to turn over enough to scan the mess of unconscious bodies that lay tossed about on the floor of the van.  Unable to put any coherent thought together, Al felt the lump in his throat swell as the man impersonating an officer pulled his brother’s body into view.

“I don’t think this is him,” the man with a square jaw and stubble for hair ripped Ed’s left pant leg out from his boot.

Her concern for Alphonse vanishing entirely, Aisa rose to her feet and turned her attention onto the golden blonde officer not included in their party.  

“This guy’s not even close to the description we got,” the man threw his hands in frustration, “he’s too tall, too old, and there’s no damn AutoMail on him.”

Illuminated by a single hanging bulb dancing wildly overhead, a blank look devoid of life remained stapled to Aisa’s face.  Dropping to a squat, Aisa picked up Ed’s right wrist and inspected his hand.  Like a scientist assessing a specimen, her hands carefully tested each finger, examined his nails, inspected the slash through the palm of his hand, and eyed the bloodied knuckles he’d gotten from all the swings he’d taken.  Letting the arm drop, Aisa’s gaze wandered to the exposed flesh of his left calf, then moved her attention back up to analyze the contours of his face.  Rising over him on her knees, Aisa looked down into the tired, darkened caves of his closed eyes.  She scanned the scar that was settling on his right cheek and examined the firm jawline of what was inarguably a young adult.

“Dammit,” Aisa’s voice nipped in a rare display of emotion.

“You said that little one was useful?”

“He is, yes,” turning her attention to Al and watching the younger brother scowl uselessly back at her, Aisa adjusted her expectations accordingly, “he has information and we can draw the FullMetal Alchemist out with him.  We proceed.”

Grinding his teeth down on the gag like he had the power of wrath to shred it, Al lurched forwards and slammed the box containing his hands down onto the floor of the van.  Splitting his furious glare between the two blights conversing over his brother, Al caught Ed’s eyes flicker open, before they closed again when the false officer refocussed on him.

“What do you want done with this one?” the man gestured to the unidentified Elric who lay motionless at his feet.

“He’s waste,” rising to her feet and ducking away from the light hanging overhead, Aisa strode towards Al, “Shoot him and toss the body.”

Tearing a shrill noise out from behind the gag as Aisa approached, Al flew up onto his knees, raised his arms above his head, and slammed the metal box down on the floor of the van again.  Swinging behind Al, Aisa grabbed him by the shirt collar and hauled him backwards, dragging the younger Elric away while he watched the man standing over his brother snap his gun free from his holster on the back of his belt and bring it out in front of himself.  

Ed’s eyes snapped wide.  

Bouncing his hips off the ground, Ed thrust his left boot straight up through the man’s hands, kicking the weapon from his grasp, ricocheting it off the roof, and hearing it crash down on the floor somewhere above his head.  With the momentum from the kick, Ed rolled over his shoulders, landed on his knees, and his hand swept the floor, picking up the relinquished gun.  Digging his toes into the grip of his boots, the elder brother sprung forward.  Ed thrust his fist into the man’s gut with his right hand, cracked him across the face with the butt end of the gun in his left, then brought his leg up and slammed the man into the wall of the van with the base of his boot.

Swift movement in the corner of his eye caused Ed to snap the weapon out to his side.  He pulled the trigger once before his golden eyes flew wide when he saw Aisa’s hand fearlessly dive in and crush the barrel of the weapon.  Her palm collapsing the gun with ease, Ed let go before his fingers were included in the crumpling mess.  The woman’s other hand charged in, crashed into the Elric’s chest, and drove him back until Aisa slammed him into the van doors.  Ed choked on the pressure and slipped against the door, feeling a latch give way against his backside.

In an instant, one of the two van doors swung open into the late evening.  Ed fell away from Aisa and nearly tumbled out the backside of the van as it tore through Central City’s eastern side.  Desperately clinging to the inside of the other sealed door, Ed couldn’t get any footing - every time one of his feet hit the ground, the leg was thrown out behind him from the vehicle’s speed, nearly ripping him from the door.  Curling his legs up and focussing all his energy into his arms as he tried to haul himself back into the vehicle, Ed looked up at Aisa as she eclipsed the van’s interior light.  Rearing back, she moved her balance over onto a single foot and raised the other.  

Standing high on his knees, his hands sealed, his ankles bound, and his words constricted, Alphonse watched Aisa’s foot crash down on the latch of the other door, sending it flying wildly open, and flinging his brother away into the unlit streets at Central City’s eastern edge.  

Al sat back on his knees and stared without his thoughts as the opened van doors crashed around, unable to find any visual signs of his brother banished to the night.  His posture continued to disintegrate as Aisa put an end to the echo in the van and she pulled the doors shut.  In the comparative peace that followed, Al locked his blank, centred gaze onto Aisa and watched the woman cut through the vehicle until she loomed over the impaired little brother.  Struggling to swallow properly with the gag in his mouth, Al leaned back as Aisa knelt down in front of him.  

Snatching the tiny Elric by his chin, the woman looked into a pair of eyes that remained inexplicably golden, “Dante won’t be disappointed to see you again.”

 


 

“Winry, please, ” Fuery pleaded.

Standing high on her knees atop a familiar bed, in a room she couldn’t seem to get away from, Winry had absolutely no intention of leaving it this time.

“You will have to haul my cold, dead body out of this building if you want me gone,” the sleepless girl yelled back, “I’m not going anywhere until Ed and Al are back here.”

The officer’s hands cautiously reached forward as he tried to take another step into the room, but backed off when Winry whipped a pair of pliers and embedded them into the door.  

In an unforeseeable, critical error Fuery made amidst all the chaos, the officer returned Winry’s tool case to her and, the moment she had it, the young mechanic became endowed with a seemingly endless supply of weaponry.  Refusing to entertain anyone who came near her with even the slightest notion she should head north on her own, Winry turned her entryway into a minefield of sharp, weighted debris, and chunks of wall plaster, and there seemed to be no end in sight.  

At a loss for what to do about the overtired, armed girl fortifying herself, Fuery stood at the precipice of Winry’s room and started picking up the tools she’d tossed.  He began pitching them out into the hallway, figuring her tool case had to run out some time and he could at least prevent her from refueling it.  As tools began filling the hall outside her room, a heavy set of feet thundered down the hall and burst into Winry’s doorway before Fuery could do anything to stop it.

“WHY ARE YOU STILL-” 

A screwdriver embedded into the partially opened door next to Lieutenant Breda’s ear.  

The officer froze, too exasperated and frazzled to be able to pale, and he watched warily from the corner of his eye as the door creaked shut a little farther. 

Breda snapped out of the moment, “Winry!  Get in the damned car and get out of here.”

“No,” a fat wrench spun into her fingers and her eyes glowed with a hot blue flame, “I’m staying here until Ed and Al get back.”

The officer threw his arms out at his sides, “Everything’s getting turned upside down, we don’t have the resources to make sure you’re safe.”

Wrinkling her nose, Winry’s brow crashed down over her eyes, her upper lip curled, and her fingers danced around the body of her wrench before she re-gripped it, “I can take care of myself.”

“No, you can’t!  You can’t even walk properly!” Breda shot back, “please just-”

“I said ‘No’,” she squared herself off with the lieutenant at the centre of her bed, “I am not going anywhere by myself.  I will be here when Ed and Al get back, because you are getting them back.”

“YES, we are.  We absolutely are,” the officer’s posture sagged at the nearly catastrophic failure they were trying to manage, “Izumi already kidnapped Falman and is following them and we’re still trying to reach the brigadier general in Xenotime, but we can’t get the damned phones to connect.  There’s just a lot of shit going on and we want you to be safe, but safe somewhere else.  We don’t know how many people from the influxes were tied to Dante yet.  Please, just get in the car and go.”

Her shoulders shooting to her ears, Winry’s teeth grinded as her grip tightened around her wrench, “No.”

“Winry!”

When Breda made the mistake of stepping forwards, the wrench in Winry’s hand was launched and the lieutenant managed to vanish behind her door as the makeshift weapon embedded into the wood as it finished closing.  Winry heard the officer take a few steps backwards through the hall, stumbling through the tools Fuery had littered the floor with.  Behind her closed, but unlatched door, Winry finally heard Breda give a disgruntled ‘fuck it’ before his feet thundered away.  

In a room she’d thought she’d seen the last of, Winry stood on her knees atop her bed and brought her eyes down off the damaged entryway and then farther to her opened tool case.  Tired, distraught blue eyes stared at the armoury of tools she had left, laying in total disarray.  Letting her shoulders droop and arms hang at her sides, Winry’s head reminded her that it was still pounding.  She wanted to cry; her emotions were so jumbled and her head a chaotic mess after everything that happened, Winry didn’t know what else to do.  Why did this have to be what finally brought her to tears after coming home?  Why not all of the nightmares of the gunshots that marred her leg?  Why not everything in the Thule Hall?  Why not that entire exhausting journey?  Why was she bottled up with that, but could look at herself now, standing over her tools, and feeling like she was on the verge of falling apart over Ed and Al?  

Why couldn’t they all just go home?

She just wanted to go home.

Thoughtlessly, Winry sank back on her knees and awkwardly had to pop her legs out from beneath herself when her left calf reminded her she was still wounded.  Sliding onto her hip, Winry eyed the mess remaining in her tool case and questioned whether it was worth going to the door to pick anything up.  

Before sinking too far in a swell of misery, Winry was thrown back onto her knees as the door to the room opened again.  Yielding slightly at the presence that entered, her eyes cautiously watched a very sombre, weary-looking Alex Louis Armstrong make his way through her door and into her room.

“I’m not leaving,” Winry’s words took up her defensive position again.

“And I don’t have anyone available to guard you,” was the response.

The cumbersome burden brought on by the onus of miscalculations made over the last few days added a phenomenally uncomfortable weight to Armstrong’s words.  Winry’s defensive posture began to cede at the downtrodden sound of his voice, but her words remained stubborn.

“I don’t need protection.”

The man spoke too quietly for someone of his size, “Look at your condition and you’ll see that you do.”

Winry recoiled; she was well aware she was a burden like this.  She still couldn’t walk on her own, Ed carried her everywhere, Al brought her meals throughout the day, and a doctor still saw her once in a while.  Utterly useless, Al had shoved Winry into a hole leading to a storage closet and she was condemned to do nothing but listen to the chaos that went on in the stairwell, because she couldn’t get the storage room door unlatched from the inside.  

And even if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to run for help.  

Winry took a deep breath and tightened her jaw firmly as she voiced a sinking feeling, “If Dante has Ed and Al now… why would she bother to come back for me?”

Her poignant words weighed down the large shoulders of Armstrong further, but he countered her with an emotive concern, “I’m certain your grandmother would appreciate it if we did our best to protect you.”

Winry cringed as her grandmother, who she hadn’t seen or spoken to in nearly half a year, was pulled into the battle.  The young mechanic clenched her fists as her eyes fell down to her tool case, “Can I call her?”

“No,” Armstrong replied.

Winry’s shoulders rose, “Has anybody been able to tell her where I am yet?  That I’m okay?”

“No,” the morose officer gave a single shake of his head.

Snapping her gaze up again, Winry locked a steadfast glare on the man’s refusal and dug her weakened heels in again, “I’m not going north by myself.  Pretend I’m not here.  I won’t bother anyone.  I just want to be here when Ed and Al get back.  They are coming back and we’re going home.”

In the middle of a chaotic night, Armstrong slowly drew his arms up and he folded them across his broad chest.  The alchemist let his eyes walk around the room while his thoughts wandered around the situation in his head.  Sending his focus to the ceiling, Armstrong allowed a quiet moment in the overnight hour, before giving the argument one last address. 

“For the immediate future, I am in need of every hand I trust, and even some I certainly don't.  The moment I can spare someone long enough for the trip, you will be sent north and you will not be allowed to contest that.”  

Winry clenched her hands and looked down at her open tool case without a reply.

Turning to leave her room, Armstrong left her with one last offering, “You need rest.  Get some sleep.”

Clenching her eyes shut as the imposing man left her room, in an over-tired, worn out, childish display of behaviour, Winry’s arms shot out and grabbed the lid of her tool case.  She slammed it shut so hard it nearly bounced off her bed and a wave of blonde hair flew around her body as Winry turned around and dropped herself face first into the sheets.

 


 

At far too early of an hour, a sliver of orange began to glow on the eastern horizon.  With the new day dawning at his back, Havoc steered the rusty tractor he drove into a weary looking district in East City.  Rectangular, formulaic residences and buildings, all at equal height with nothing decorative that stood out, lined the roads - residential relics of a commune-style division of the city from an experiment decades passed.  Havoc slowed as he made his way through the neighbourhood, finally allowing the tractor to proceed below its maximum speed, though it did very little to quiet the noise it, and the wooden cart he was towing, made. 

Slowing to a near crawl, another firm yank on the steering wheel brought the tractor around ninety-degrees and the officer slowly inched the rickety contraption into a space between two buildings.  With the walls of the buildings practically hugging the vehicle, Havoc brought it in deep enough that the back hitch was tucked away as well, before he finally parked it.  Hopping out of the driver’s seat and into the sludge of an alley, the officer made his way back to the wobbly cart and tucked his head under the tarp.

“Alright, gang.  Time to stretch your legs.”

The tired heads of the Xenotime party nodded silently and began to rise.  Rose slipped out into the predawn light of East City first with her baby strapped to her chest, Fletcher followed close behind, and Russell’s backside popped out last as he pulled Maria to the edge of the wooden trailer.

Russell emerged and looked over to Havoc, “You want me to carry her?”

Havoc debated the request, “Yeah, if you can?”

“No problem.”

Sliding around, Havoc helped set Maria on Russell’s back as the young man knelt down to take her weight.  The older Tringham brother adjusted Maria to secure her, straightened up tall again, and nodded to Havoc to get going.  

Leading the procession, Havoc headed deeper into the alley he’d blocked.  Squeezing between the space of a fat tractor wheel and the brick wall, the officer made his way through, and one by one his company followed suit.  

Like he had the route memorized, Havoc guided the troupe through a weave that toured them around the back doors of worn and weary housing complexes.  Building after building presenting units with the only unique feature appearing to be their suite number, all sealed with metal doors, modest walks with patches of dead grass, and every main floor window protected with bars.  

The Xenotime procession followed in silence, nearly single file, as their eyes soaked in the cold, oppressing environment.  Skipping around to the side of a complex, Havoc eyed two basement side entrances, each with crumbling sets of stairs that had been carved into the ground.  At the second entrance, Havoc told his company to sit with their backs against the outside wall and wait.  Grabbing the black, rusted handrail, the officer made his way down the basement staircase and stepped into a lingering puddle at the door.  He firmly rattled a pattern off his knuckles on the door, took a deep breath, and put his arms behind his back.

Havoc was left standing in the smell of mold and uncomfortable silence to the point he debated knocking again.  Before he could negotiate rattling his knuckles once more, the apartment label of 408B slid open and an eye popped into the gap.

“Jean!?” a hoarse voice gasped.

The officer was more than relieved he didn’t have to knock again as he listened to chains coming undone, “I’m really sorry for the hour.”

The heavy metal door grinded open, the hinges nearly uncooperative, and an old man’s tired, age-weary face peered out, “What are you doing here?  What are you doing in East City at all?”

Havoc stiffened his posture and sharply bowed his head, “Sir, I’m sorry, but I have people who need a place to remain unseen and we need an alchemist doctor.”

The door groaned as it was opened a little farther, but the elder man’s presentation grew cautious.  Summoning Havoc into the unlit suite, the older man shut the door behind the out-of-uniform officer before speaking again. 

“I haven’t practiced alchemy for medical purposes since Marcoh vanished.”

“I understand that,” Havoc’s eyes lingered on the door over his shoulder, examining the multitude of locks barring entry, before readdressing the man he was seeking aid from, “but, you’re the only one I can think of in East City who can help.”

“Help with what, exactly?” the man crossed his arms tightly at his chest.

“We have a comrade who’s head’s been…” Havoc trailed off, not entirely sure just how he was supposed to even begin addressing this, “I guess it’s been scrambled by someone we think was either using either Red Stones or the Philosopher’s Stone itself to extract information.”

From beneath heavy grey eyebrows, the man’s eyes found a way to widen, “What!?  Good God.”

“She seems to be coming out of it slowly,” looking around the room, Havoc found only a few covered windows near the ceiling providing any notice to the outside world that someone lived there, “but we don’t know anything about what’s been done to her or how to help her.  It’s totally out of our league.”

“It’s out of my league, too,” the owner of the unit conceded.

Havoc’s expression tightened, “It’s closer to your league than anyone else.”

With a sigh, the elder man reluctantly began to cave, “You said you have ‘people’ who need to remain unseen.  How many people?”

“The one who needs medical attention,” Havoc cautiously looked around the solitary man’s small, drab suite, “a woman and her infant, plus two young men.”

Five? ” the man Havoc sought aid from took a step back and gawked at the officer, “I-I can barely accommodate one extra.  I don’t even think I have enough sheets to cover that many, let alone somewhere they can rest comfortably.”

Again, Havoc bowed his head, “No one is looking for comfort or hospitality of any kind.  I just need an alchemical doctor and somewhere to hide them safely.”

Rolling his head back, the elder man reluctantly let his shoulders fall, “Bring them in.”  

Thanking him profusely, Havoc abruptly popped out of the door and summoned the collection of Xenotime escapees into the dim basement home.  The man of the house rushed to his linen closet, throwing open the wooden door and hauling out an armfull of whatever he thought might be helpful.  As the group gathered silently near the front door of the un-notable dwelling, Russell was ushered over to the couch with Maria.  

The man, who would become Maria’s doctor, took a look at Rose and Fletcher in his entry and placed his armload of linens down for them, but picked up a grey latch box from the bundle, “The bathroom is just on the other side of the wall if you need to tend to your child or wish to have a shower.  Young man, I’ll ask you to let the lady go first.”

Fletcher clasped his hands behind his back, “Of course, Sir.  Thank you.”

Turning from his entryway guests to the ones clogging his couch, the grey latch box was sat down on a small side table and the elder man moved in to join the vigil Havoc and Russell held over Maria.

“Who is she?”

“Second Lieutenant Maria Ross,” Havoc answered.

The wouldbe doctor eyed the unconscious woman laid out on his couch, “I’ve never heard of her.”

“She’s not under Brigadier General Mustang,” Havoc said, “she’s an officer under Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong.”

“Ah,” the elder man finally sat down at Maria’s side, “and you, young man?”

Russell’s eyes widened, “Me?”

“Yes, you, Son,” the man of the house collected Maria’s wrist and started his assessment with her pulse, “what’s your name?”

“Russell, Sir.  Russell Tringham, and that’s my…” 

The older brother’s words faded as the old man’s shaken gaze snapped over his shoulder and captured the teenager.

“... brother… Fletcher.”

The doctor looked the boy standing near Havoc’s side over more than once from head to toe, “As in Nash Tringham?” 

“He was my father,” Russell answered uncomfortably, “were you acquainted?”

The wide, disconcerting gaze the old man subjected Russell to held on silently for far too long, before an answer was finally given.

“No.”

“Okay,” Russell glanced away.

Turning back to Maria, the elder doctor readjusted his hold on her wrist as he refocussed, “Jean, how long is everyone here for?”

Havoc rolled his shoulders and scratched the back of his head uncomfortably, “Until the brigadier general gets out of Xenotime and can give us the all clear.”

“Xenotime!?” again the attempt at taking Maria’s pulse was interrupted, “isn’t he in Central City inciting an insurrection?”

“Yeah, he sure is,” Havoc nodded, “and he’s also in Xenotime.”

A wrinkled hand came up and the tired, elder doctor rubbed his eyes, “Who’s running the operation in Central then?”

“Mustang is,” the lieutenant answered with a smile.

The doctor’s confusion gave way to a light, hesitant laugh, “Very well.”  Reaching for the grey latch box he’d dug out from the back of his linen closet, the doctor re-focussed on his patient once again.

 


 

Adjusting his ponytail a little higher, Ed wound the length of hair on top of his head and pulled the flatcap down to hide it up there.  He tucked his bangs away, ran his index finger around his collar, adjusting his shirt cuffs, smoothing his vest, straightening his pants, and tapped the tips of his shoes on the wooden floor.  Ed slipped on a pair of gloves to hide the torn up state of his hands and eyed himself in the full length mirror once more.

“This’ll do.”

The shop owner nodded and quietly slipped into the back room to tuck away the slightly damaged Amestris military uniform he’d been offered.  

From the moment Edward found himself staring at the taillights of the transport van heading to Xenotime with Alphonse inside, his ability to get there himself evaporated.  With practically no vehicle traffic in or out of Central City, what little there was available throughout the night wouldn’t even give him the time of day.  Everyone - from truck drivers to pedestrians - took one look at him and disregarded his existence.  The one driver who actually did acknowledge Ed tried to run him over.  Hitchhiking was so much easier when he was a kid.  Hitchhiking was so much easier when he didn't look like he belonged to the damned military.  Ed’s hair was undone, the jacket came off, the backside cape was detached, and his other pant leg was plucked free from the boot so he could at least walk the late night streets without worrying about being jumped.  

By the time he’d gotten around to forsaking the military getup, the day had gotten too late and the clock had moved on to tomorrow.  Traffic was non-existent and what trains did move during the day weren’t going at night.  

A bleak prospect began to sink in - the shutdown of Central City, caused by the government instability, meant Ed couldn’t start a journey to Xenotime until at least sunrise. 

Looking at his bruised and scraped up state, the elder Elric chose to focus on the two things he needed the most: money and transportation.  And he needed both of those at two in the morning.  Already five or six hours behind the people he was chasing, Ed could have just shattered a car window in frustration if he’d had a clue how to hotwire one.  

Returning to Mustang’s operations base wasn’t an option; Ed wasn’t going to get two words in before he’d be sent somewhere north of North City. 

As the sun crept over rooftops at dawn, Ed continued wandering in the under-kept side of east Central City he'd landed in, trying to find out which of the second-hand stores or pawn shops would entertain paying someone for an Amestris military uniform, until finally some tired soul loitering in the street gave him a name.  Ed planted himself at the store’s rear door to meet the owner and collected a decent bounty on his uniform.  Re-dressing himself into something he’d gotten more accustomed to wearing, Ed finally acknowledged he was now at least twelve hours behind his brother.  

Ed wanted to rip the store walls apart with his bare hands in frustration.  Al was nearly half way to Xenotime and Ed was stuck in some piss-poor pocket of Central City. 

As the bell hanging above the door rang behind him and the latch clicked shut, Ed stopped, scratched his hands feverishly through his tired face, and he tried to assess if it was even feasible to plan a trip out to Xenotime now.  

The most expedited way would be to either hitch a ride on a train to East City or hitchhike, and then he needed to find additional transportation in Xenotime’s direction after that.  Both options were plausible but, no matter what option he took, by the time he’d get to East City, Ed would be at least fourteen hours behind his brother.  There wasn’t a single option available that would let him gain time on the van taking Al to meet Dante.  

Ed dropped his backside onto a rusted, metal bench and dumped his head into his hands.

There were a few blank minutes in Ed’s head and he tried to fill them.  The woman with the monstrous strength had to be Aisa, and if Aisa was being actively used, then her usefulness to Dante was nearing an end.  That opened up a whole new can of worms for everyone: it added an untold amount of Red Stones and the final Philosopher’s Stone fragments to the equation.

Winry wasn’t in the van, which should mean she’d been left behind, so Ed concluded she would have been able to tell his teacher and Armstrong what had happened, if they didn't already know.  Someone, at the very least Izumi, would be pursuing that van all the way to Xenotime and Armstrong would definitely try to reach Mustang to update him.  

If he were lucky, Ed would be half a day behind not only his brother’s captors, but also people perfectly capable of dealing with the situation, even before he got to East City.  

Picking his heavy head up, Ed looked around the early morning streets in the rundown mercantile district of Central City.  While the day to day citizens moved about around him, the city structure that governed them stood at a standstill - Mustang was stalling.  It was half the reason Ed was stuck where he was and Mustang was doing it because it was in contradiction to what Dante had laid out for the man and Ed wholeheartedly agreed with the approach.  

With both Al on his way and Brigitte already there, Dante's next dish was a salivating plate of motivation for Edward Elric and he had every reason to go storming into Xenotime after it.

His shoulders rose in frustration; Dante was counting on him to do just that.  

Her orchestrations hinged on everyone behaving exactly as she believed each would and Dante’s plans for Ed hinged on him not having grown out of the seventeen-year-old she was expecting him to still be.  Rubbing his hands through his eyes, Ed bemoaned the feeling boiling in his core that wanted him to be exactly what Dante was expecting.  Rushing after his brother was exactly what Ed wanted to do.  It was what he felt he needed to do.  It was what he believed he had the responsibility to do.  He was really, really sick and tired of having people he cared about used against him.

But, in order to counter Dante’s ploy, Ed was left to stare at the option everyone had been begging him to choose from the start: stay back and trust that the people around him could handle things without him.  

As the bubbling frustration fueled by a sleepless night boiled over, Ed slammed his hands down on the bench, threw himself to his feet, took half a step into the sidewalk, and walked right into someone.

Colliding with a body that was thrown off balance by his surge in momentum, Ed tried to grab whoever he’d walked in to, but found his arms suddenly stuffed with a wide box instead.  Staggering to rebalance himself and hold the weight of an oversized box, Ed’s hat tumbled off his head while he looked down at the person he’d knocked on their backside early that morning.

“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” Ed adjusted his grip and eyed the box full of books in his arms.

“That’s okay.”

Ed peered over the box and looked down again.

A woman collected a fallen book from the ground, tipped her head up to look at him, and adjusted her glasses.

Ed’s jaw dropped as he stared wide-eyed at an old, familiar face.

Sheska’s jaw dropped, her eyes filling her glasses, as she stared up at an older, familiar-ish face.  The breath she pulled in squeaked when she drew it.

Ed abruptly dropped the box of books, stumbled over the mess, landed on his knees, and slapped a hand over Sheska’s mouth, “Don’t scream.”

She leaned out of Ed’s hand, her eyes somehow wider than before, “EDW--”

“Don’t!” he dove in and kept his hand over Sheska’s mouth to stop her from squawking, “just don’t.”

Frozen on the sidewalk, practically fallen on her back with Ed leaning in on her, his outstretched arm covering her mouth, Sheska sat staring silently in awe back at a fairly different looking Edward Elric than she remembered.

The downturned corners of Ed’s mouth twitched and he leaned back and looked around the mess of books for his hat.

Sheska looked up and down the otherwise empty sidewalk before leaning in towards him, “You really are not dead.”

Ed snatched up his hat, swept his hair onto his head, pulled the cap down, and tucked his bangs away, “I guess not.”

Sheska’s shoulders curled uneasily and she reached out to poke him, “You’re corporeal, too.”

Ed frowned and swatted her hand away, “A corporeal ghost, maybe.”

“Well,” Sheska swept a hand over her mouth before she slowly collected books into her lap, “you are definitely earthbound - you ran into me.”

“Sorry about that,” Ed’s brow furrowed as he helped collect books from the ground, “what are you doing out here?”

Sheska kept her wide eyes locked on Ed as she unceremoniously began dropping books back into her box, “Trading in books.”

“You trade in books?”

“Just the ones I accidentally got twice.”

Ed blinked and eyed the nonsensically cumbersome box.

“Um…” Sheska robotically placed the last of her books back into her box while she tried to digest all the details of the uncomfortably squirming Elric she was analyzing.  Grabbing on to the edges of her box, Sheska rose onto her knees, “How long have you been here not dead?”

“A couple of weeks, maybe?” Ed honestly had no idea what the days were anymore.

“A couple of WE--”

Ed’s hands clamped down on the side of Sheska’s box of books and he yanked it out from under her, letting her fall to the sidewalk, “Let’s talk somewhere else.  Where are you going with these?”

Sheska picked herself up and pointed a waggling finger up the street, “The place on the corner trades books.”

“Okay,” rising to his feet, Ed heaved her box of books up into his arms, “Do you have a car?”

Her expression widening as she watched Ed rise, Sheska’s pointed arm slowly lowered as she teetered up to her feet.  Exaggerating the crane of her neck, Sheska took an abrupt step back as she gawked at Ed standing over her, “Holy cow.”

With an uncomfortable frown scribbled across his face as she looked him over, Ed’s shoulders rode up to his ears, “Did you drive your books out here, Sheska?”

“I did,” she garbled.

“Okay,” Ed swallowed and abruptly turned to march up the street, “let’s ditch your books and go some place else.”

Watching the man of her unexpected and bizarre encounter walk away with her books, Sheska gave her head a shake and tried to get her wits back in order as she stumbled after him.

 


 

The buzz throughout the mountain valley by the time Roy and Riza had gotten up for breakfast was that the town's rabid child had escaped his confines at the stables, inexplicably breaking free of his chains, and had somehow left two dead bodies at the scene of his crime, miraculously wound-free.  

The part of Xenotime that had witnessed the event was in an uproar.

The other parts of Xenotime that hadn’t struggled to believe the tale.

Roy wasn’t sure he’d been this enthralled by breakfast gossip since he’d been in military training. 

Wrath, who remained unnamed in Xenotime, was the talk of the town by seven thirty.  Roy digested two extra bits of satisfaction at breakfast; the first was that Dante had gotten Wrath’s message.  The second was that, with all the ruckus the homunculus had caused, she would be forced to keep his profile low, though hoping she would chain him back up was a bit too much for wishful thinking.

At eight that morning, Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye began executing the next phase of the plan to extract Brigitte: quietly securing first hand knowledge of the mining architecture beneath and around the valley town.  Tunnel maps were property of the mining companies and those they contracted with, so the most unassuming way to acquire one would be to simply take on work for a day, copy it, and then ‘move on’ without anyone questioning a thing.  The information on the mining system maps would allow the officers not only private, backdoor access to the numerous tendrils of tunnels the mountain side laboratory would have into the earth, but also give them an opportunity to assess the scale of any potential transmutation Dante might decide to unleash on Xenotime. 

As the two officers stepped up to join a miserable looking crew of men ready to do nothing but shatter rock all day, they found themselves immediately at odds with their new co-workers at the morning headcount.

Riza was the only woman and had every man’s undivided attention.  

Expressions that ranged from dismissive to intrusive all laid their eyes on her, like none of them had ever seen a woman before.  With behaviour like that, Roy figured most of them probably hadn’t.

A miserable, middle-aged man with half a head of salt and pepper hair scoffed at the newly acquired pair, “I hope he’s expected to pick up the slack for her.”

Roy tried to maintain control over the annoyance rising up in his voice, “I assure you, she is perfectly capable.”

“Yeah, like every other lass: to have dinner ready for you when you’re done your shift,” a scraggly man spat his tobacco into a tin as a few chuckles popped up in the crowd.

“We don’t have pretty ladies working in these mines.”

With all her hair tucked into her hat, dressed in frumpy overalls and a stained button-up shirt, and without a speck of makeup on, Riza fought to keep her expression blank.

Roy had half a mind to go back and fetch her gun and see how quickly they changed their tunes, “I’ll vouch for her strengths and I’m sure she’ll be one of the more productive workers coming out of the mines today.”

A sneer flashed into a cratchey man’s face, “You know her strengths now do ya, One-Eye?”

Roy rolled his jaw and narrowed that single, dark eye, “I do.”

The shift supervisor spat out a sharp, piercing laugh, “Ain’t they cute.  Alright, get your asses going, you don’t need to hear any more shit from me than you did yesterday.  You two, ignore these filthy buggers and hang back, I got gear for you.” 

The shift supervisor, known only as Arkledun, waited while his regular daytime crew chattered with more exuberance that morning than they normally would have as they made their way into the mine.  With a few wooden carts settled onto tracks that rolled along with their procession, the collection of mostly middle-aged men faded into the darkened depths of the mine entrance.  Finally heading forwards himself, Arkledun led the disguised officers past the entrance of the mine, his keys jingling angrily at his hip as he dragged a clearly bad leg along at his side.  Following along behind, Roy and Riza watched as a wooden door embedded into the wall of the mineshaft, just beyond the entrance, was unlocked and thrown open.  

Arkledun waddled in and came back out with a pickaxe and lantern for each of them, then unrolled a map and slammed it against the dirt wall.

“Piecework for part-timers is gettin’ done up here,” he pushed a bent finger into the map, “most of the carts and all the sifters are there already, you can negotiate what you need from the men once you get there.”  Offering only that as his piece of introductory advice, the supervisor rolled the map back up and slapped it into Roy’s hand, “follow the route on the map, so you don’t get lost.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank me after you get paid,” Arkledun said as he started to hobble back out, flicking the tip of the pickaxe in Riza’s hand as he passed, “don’t poke his other eye out, Dearie.”

Smiling at the man who was no better than the rest, Riza pursed her lips, “I won’t, Mister,” and she abruptly turned a fiercely annoyed expression away.

Turning the knob on the oil lamp to light their path, Roy hooked it onto the end of his axe, and held it out in front of himself as he began to walk ahead.  Looking deep into a long mining shaft that vanished as it curved into darkness, Roy’s eye canvassed the heavily packed dirt walls, reinforced with fat wooden beams that went on as far as the light reached.  When Riza caught up at his side, Roy added her un-lit lantern to his axe, waited while she tucked her own axe into a belt loop, and then handed the map over to her. 

Swinging the axe over the map as she unrolled it, Roy peered in to examine it, “That’s far more detailed than I was expecting.”

“At least we got something out of these people already,” Riza tried very hard to control her choice in words.

The corners of Roy’s mouth curled and he swung the lantern away, taking a few extra steps ahead of her and peeked back at the fading light of the entrance, “I’m sorry I didn’t let you bring your gun.”

“It’s probably best for everyone’s safety that I don’t have it,” she replied bluntly, adjusting her hold on the map harshly.

“I disagree.  I feel much safer when you have it on you,” Roy jingled the lanterns and swung them ahead again to light the oncoming curve in the mine tunnel’s path, “I could set some pant legs on fire on our way out.”

Riza’s steps slowed and she picked her eyes up off the map briefly, “Interesting.”

An honest laugh came out of Roy’s mouth and he grinned back at Riza as she picked up her pace again.  His thoughts refocussed, “We need to find a nice spot to get lost in for a few minutes to copy this map.”

Her brow lowering, Riza’s eyes continued to study the map, “There’s a fair bit of this mining system that’s not included here,” she shook her left wrist, indicating the edge of the map where a number of tunnels simply ventured off the page, “It’s safe to say the map is only covering what’s being actively mined and that there’s more finished infrastructure available.”

Slowing to let Riza catch up to him, Roy matched her pace again and he looked at several tunnels on the western side of the map that simply ventured off the page, “These shafts are probably part of the transmutation architecture that was dug out decades ago when gold was first discovered.  We’d probably need some historical maps from older excavations to piece it all together.  Given our entry point, it’s safe to assume this only covers, at most, a quarter of the full system.”

The map in Riza’s hands lowered and she looked to the man at her shoulder, “Is that enough to go on?”

“It’s enough to ruin it,” his chest swelling with a deep breath, Roy looked back towards the faded glow of the mineshaft entry way, “and it’s enough to get us in, once we know Dante’s gone.”

Following his gaze back to the entry of the mines, Riza let the map curl itself back up in her hands, “If we had Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong out here, he could expedite a grand scale collapse of the tunnels.”

“He could,” nodding, the senior officer swept his attention ahead again, “this entire town is being held hostage and none of them know it.  But, we would be righteously screwed if he left Central right now.  Come what may, I need him there to cover my absence.  We’ll find a way to do something on our own in these tunnels, even if it's a temporary measure until it can be re-addressed.”

Sweeping his axe around, Roy turned the knob on Riza’s unlit oil lantern, plucked it off as a flame grew, and handed it to her.

“Time to show some miserable assholes your strength.”

“I’m so excited,” she said dryly, taking her lantern.

Roy smirked.

 


 

For the overnight hours where he didn’t rest, and now the warming daylight hours where he drifted in and out of sleep - for every moment he was awake, Al’s mind replayed the image of his brother falling out of the back of he van.  And every time, the younger brother - bound and silenced and sullied - told himself that his older brother was fine.  It would just be cuts and bruises.  Maybe a broken bone.

At least his brother wasn’t on his way to Dante.

Armstrong’s caution saved his brother.

That was the important part.

But, he was still having a hard time reconciling that.

After hours of failing to collect himself in the corner of a bouncing, noisy van, Al’s mind was given a reprieve when the vehicle veered to a momentary stop to drop off the wounded, fake officers somewhere in Eastern Amestris.  The event lasted barely a minute before Al and Aisa were on the move again alone.  Al assumed their hasty drop off was because everyone fully expected someone - at the very least Izumi - to be hot on their trail.  

Scowling at the cumbersome metallic box that sealed and separated his hands, Al lightly gnawed on the gag in his mouth; he had to focus.  He had to be able to think .  Dante preyed on people's emotions and she played with their minds and lamenting over things he couldn’t do anything about wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

Al eyed at the emotionless woman sitting perfectly postured on the opposite side of the van; every possible outcome had to have been calculated.  In his estimation, even if Aisa had been completely successful and captured all three of them, there would be no way it would have gone on undetected for very long, because his teacher and the military personnel would need to be factored in.  Whatever plan was being executed, it looked like it wouldn’t have mattered who Aisa secured, especially with her being unable to properly identify who his brother actually was, because part of the plan appeared to include making sure everyone knew it had happened.  

What for?  

Al weighed two obvious options:

If the plan was successful and had secured Ed, it was bait for everyone to retrieve him in Xenotime.
If the plan was successful but hadn't secured Ed, it was a lure for the older brother to appear in Xenotime.

The heavy boulder in the pit of his stomach told Al that Dante wanted people in Xenotime specifically to alchemize them into a Philosopher’s Stone.  After all the concerns they’d agonized over, that was the most obvious answer.  Now, Dante was simply lauding it and coercing people into the town.

If it was her intention to hold the town hostage, Dante would need at least three plans that included his brother captured, him in the town, or him not arriving at all, and then breakdowns of each, all of which grew convoluted and made Al’s head spin.  

As he dipped his head and kept Aisa in the corner of his eye, the younger Elric tried to focus more on what he knew, rather than estimating what Dante was thinking.  He quickly came up with two key factors that Dante wouldn’t have in her equation.  The first: the brigadier general was already at work in Xenotime.  The second: Alphonse was clutching his own advantage - Dante didn’t know he had his memories back.  What Dante was expecting and Aisa was seeing was a scared eleven-year-old at their mercy and they had no way or reason to suspect he was anything else.  

The advantage Dante was operating with wasn’t as great as she believed.

The tension in his brow easing, Al realized he was in a position to be on the inside and locate Brigitte.  If the brigadier general’s plans were playing out smoothly, he would already have information on the current Xenotime mining system and be waiting for the first sign that Dante was headed to Central.  Since that wasn’t happening any more, the moment his teacher, or whatever else was on its way for cavalry, arrived in the town and made contact with him, they would be in a better position to act before Dante could execute whatever she was actually planning.

All Alphonse had to do was find a way to locate Brigitte and keep Dante entertained long enough for everyone to act before she did, so they could get out fast.

With a bit more optimism and some renewed energy, Al finally talked himself into giving Aisa his saddest eyes and began wiggling around to get her attention.  If she was being used like this, then the Red Stones sustaining her were actively being used up, which meant her other purpose - maintaining a secure biological environment for Gluttony’s stomach to finish crystalizing what remained of Alphonse’s metallic Philosopher’s Stone - was nearly complete.  The younger of two Elric brothers needed a bit of information from her.

The deadpan expression the woman had cemented onto her face finally moved and her eyes shifted to the suddenly active boy.

Al took a deep breath, drooped his shoulders, wove his brow, and let out a long, drawn out, whine through his nose.

Aisa blinked, turning her head to watch the noisy Elric.

Another breath was theatrically sucked in and released as a higher pitched whine through his nose.

“There is no reason to do that.” Aisa said.

Shaking his head at her comment, Alphonse repeated the process and further pitched his immature noise.  The metallic box sealing his hands bounced off his knees in childish protest.

After a few more deliberately annoying whines by the young Elric, Aisa finally made her way over to him.  As best he could, Al tried to make it clear he was trying to spit out the gag and bowed his head, hoping she’d get the hint.  To his relief, the gag, which had pulled on the corners of his mouth for hours, was released.

“Thank you.”

“What do you want?” Aisa curiously sat herself down in front of someone who hadn’t been active since he’d first been trapped.

“I was thinking,” Al licked his dry lips, “and I was worried about you.”

“About me?” the woman’s brow rose slightly, “there’s no reason to concern yourself over me.”

Sitting himself up straighter, Alphonse wove his brow, “There is though.  You’ve never left Dante’s side until now.  Isn’t that dangerous for you?”

With a huff that was a cross between a laugh and a scoff, Aisa shook her head, “There remains no reason to worry over me.  I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”

“I saw that,” Al sunk back against the wall of the van, “but the more active you are, the shorter your life span is, right?  The more you do, the closer you come to dying.”

“Everyone dies sometime, Alphonse,” Aisa explained to him coldly, “and I am clinically dead.  I’m doing nothing more now than borrowing continued existence off of the Red Stones I manufacture.”

Al wrinkled his nose and frowned, “But, when they’re gone, you’ll stop existing.  Why would you want that?  Don’t you think helping Dante, or living longer, is something you should do?” 

What Al would consider a smile seemed to find its way into Aisa, “My life is bound to her.  When it’s purpose is fulfilled, then I will end.  I’ve always known that.”  

As Aisa watched a sad little boy struggle with what she’d said, the back of Alphonse’s mind investigated her words; this was the same story.  Dante may have been secretive and shrewd, but whenever she and Aisa were aware Al or Izumi knew something, they didn’t bother to act coy about it.  Sometimes Dante even pre-empted discoveries by handing over information to make sure no one could feel like they were gaining strides.  So, not only did Dante and Aisa not know about his memories, they didn’t know that Al was aware - that everyone involved was aware - of the Philosopher’s Stone in her that triggered it.  Al let his mind stew over ways they might be able to use that knowledge.

“That doesn’t make you sad?” Al finally asked, “knowing one day you’re just going to... end?”

Aisa shook her head, “No.”

“Well,” Al sunk back against the wall, “I’ll be sad for you.”

“Do as you wish,” Aisa shrugged.

Pursing his lips, Al scrunched his face, “I’m tired and want to take a nap, but the gag is uncomfortable.  If I promise not to talk again, can you leave it off?”

Collecting the thick wrap of cloth in her hand, Aisa came to her feet as the van bounced around, “Fine.”

“Thank you.” 

Tucking himself into the van’s back corner again, Al watched as Aisa returned to her place at the opposite side of the vehicle.  Taking a few deep breaths, Al tried to relax and remind himself that there were still many, many hours to go before they’d get to Xenotime.  There was nothing to be done for quite some time and he needed to make sure he was able to get some decent sleep before he danced with Dante again and tried to find out where in the Xenotime laboratory she’d put Brigitte.

 


To Be Continued...


 

Notes:

For my milestones I've done nothing special other than mess up my favourite character's lives further and used 2 sparkle emojis haha. (FFN wordcount is inflated because it tallies all my notes too.)

Both Dante and Aisa know that Al reacted with the Philosopher's Stone at the Gate, and Dante is smart enough to figure out it has something to do with the Philosopher's Stone once being Armour Al, but they have no reason to suspect Al got his memories back as a result and that he learned of the stone within her in the process.

The only thing that remained remotely the same between the first draft of the chapter and this is Winry's section :'')

Chapter 51: The Games People Play

Summary:

Al is forced to endure his time with Dante while events begin to unfold in Central City.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

One of the most useful pieces of advice Sheska had gotten while working in the military was that: as long as you walked into a room acting like you knew what you were doing nobody would question you.  She wouldn’t deny that was true, she’d actually used it from time to time, but on a scale like this, it was clearly advice penned by people who had arrogant self confidence at their disposal.  

Walking through the lobby of a building she’d never been to, and acknowledging the kinds of people who were mulling about, Sheska abruptly realized she didn’t fully possess the kind of arrogant confidence she needed that morning.  Quickly weaving her way through a number of loitering bodies, she dearly hoped none of them gave her a second thought as she stepped up to the hotel’s check-in desk.

Adjusting her glasses and straightening her bag, Sheska forced a nervous smile across her face, “Good morning!” 

Two young women behind the desk stared back at her, clearly offended that anyone had the gall to turn up so early in the day and make them do anything.  Sheska withered a little and eyed two ladies sculpted in uniforms that she’d never fit in, molded in hairstyles that were impossible for her, and polished by makeup skills that confounded her.  Honestly not sure if they were actually there to run the check in desk or serve another purpose, Sheska continued to smile awkwardly, hoping they’d cave.

The women held their blank stares over their uninvited guest for several uncomfortable seconds longer, before one of them gave up and slowly made her way to the desk. 

“Good morning.  What can we do for you, today?”

“I’d like a room, please,” Sheska latched both her hands onto her satchel strap.

A modified blank look found the woman at the desk - this one clearly read as dismissive and annoyed, “Unfortunately, the hotel’s full for the week.”

“Oh,” moving one hand over the other, Sheska began wringing her hands down her bag strap, “well, I was told that if I needed a room, I could come here and Brigadier General Mustang would have one arranged for me.”

Like a switch had been flipped, the dismissive tone and presentation of both the young ladies vanished.  Sheska watched with nervous relief as the one who’d stayed back quickly abandoned her partner and vanished.

“I see,” the remaining woman manning the façade of a hotel welcome desk finally smiled at her guest, “have a seat and give us a few moments while we check and see if that arrangement is still available for walk-ins.”

Sheska brought her shoulders to her ears, curled her smile, and took a few quick steps backwards, “Sure, thank you!”

Most of the people mulling about on the main floor weren’t there to sit and Sheska was able to put herself down in the first seat she found.  Neatly re-setting her glasses on her nose, she sighed with relief and picked her eyes up to inspect the hotel lobby.  

It was clean, but somewhat dull and uninviting.  The restaurant tucked away on the opposite side of the entry doors looked predominantly unoccupied and kind of out-of-date.  Without enough floors to warrant an elevator, a wide central staircase led would-be guests through the floors.  There were two side hallways and it seemed that every white space of wall had some kind of painting hanging from it.  Assuming everyone loitering was military, Sheska didn’t want to let her eyes sit on any single person and arouse suspicion but, as an overall impression, most of the people didn’t seem to be in any hurry to go anywhere or do anything.  They were all waiting.

Looking over her shoulder to see if the ladies at the desk had anything new to offer her, Sheska practically flew out of her seat when she turned into someone’s face.

“Woah!” a hand snatched her arm before she could fall to the floor and cause a scene.

“Don’t sneak up on people like that!” Sheska gasped.

“Hey… you.  You’re that lady.”

Sheska straightened herself out and adjusted her glasses, “And you’re Lieutenant Breda.”

“Got me there,” rubbing his tired eyes, Breda waited for the women at the desk to slip away before continuing, “we have a lot of shit going on.  Who gave you that message and what do you need the brigadier general for?”

Perfecting her posture and firmly gripping the strap on her satchel, Sheska presented herself, “I’d like to join the rebellion.”

“It’s not…” a tired Lieutenant Breda blinked slowly, “we’re overthrowing the government.”

“Exactly,” Sheska adjusted her declaration without missing a beat, “I’d like to join that.”

“Look,” Breda ran his hand over his shortcut hair, “we appreciate the offer, but we don’t have time to manage individual civilians who want to help us.  We need military divisions with leadership.”

“But, see,” Sheska slid herself up to Breda’s shoulder, “I work in Human Resources for the Central government now.  I do books and records.  I have access to all kinds of files.  The kinds of files that might be helpful if you’re trying to get a leg up on the government.”

Breda groaned and looked at the ceiling.

Sheska let her glasses slide down her nose and she popped her eyebrows above the brims to wiggle them, “I can be your man on the inside.”

“We have men on the inside,” pivoting away from her, Breda began marching down the closer of two side hallways, before calling, “come on, you can talk to someone else.”

Scurrying after him, Sheska tailed the out-of-uniformed officer down the hallway, catching up to him as they entered the stairwell at the end.  Ascending only a single floor, Breda wordlessly led his guest down an echoing hall of closed doors, arriving at a room that was honestly closer to the central staircase than the backwards way they’d come from.  

Breda turned the handle and let himself in, “Sir, there’s a familiar face here.”

Sheska peered over Breda’s shoulder and watched Armstrong pick his eyes off his work.  

“I’ll be back in five,” moving out of the doorway, Breda didn’t give Sheska another thought as he marched swiftly back down the long length of hall.

Sliding into the room, Sheska eyed the hulking officer who looked to be sagging under his own weight.  She offered him an awkward smile, “Good morning, Sir.”

Armstrong’s tired, beady eyes looked the woman over, before a realization suddenly lifted some of the weight, “Oh… Sheska!  My goodness it’s been a trying few days, it’s a comfort to see such a welcomed face.”

“I’m glad it’s okay for me to be here,” she smiled.

Clasping his thick hands, Armstrong placed them down on the desk, “My apologies, things are substantially complicated right now, but what can I do for you?”

This was it - a cue handed to her on a silver platter.  Time to deliver what she’d shown up for.  

Preceded by a stiff breath, Sheska marched up to the front of the bulky man’s desk, threw her shoulders back, and thrust her chin high, “As a proud Amestrian, I’d like to offer my services to aid Brigadier General Mustang and his alliance to depose the current government, so we can work towards establishing peace, unity, and success within our borders, and restore our national pride!”

Like a great wave swept through the room, strong enough to turn the ocean’s tide, the declaration catapulted Armstrong from his seat and he threw his arms wide, “Such grand words!  A beautiful declaration for one’s love for her country and her peoples.  In times of strife and doubt such as these, to see a young citizen recognize the importance of national unity and to hear such emotions given voice, it is nothing short of a glorious breath of fresh air.”

Sheska giggled nervously - it worked like a charm, just like Ed said.

“It is this sort of dedication and passion which is precisely what we all need at this moment,” like the wind had abandoned his sails, Armstrong deflated, “however, we do not have the resources to manage individual civilians.  Perhaps there will come a tim--”

“If you’ll pardon me, Sir, I’m not offering to help out with combat, and I won’t need much supervision either,” Sheska interrupted to expand on her offer, “currently I work in Books & Records for Human Resources in the Central government.  I have access to both the government and military files that get processed, stored, and archived there.  I think the resources I have access to can help with the brigadier general’s plans.  I can either replicate what I’ve been able to read over, or obtain anything additional you might need.”

At a point where she was expecting a response of some kind, Armstrong offered none.  He remained silent, but what struck Sheska more than his silence, was the look of concern that found his eye and carried his gaze away, eventually settling beyond her shoulder.

“Would you have access to tactical information on deployments from both the military and municipal police departments, as well as government security filings, and anything pertaining to the government's activities in Xentotime?”

Processing words that originated from behind her, Sheska spun on her toes and the presence she found backed her into Armstrong’s desk.  Her eyes practically filling her glasses, Sheska’s heart raced while her hands nervously strangled her satchel strap, “I uh… yes, Sir.  Yes, I should be able to get access to some of that at least.”

Hakuro stepped up and imposed his presence on Armstrong’s visitor, “By noon.”

Sheska stared wide-eyed at the unfathomable man who’d been allowed to walk in and address her like he had authority, “B-by noon?

“Yes, by noon,” the officer who once lauded his military blues as a top general now stood in civilian clothes, heavily commanding his powerful, disconcerting, and formidable stature, “if your offer is genuine, at noon, walk out with as much as you can, bring it here, and do not expect to go back.  There may not be a job for you at the Central government by the end of the day.”

 


 

From his armpits to his elbows, Al sat tied to a chair.  The gag had been jammed back in his mouth and a dark burlap sack had been put over his head with the drawstrings tightened just enough that he couldn’t see out.  His ankles were unbound at least - that was a plus. 

In the hour since he’d arrived in Xenotime, Al had been left alone on the chair.  Ignored in some room somewhere, he focussed on staying relaxed, pep talking himself to steady his confidence and resolve, and trying to get a sense of his surroundings.  

The building noise was noticeably absent - there was no one in the hall, no voices in the distance, no sounds of life or activity at all inside the building.  There was a window left open - Al suspected deliberately - that let his ears pick up the outdoor noises and allowed him to feel a light breeze on his back.  When the breeze wasn’t filling the room with fresh air, dusty circulated air was blowing in from an overhead vent.  Strangely, between the two sources, at the times when things seemed to be perfectly still, the only obvious scent Al could pick up was something that faintly smelled like rotting fruit.

Since his legs weren’t bound, an idea popped into his head.  Swinging his feet out, Al began to rock himself forwards to backwards, until he gained enough momentum that he rolled onto his feet.  Landing on two feet with the chair still tied to his body, Al was forced to stand almost completely bent over at the waist.  But, he was up!  

Shuffling himself around until he faced the window, Al began moving forwards, not wanting to explore the room too much while he was bound and blinded, and he used the sound of the open window to help judge his whereabouts.  Slowing as he reached the end of the room, Al dipped his head forwards and heard the weak sound of thin curtain ends sweep over the sack on his head as he met the window frame.  

Using the top of his head to feel around the window, Al startled when his forehead bumped into something sticking out.  After running his face around it to get a sense of what it was, the conclusion was that it was a lever of some kind and that offered the resourceful Elric something he could use to loosen the sack over his head.  Sliding his neck along the lever until it hooked into the edge of the cover over his head, Al slowly tugged, and pulled, and worked the drawstrings loose until the edge of the sack hung free around him.  

Now able to see his caged hands and free legs beyond the ends of what blinded him, Al widened his stance and he threw his head and shoulders wildly, trying to fling the loosened bag off.  Again and again, to the point where he began to feel dizzy, Alphonse tossed his upper body around, until he finally felt the victorious sensation of it slipping off over his hair.

And the sack was snatched up before it ever touched the ground.

Al picked his head up in alarm and looked into the beautiful, poisoned smile that had once belonged to Nina Tucker.

“Bravo,” Dante lauded, “that was an excellent display of resourcefulness.  I’m glad I sat in to see your problem solving skills at work.”

Disgusted, Al ground his teeth down on the gag he was silenced with and took an awkward step back from a tiny monster dressed in a white babydoll dress.

Clapping her hands, Dante immediately ripped a piercing shriek out of his lungs.  With transmutation energy in her fingertips, Alphonse frantically scrambled backwards until the chair tied to his back crashed into the corner, dropping the panicked Elric to his knees.  Unable to defend himself, Al curled his head into his chest and took a sharp breath as Dante’s hands came down near his ears. 

She never touched him; Dante’s fingertips swept over the gag constricting his mouth and transmuted the fabric back into its fibers, letting it fall away like dust.  

“There.  That’s better, don’t you think?” 

Dante filled Alphonse’s ears with the precious sound of Nina’s childish voice and he accidently let her see the frazzled look in his eyes when he looked up.  

She smiled.

Al choked on the air he hastily breathed and coughed, “What do you want, Dante?”

“I want to celebrate with you!” her voice cheered childishly and she took a swift step away from him, “for your accomplishments.”

It was surprising to Al how unfathomably nauseating Dante sounded with his memories back and how revolting she looked parading around in Nina’s body.  

Alphonse could remember this little girl; what an odd sensation to have after she’d felt unfamiliar for so long.  He could remember carrying Nina Tucker around on his shoulders for weeks and playing with her for many more.  In a cold body without tactile feeling, Al had cared for a child who could not understand his situation and didn’t question him either - Nina had clung to Al and cheered with him while his older brother worked for his State Alchemist title.  Those memories were seared into his soul again and to hear and see Dante wield the visage the way she was made his heart ache.  

Taking a deep breath, Alphonse reminded himself that he had to act like the innocent and ignorant child this horrid woman remembered.

“I don’t want to celebrate,” he rested on his knees, weight partially over the box used to constrict his hands, “I want to go home.”

Dante shook her head, “Not for some time.  We have a lot to discuss.”

Al lifted his head a little farther to examine the room.  Lit by both an open window and a chandelier hanging at the center of the room, the space was practically empty, except for the table arrangement smack in the middle.  A white tablecloth accentuated a square table with wooden chairs at only three of its sides.  A porcelain teapot, polished sparkling white, centred the table decorated with four matching cups, all flipped upside down atop napkins, which were the only items present at each empty seat.

The layers of sheer curtains swayed in the breeze as Dante sat herself down in a vacant chair and swept her braids in front of her shoulders, like she meant to show off the white bows at the ends.

“Take a seat at the head of the table,” she gestured to the single empty side at the square table. 

Al slowly, clumsily got to his feet.  Doing as he was told, he awkwardly made his way forwards and clunked his chair down sideways at the vacant space.  Unable to turn around to face the table, Al remained seated ajar and watched warily as Dante slid a cup closer to him and flipped it over, as if she intended to offer a drink his imprisoned hands couldn’t take.  

“What did you want to talk about?” he asked.

Dante flashed Nina’s eyes brightly, “First of all, congratulations on retrieving your brother!  I honestly wasn’t sure just how far you’d be able to get on your own, but acknowledging the result, I should have known better than to doubt one of Hohenheim’s sons.” 

Alphonse let the woman who’d weaponized ignorance see nothing but his anxious, uncertain eleven-year-old self and didn’t offer a comment.  

Lacing her fingers together, Dante neatly placed her hands in her lap, linked her ankles dangling off the chair, and sat perfectly postured in her seat.  A confident smile polluted Nina’s face, “And that’s left me with so many things I want to ask you, sometimes I’m not sure where to begin.”

Al had spent hours in the back of that uncomfortable van putting together lists of what he could tell her.  He reminded himself he was prepared for this.

“You’ve succeeded me,” Dante wistfully sent her wide, childish eyes to the ceiling, “so, selfishly I want to know intrinsic things - like what it felt like to reach into the heart of the Gate.  I want to know what it was like to run a transmutation on that scale.  I want to know what it was like to have all that in your hands and make the Gate comply.  It’s quite possibly the pinnacle of what we can achieve with what’s at our disposal on this side.”  

If he had to, Al could tell her what that all felt like, because it was incredible information that couldn’t harm anyone.  There was no way Dante could ever come close to recreating what he had accomplished.

The wistful sense tempered as Dante added a callus tint to Nina’s eyes, “And, of course, I want to know how your brother has been doing since he got home.  And I want to know how you managed to return him with all his limbs.”

Al hastily vanished into his thoughts; how did Dante know that?  Aisa clearly didn’t know that.  Aisa was sent to Central looking for a teenager with AutoMail.  How could Dante have learnt that in the days between when Aisa left her side and now?  

“I want to know what you and your brother have talked about since his return.  What stories he’s told you of his adventure and what you’ve learnt from him.”

Al struggled to balance his hurried thoughts against his nervous, childish presentation.  The only people who knew that were himself, Winry, Sensei, and Brigadier General Mustang’s inner circle.  

Oh.

And Wrath.

“I want to know what you were going to offer to me, if I’d chosen to return to Central and play along with your games.”

If Wrath had brought up ‘his arm and leg’, Dante might have been able to piece it together.  That had to be where this was coming from.  Al re-focussed on Dante, just in time to watch a devastating smile slice into Nina’s cheeks.

“But, what I am really on pins and needles to find out, is what your brother learnt in that rich world beyond that allowed him to show Wrath the Gate so easily.”

Nina’s voice echoed and Al could hear every word.  He recognized the voice being used, he could have replicated every sound, yet for no explainable, fathomable reason, could he understand what Dante had just said.

Alphonse felt sick, “What?”

 


 

Beneath the blistering afternoon sun, with hands planted firmly on her hips, Izumi let the sweat trickle through her temples while she scowled up at a multi storey complex sitting high on a mountain ledge.

“That’s the Xenotime laboratory?”

“Built when there was money out here,” Falman sighed, wiping his brow, “when they had gold.”

Izumi scoffed, “Considering what became of everything, you have to question if they ever naturally had gold in the first place.”

Standing firmly in the middle of a dirt path that meandered through the outskirts of town and then wormed into the forest growth, it was taking all of Izumi’s willpower to not march up the hill and take matters into her own hands. 

Falman’s calm voice came into play, inserting a reminder for her to keep her cool, “I think as long as we stay within the process that Brigadier General Mustang established, we should be able to get them out without much problem.”

‘The process’ was going to grind Izumi’s patience away.

The military on its own was a wretched conception as far as she was concerned, but now having to operate within a military ‘process’ felt like a corruption of her morals.  But, it was a process she had been a part of designing, and she reminded herself again and again that the conclusions were correct and that the worst decisions she could make were the ones she wanted to act on the most.  She had to adhere to the process they’d all agreed to and fight the urge to do exactly as Dante had set them up for and was expecting.  

Izumi’s greatest hurdle now, standing in Xenotime’s daylight, was that she had never anticipated that it would apply to her quite so stringently.  

It was an undeniable assumption: Dante was expecting and waiting for her arrival.  Dante was waiting for everyone to show up, internal fires burning and panic rising, prepared to do whatever was necessary to take back Ed and Al.  Izumi was more than ready to do all of that and more at a moment's notice, and the longer the alchemy teacher stared at this laboratory looking down on the population from it’s cliff on high, the more she wanted to see the entire mountain collapse.

Other than Mustang himself, the most significant tactical advantage working in their favour was that Dante didn’t know exactly when a rescue party would show up.  If Izumi were in her teacher’s shoes, she would anticipate two things: they would enter the town in the cover of darkness to conceal their movements, and they would arrive within the first twenty four hours that Dante got her hands on the boys.  All of that situated the rescue attempt’s execution in the post-midnight hours.

While the second assumption remained true, Falman and Izumi made sure they arrived just after the noon hour and in broad daylight, at a point in time when Dante was most likely entertaining herself with her new captives.  The bold approach offered the highest chance of their arrival going unnoticed in the mid-day bustle.  With Mustang and his crew already embedded and Armstrong gearing up for some ambiguous signal that ‘they would recognize’, Izumi and Falman had to operate with the intention of starting a rescue before the sun had finished setting.

Deep down though, Izumi wanted to do for Ed and Al what she’d once done for Wrath once upon a time - surprise the Xenotime laboratory, transmute it into a structural embarrassment, and rescue something important to her.  

Digging her toes into the dirt and tightening her clenched fists, Izumi turned and resigned herself to an excruciating walk into town.  She couldn’t lash out like that now - the foe was too grande, “We need to get things going.”

“We have good cards in our hand,” Falman picked up his tone and began to lengthen his strides again as they walked the outlying streets, “we only need to find Brigadier General Mustang and adjust our footing.”

Izumi was honestly more confident they could collect information from anywhere in town faster than either of them could track down Mustang.  The man had no reason to know they were there and nothing to alert him to even look or make himself accessible.  Behaving as he should, Mustang and his party would be keeping a low profile, or possibly be working the mines again to keep out of sight for all either of them knew.

Izumi frowned, “Do we know what time Armstrong is going to act in Central?” 

“No,” Falman shook his head, “the best he could do was make sure it lined up with the day we were expected to arrive.”

“We’re damn lucky the car didn’t overheat,” a grumble rumbled through her chest, “it’s nearing mid-afternoon and there’s a good chance we’re operating behind.  I want to find Town Hall before it gets too late.”

As he’d done throughout their trek through the eastern countryside, Falman took exception to Izumi’s involvement with the town hall, “I think keeping a lower profile and finding the brigadier general will be our best first steps.”

“There’s no guarantee we’re going to find him with enough time to get ourselves sorted,” Izumi’s voice rose as she resumed the argument with him again, “and if I can get my hands on the tunnel maps archived there, we’ll be in much better shape.”

Sighing, Falman stepped up to counter on behalf of his superior officers, “The brigadier general was adamant before he left that we assume Dante has connections throughout the town, certainly with both town hall and local law enforcement.  The moment someone shows up asking for mining or infrastructure maps--”

Izumi barked a sarcastic laugh, “Who says I’m asking?”

Flinching, Falman rolled his head back and looked skyward, “The plan hinged on eliminating ways Dante could find out anyone was in the town.  The moment word gets back to her and she realizes someone’s stolen maps…”

“She will be too busy puppeting her government to be ready for us… or preoccupied with the boys,” Izumi tone darkened, “Armstrong’s giving us one window and, if we miss it, it’s not going to matter if she finds out anyone took something from town hall or not.”

Falman sighed.

“Mustang doesn’t know yet that he needs to get his ass in gear today,” Izumi added, not wanting to completely put herself at odds with her company, “I think he’d change his tune on this one.”

“Hopefully…”

Turning her gaze back over her shoulder, Izumi looked out at the mountain laboratory looming over the town.  It was huge, more than she’d expected, and she had to assume it was connected to paths within the mountain.  Locating Ed, Al, and Brigitte in a structure that size, with tendrils that deep, would be a chore on its own.  And then there was the potential that existed where Dante could launch a transmutation that would either turn the area into a ghost town or one that would flood it off the map.  She could do either and vanish into the mountain with at least Ed before they’d gotten through the lobby.  

Izumi needed to start disabling the connections Dante had hidden beneath the surface, and she needed to start now.  

As the mis-matched duo walked away from the residential dirt path and stepped onto a cobblestone road, Izumi’s concerns were momentarily put aside when both looked ahead at a road that crested then dipped away into the valley, sinking so drastically that rooftops fell out of sight.  The pair kept their attention forwards, watching with both quiet curiosity and interest in the silent daytime heat while their strides brought them closer to the top.  Stepping up to the peak of a sweeping road that flowed into the heart of a pocket in eastern Amestris, once rich with both people and gold, Izumi and Falman looked out at the expanse of the town laid out in front of them - clearly vast enough that it might have qualified as a city in the prime of its life.

Izumi’s brow lowered as she stared at the daunting landscape of their quest, “We’re running tight on time.  Are you going to provide a distraction for me, so I can get what I need without being bothered, or do you want to chase Mustang’s invisible tail around in this?”

Falman let his posture sag, “I don’t think I have much of an option anymore.”

Izumi gave a light laugh, “I’m the farthest you’ll get from a diplomat.”

Falman reminded himself he was too old to outwardly groan at a time like this, “I’ll see what I can do to keep a conversation going with the people at the town hall.”

Izumi started down the hill, “Thank you.”

 


 

Perched on her knees in her chair, with her elbows on the table and shoulders near her ears, Dante leaned over the unfolded piece of paper Alphonse had told her was in his pocket.

Four foreign characters, written by Edward’s hand, stared back at her.

It was a lifeline Al offered in the middle of a losing argument.  It was something else to talk about.  It was a distraction from something he wasn’t ready to acknowledge.

Strumming her fingers dully off the table cloth, Dante lifted an eye to the downtrodden Elric, “If there are twelve of these you’ve learnt, how many of them were you prepared to give me if I’d shown up?”

Al bent his arms as best he could and offered the box binding his hands, “If you let me out, I’ll give you all twelve and a few circles I worked out to practice with.”

Dante grinned in amusement at how effortlessly he offered that to her, “You don’t get to use your hands so easily.”

Al let the box drop onto his thighs.

Frowning playfully at the deflated reception she’d been getting from this younger Elric for the last while, Dante pushed his buttons to revive him, “I suppose none of these will shed any light to why your brother can summon the Gate?”

“I told you!” Al boiled again, “He can’t do that!  Wrath is insane.  Wrath is lying.”

Dante’s smile pinched, “And I’ll ask you again, Alphonse: how could Wrath craft a lie like that on his own?  A ‘lie’ that I spent all night with him trying to properly unravel - that your brother clapped his hands and showed him the Gate.”

Al’s heart pounded and his expression strained while he listened to Dante repeat herself once more.

“Wrath could not.  So, either you are lying to me, or your brother has lied to you.  Which do you suppose that is?”

Al wanted to lie to himself and that’s what he was doing. 

How in the world… why in the world would Wrath even say something like that?  It was unexplainable how Wrath, of all people or things, could say something like that.  Worse than that, when Dante flaunted her information, the situation she described was in line with what his teacher had said: Wrath no longer wanted his brother’s arm and leg because they were loud.  It was behaviour and words that two independent sources offered - two sources that could never have corroborated their stories.  

No matter how he looked at it, Al couldn’t ignore that something had to have happened in the twelve hours prior to Wrath’s trip with his teacher that affected the homunculus, and the very short list of people who could explain it included his brother.  Dante was the first and only person to offer a reason why Wrath suddenly lost interest in his brother’s arm and leg.

It was a reason he was struggling to acknowledge.

Al’s head felt inexplicably heavy.

To both his relief and dismay, Dante appeared to accept that Alphonse honestly didn't think his brother could do what she was claiming, despite her theatrics.  She’d stopped trying to pry more information from him on the topic and switched to entertaining herself by finding ways to taunt him with it.  Her verbal acrobatics were relentless - nothing short of petty and vicious at times - and Al was continually faltering and falling into her snares.  

He needed to refocus; there was someone he needed to help rescue.  There were people coming for them.  His brother - whether he was concealing information about the Gate or not - could be dealt with later.

“Have you tried them out at all?” Dante questioned, “these twelve Cyrillic characters?”

“I have,” Al replied, “a bit.”

“Well,” Dante’s smile curled and inexplicably sweetened, “then, when we have a moment where you can write them out for me, I’ll be confident in their validity.”

Al sank as much as he could in his bindings; his focus only lasted as long as it took Dante to irritate him with another backhanded stab at his brother.  And Al wanted to fight back and defend his older brother with every ounce of ferocity he had in him every time.  

But...  

Alphonse stared at a number of ‘but’s that left him with more questions and doubts than answers.

While his brother had made no allusions to anything in regards to Wrath’s change in behaviour or any relationship with Gate, he had given everyone a reason to fear what would happen if he clapped his hands.  A number of separate puzzle pieces threatened to be part of a single picture, cultivating doubt in the shadows of credibility.

“With that said Alphonse, I can’t imagine your brother returned home with only twelve,” reaching out for her polished tea pot, Dante clapped her hands and re-heated it, “why didn’t he teach you more?”

Al watched suspiciously as Dante pulled the unused cup at Al’s space at the table closer to herself, “We decided on twelve, so that’s where we stopped.”

“Who decided?”

He stared while Dante poured a steaming, brown-ish tea into a cup he couldn’t drink from, “I decided.”

Filling his drink half way before she put the pot down, Dante slid the cup back towards her guest, “Did your brother happen to encourage that decision?”

“No,” Al soured, “he wanted to teach me more, but I decided there would be a limit.”

Lacing her fingers, Dante crossed her legs and neatly placed her clasped hands down on her top knee, “Are you certain your brother has never done anything to discourage you from learning something more?”

“I am certain! ” Al struggled to contain his exasperation.

“Now, now,” Dante washed her face with concern so heavily feigned she got the pleasure of watching his eye twitch, “I’m simply concerned that it seems like your loyal older brother has returned less than loyal with what he’s telling you.”  

Alphonse’s scowl grew heavy - she was riling him up again.  He had to calm down.  Al needed to keep his head in check to take away her power, “It’s Wrath that I’d be questioning, not my brother.”

Looking off, as though she were considering Al’s comment, Dante’s shoulders eventually rolled forwards.  Her woven fingers fell apart and, like she had the skills of a ballerina lost in her repertoire, Dante brushed her hands over her knees, stretched her legs, pointing her toes, and swept to her feet.  Smoothing the knee-length dress, she stepped up to the toes of the Elric seated crooked at her tea table. 

Your loyalty to him is endearing, Alphonse, but your brother has been through a great deal the last few years - most of which you have no memory of and even some that you were no part of.  I’m concerned about how you place your faith so blindly in someone like that, when you can’t even remember the origins of my face.”

Al bit his tongue as Dante poked her fingers into the corner of Nina’s smile.

“You can’t remember how Nina lived, what her fate was, how she died, how it was covered up, and how it affected the people her life touched,” Dante reached out and she placed her hands on the corners of the box constraining Al’s hands resting on his legs, “Nina’s life ended within the first year you’d been bound to the suit of armour and there are years beyond that weighing on your brother’s shoulders.  Weighing on his mind.  Events… burdens and hardships that you have no memory of being a part of.”  

Nobody could play this ‘memory’ game with Alphonse any more; he had complete ownership of himself and remembered everything.  All his memories - the lost ones, the questioned ones, the doubted ones, the feared false ones - all of them were his!  It was such an odd moment for Al to feel so empowered over his state of existence while he sat there tied and constrained, and he eagerly, but quietly, dug out memory after memory in spite of her words.  

“I have no doubt that your brother will always put the highest value into you, but you exist at a disadvantage in the relationship now,” the tips of Dante’s fingers tinkered, tapped, and strummed along the top of the cumbersome metal box she sealed away his alchemy with.  Pinching her brow, Dante looked straight into the frustrated Elric eyes holding her in contempt, “You have brought your brother back from an incredible adventure and he knows exactly who you are.  Can you say the same about him?”  

Al clenched his hands inside the metal box, held his breaths steady, stared back unrelenting, and refused to respond.  This tiny woman was a manipulative wordsmith, and regardless if it appeared she could be right on some things or how he wanted her to be wrong about everything, Al had to restrain himself from playing this game with her.

Swelling with a deep breath, Dante softened her eyes, decorated them with concern, and danced in the golden fire contesting her.

“What do you honestly know about his journey over these past few years?  What has he told you, what has anyone told you, that gives you confidence to judge his character so innocently, when you’re completely unable to relate to what he’s experienced?”

The light in Al’s eye flickered and the curl that found its way into the corner of Dante’s lips went unnoticed when he stubbornly looked away.

 


 

Stepping out of the late afternoon sun and into a grocer, Riza browsed through a small, but inviting display of produce.  A few fruits and vegetables, things that did not require cooking, would suffice while they kept low.  

Though, she was starting to talk herself into visiting the barbecuer a few streets over for dinner - his skewers were quite good yesterday.  

A couple of apples, plums, a celery stalk, and a few carrots later, Riza waited her turn to make her purchase behind someone dressed far too fashionably to be local.  Trying to keep herself from reaching out and smacking him upside the head for haggling over the price of locally grown produce, Riza took the time to talk herself into skewers.

“GEORGES!”

Riza’s attention was collected by a bellowing man who burst through the wooden door of the store and sent the chime into a frenzy.

“Get your ass in gear, we got a line into East City!”

The grumbling man from a different walk of life slapped his money down on the counter, “This better be good.”

“The story’s breaking at the top of the hour!”

As quickly as he arrived, the man yelling at his colleague vanished out the door again.  The one who remained to collect his purchase, who was now outed as an invader from East City, was kindly asked to pay fifteen cens for a bag or carry it all in his arms.  A slew of curses came out and fifteen cens was tossed to the counter in exchange for a paper bag that was tossed to him still freshly folded. 

Trying to neither smile or laugh while the man fumbled around to package his own groceries, Riza casually let her eyes mingle around the store once more before she was finally able to make her own purchase.  A no hassle transaction, and one nicely packaged paper bag of produce later, Riza left with both a light dinner and simple breakfast.

Right, skewers.

Tucking the bag into her left arm, she turned swiftly down the street and quietly enjoyed a few minutes of an afternoon walk all to herself.  

The smell of dinner found her on the adjacent street and Riza veered over to a pair of burly brothers who operated something of an outdoor grill - cooking and selling skewers prepared over an open fire pit in a lot with a few cinderblocks to mark the property, but no walls.  Even assuming that everything was managed in the neighbouring building, it was a little odd to have such an exposed type of food vendor, but Riza figured if they tried to put a roof over it, it would probably burn down.  She casually wondered if that might be why it was without a roof in the first place.  

“A lovely face is back!” a voice bellowed after a double-take was given to her.

Riza smiled, “Good afternoon.”

“Your husband’s not out with you today?”

Depending on her answer, this conversation had two ways it could go.  Since Riza was far more interested in entertaining her stomach, rather than the charms of two men with no rings on their fingers, she tucked her left hand away under her produce bag and smiled, “Not today.”

“What can I get for you?”

Dinner was selected and Riza hung back in the street as her meat landed on a cutting board, was met with a cleaver, and became freed from their bones.  It felt rude to stare with so much interest, but it also felt like the whole point was to stare - the men were almost theatrical about what they were doing.  It was certainly a selling point on its own.  She had to wonder how someone would even get a business permit for something like this.  Did it really matter in a place so far east?  Black Hayate would absolutely love one of those bones.

The jarring sound of static found her ear and Riza turned to watch a handful of men taking turns trying to tune a radio sitting on an outdoor table.  

“Yeah, I heard someone say it's an absolute mess.”

“Well, maybe if they got their asses out of here and did their jobs like they were supposed to, it wouldn’t be.”

“News should be on in a minute and we can see how hard we get to laugh them out of town.”

“Sauce?”

Riza blinked back to her dinner, “Pardon me?”

The jolly man in a stained apron smiled, “Which sauce would you like?”

A choice was made, dinner was dressed, and two long, hefty skewers, each wrapped in some sort of oversized leaf to keep them running everywhere, were handed over to her.

“And the leftovers.”

Riza smiled when the pint sized stick, with two squares of smoking meat and a grilled tomato wedged in between them, was handed to her, “Thank you, gentlemen.”

Getting everything arranged in her hands and arms, Riza tossed some coins into the tin can of tips and headed back to their lodge, contently nibbling away at her piping hot appetizer.  As enjoyable as the short walk had been to get out there, the return trip started out just as pleasant.  But, while she whittled down her small skewer, the plainly dressed officer suddenly realized she was watching the streets fill.  People were buzzing.  They were gathering.  When she realized not a single person was actually loitering, Riza curiously made her way over to a crowd to find out what had their attention.

Adding herself to the curious eyes and ears of a gathering of eight, Riza was again struck by the sound of a radio tuner as the antennae were adjusted.  Like nobody had checked the volume level, a scratching voice, clear enough to be heard for blocks, exploded from the speakers.  The light cheer of the crowd and an announcement of a functioning radio signal drew others over to fill in around the officer.  Riza swallowed the last of her appetizer and let the stick fall at her feet as she adjusted the dinner in her arms.

Whatever broadcast was bellowing, it came in mid-sentence, made no sense, so Riza asked a question to the first set of eyes she could meet, “What’s going on?” 

A woman in a store apron wiped her hands and grinned, “East City Radio is breaking the news on Central City.”

“On Central City?” Riza’s attention shot back to the radio as another voice came on.

Since it began around 13:00, the volume of people in the streets of Central City has soared.  The number of rioters has swelled and that has brought the city to a total standstill.

Hang on.  Riza adjusted the weight in her arms - what the hell was she listening to?

Municipal police and military police that remain loyal to the Mitchell Government have amassed around several key points of operation, trying to hold protestors back as they’re pummelled with rocks, bricks, and anything people are getting their hands on.  It is suspected that, at its onset, the riot was instigated by a dissident military faction in a failed attempt to seize control, however it does not appear that anyone is actively controlling what is going on now.  Central City is simply in an uproar.

The officer trapped in a crowd in the eastern outreach of the nation took a bewildered step back and bumped into someone.  Spinning over her shoulder, Riza looked out in alarm at the modest crowd that had grown around her, faces mixed with a few concerned frowns and far too many smug grins. 

“HA, serves’em right!”

“Everyone’s just so goddamn sick of everything that comes out of that city.”

“We should have enough pitchforks in town to get those clowns out of our mountain.”

The chaotic volume of people is now clearly driven purely by the frustration of local residents filling the streets, who have been unable to sustain their livelihoods for months.  At 16:00, in an address directed at the derelict government hiding in Xenotime, stating he spoke on behalf of the citizens of Central City and all neglected regions within Amestris, Major General Hakuro made this address:

“Central City’s citizens are rightfully enraged and have had enough of its impotent government…”

A deafening alarm rang through Xenotime, captured only by Riza’s ear, as the scratching voice of an East City reporter relayed the words of a man she could hardly tolerate.  A man who should have bowed out.  A man who was standing on Roy’s perch and delivering words he was prepared to give once they’d gotten back.  

Putting her shoulder into a laughing woman behind her, Riza thrust her aside, burst free from the crowd, and ran.

 


 

The concept of Deutschland absolutely fascinated Dante, so Al gave what little he had to her.  Though, he held onto the anglicized names, in case he needed a rabbit hole to send her questions burrowing into.  

Al worked in a distraction by bringing up the place Ed had lived, the place Brigitte had come from, and where Envy had engraved the rebound transmutation: München.  Dante wanted to know about the city, but Al didn’t have much to offer beyond his recollection of the place in the Thule Hall where the transmutation circle was, how his brother had ‘attended’ the university there, that it was hundreds of years old, and that the native language was called Deutsch.  It was a language that his brother had learnt and the only language in Brigitte’s head, which was sufficient enough to ensure Dante never made an attempt at anything in Brigitte’s mind - she wouldn’t be able to either ask a question or understand the reply.  

Offering the prospect that his brother had been formally educated beyond the Gate was an uncomfortable gambit for Al to play - it offered the illusion that he had received some kind of formal alchemy training where none existed and that clearly peaked Dante's interest.  Accepting Dante believed Ed could summon the Gate at will, Alphonse reluctantly acknowledged that they were at a point where it didn’t matter how much knowledge it appeared his brother possessed, Dante was going to rip the country up to acquire him.  If Al inflated her perception of him, it certainly wouldn’t make the situation worse.

It did, however, finally give Alphonse an opening.

“Maybe Brigitte knows some Cyrillic, too.  Something my brother hasn’t taught me yet.”

Pulling herself up onto her knees in her chair, Dante reached out, clapped her hands lightly, and once again re-heated her tea pot, “And how do you propose we ask her?  Did your brother teach you anything in ‘Deutsch’?”

Al watched her leerily as she picked up the steaming pot, “No, but he did say he met her at the university.  I could show her the Cyrillic characters and find out if she recognizes them.  She might have learnt more in school.”

Dante carefully held the pot over her own cup and began to pour, “That’s not the best use of our time.”

Al puffed his cheeks in protest, “I’d at least like to know that she’s okay.”

Dante offered Nina’s smile to him, “She’s fine.”

Al needed Dante to bend, just a little, and he tried to press, “Why should I believe you?  You haven’t given me any reason to believe you.”

Placing the pot down again, Dante straightened herself in her chair, crossed one leg over the other like her immature body exuded the presence of a powerful woman, and she entertained Alphonse’s words, “Considering how unconfident you must be with your brother’s words by now, perhaps it would be best if I offer you something that will give you faith in me.”

If Al could have rolled his eyes out of his head…

Clasping her hands and setting them neatly down in her lap, Dante nodded to her captive Elric, “Very well, as a gesture in good faith, Alphonse: I’ll get Aisa to bring us some writing tools and after you write out the Cyrillic characters you know, and after you provide me with a dozen transmutations for each of them, we will go see Brigitte.”

Al’s eyes flew wide, “A dozen each!?” 

“Twelve.  Each,” Dante confirmed as an unsettling smile glowed, “I have no doubt that you have many more than that already in your head.  Don’t be shy with the permutations you choose.”

A glaring problem stared Al in the face: beyond how much time that would take, the moment Dante began dissecting the transmutations, she would start to see how pedestrian and clunky the ‘Cyrillic Alchemy’ he’d learnt was.  No matter how he organized writing them out, she’d have that solved by the time he got a quarter of the way through.  There had to be something he could do to convince her to take him to see Brigitte, before she began to question his integrity.  He needed to manufacture a compromise.

“Why not bring Brigitte here while I write everything out?” Al snatched up a solution, “Then I can see she’s okay, and you’ll get all the Cyrillic characters, and maybe more if she knows them.”

Reaching out, Dante collected the cup of cold, half-filled tea she’d left out for Al earlier and began warming it with water from the pot, “Alphonse, that is a very conscientious, amicable, and diplomatic agreement for the both of us.”

Swallowing as Dante put the pot down and stood up from her seat, Al watched her pick up the luke-warm cup of tea and raise it high.  

“However, I’m at odds with your request.”

Held pretentiously by its handle in one hand, and steadied by tiny splayed fingers at its bottom, the cup was presented neatly in front of her eyes.  Al abruptly locked his gaze on Dante as she carried herself around to the side of his chair, until she met the bound Elric at eye-level and offered him an unreadable smile. 

Al’s mouth went dry when he realized how uncomfortably she was bothering his nerves.  

“Why?”

With her fingers woven through the decorative handle, the rim of the pure white porcelain cup landed on Al’s lower lip and Dante tucked herself away in the corner of his left eye, “You are not in a position for diplomacy and I am not seeking amicable agreements with anyone.”

Al stared wide-eyed into the chaotic reflection of disturbed, dark water at his lower lip and inexplicably breathed in the faint odour of rotting fruit.  

Dante’s words poured into the young Elric’s ear, “Do not be mistaken, until Edward turns up to retrieve his baby brother, you are only here to give me information.  I have no obligation, nor interest, in giving anything to you.  I do not play children’s games.  There is no equivalent exchange here - there isn’t even ‘exchange’.”  

Al sat silently, a light-headed feeling swallowing him as he listened to Dante reverse the rotation of the room.  He didn’t need to see her to feel how her smile grew.

“There is only giving and taking, and I do have a number of methods at my disposal that I can use to help myself to whatever I wish from you,” the hard, unwavering tone she spoke with picked up a hint of amusement, “the only reason you remain in a position of ‘giving’ is because I’m not confident your brother has been entirely honest with you, and I don’t want to waste resources obtaining falsified or inadequate, second-hand information.  So, in order to know how best to proceed with you, I need you to answer a simple question.”

Nervous breaths squeaked through Alphonse’s nose.  His eyes bounced from the figure in his periphery, to the item at his lip, to the empty chair she’d risen from, and landed on the teapot sitting on the cloth covered table.

Dante smiled, “Do you believe your brother has lied to you about the Gate?”

Al returned his attention to the distorted reflection of himself flashing back at him in the unsettled liquid at his mouth.

“Hm?” Dante tilted the cup.

As far as he could in his bindings, Al leaned away, “I--”

When his mouth opened, but before any more words came out, the contents of the luke-warm cup of tea was tipped.  It poured over Alphonse’s face, flooding his mouth, spilling down his cheeks, chin, and neck, soaking the front of his shirt, and dampening his lap.  Dante held the cup to his face while Al squawked and choked, spitting out what she’d tried to force him to ingest and coughing to clear his lungs from what he’d accidentally inhaled.  Al clenched his eyes while he wheezed, but shot them open in alarm when Dante slowly dragged the rim of the empty cup down the bridge of his nose, tapping it lightly off the tip.  

Nina’s pigtails danced around her shoulders as Dante stepped away.  

Al gawked at her wordlessly, his nerves fraying as he tried to shake the drips from his chin and his pulse suddenly racing as the empty cup was filled again from the heated pot.

“Your eyes really are gold now, aren’t they?”

Al’s stomach turned as Dante turned to face him again, steaming cup in hand.

“So pretty.”

Entirely at her mercy where he sat, alarms began firing in Al’s head as Dante held the cup out for him to view again while she walked around to his side.  His eyes flew from the face casting a terrifying, placid look over on him to the cup of steaming tea that accompanied her, until finally Dante lingered at his side again.  

Al was forced to snap his head forwards when a tuft of hair on the back of his head was snagged and yanked like a lever, straightening his line of sight.  While the remnants of the spilt cup of tea still clung to his chin, the heated rim of a hot, steaming cup landed on Alphonse’s lower lip again and froze him.  The impish hand that had snagged him let go and Dante’s fingers danced their way to the crown of Al’s head where she settled into doing nothing more than repeatedly twirling a length around her index finger.

His heart pounding so hard he wondered if it could be heard, Al silently stared dead ahead at the nothingness of a white wall; the steam from the cup dampening the tip of his nose and heating his nostrils. 

“Alphonse...” Dante wrapped a soft swatch of hair around her index finger once more while the hot tea cup remained pressed steadily against his lower lip, “it would also be in your best interest to admit if you believe your brother has lied to you about his knowledge of the Gate, if you'd like to make sure Brigitte is okay.”

Like he’d forgotten how to breathe, Al couldn’t manage to take a breath deep enough to fill his lungs.  He sat unmoving in the chair, not even trying to guess what might happen next, “Omitted, maybe.” 

The cup of hot tea slipped away.  Al’s eyes followed it over to his shoulder and watched silently as Dante put the cup to her lips, blew on it, and took a thin sip.

“Go on,” she preened, “and I’ll bring Brigitte over when I’m satisfied with your answer.”

Al stared silently at the tiny witch at his shoulder, his emotions strung so haphazardly through frustration, anger, fear, and disappointment that he didn’t know which one to latch on to, so he sat quietly in a pool filled with all of them.  In the end, it didn’t matter how he felt, or what emotion he wanted to convey, Alphonse wasn't in a position where he had enough power to contend with her.   Dante was just a monster playing with her captured prey before she grew hungry enough to devour him.

And Al needed to keep playing with her, keep feeding her, until help arrived - even if that meant he lost all the games.

 


To Be Continued...


 

Notes:

I wrote Riza’s section and had to go make dinner =A= I don’t miss living in farm country, but do I miss living in farm country sometimes haha.

I have no problems picking on Ed, but I always feel bad picking on Al. Al deserves headpats not Dante...

Next chapter: 2021-09-19 :)

Chapter 52: The Trembling Foundations

Summary:

Alphonse's complicity with Dante delivers results while Mustang begins the rescue attempt.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Sliding the handles of her grocery bags around her wrists, Sheska fought with her building’s stiff entry door until she wedged it open far enough to slip inside.  Throwing her weight against the door to shut it, she climbed the aging wooden stairs in the apartment she’d been forced to move into when her finances got too tight.  Reaching the second floor of an older building that creaked with every move she made, Shezka put her key in the lock and gave the door a swift bump with her hip to pop it open.

Navigating her maze of stacked books with an armload of groceries, Sheska got to her kitchen, shoved some unwashed dishes into the sink, and put her bags down on the counter. Gathering a few things to throw into her pantry, she paused and anxiously listened to a strangled noise that leaked into her kitchen. 

Sheska poked her head into the hall, “Ed?”

There was no answer.

Curiously weaving her way past towers of books that acted like walls, Sheska peeked around a pillar of novels behind her sofa and looked into her haphazardly cleared out living room.  Seated on the floor, rather than her small sofa or forty year old armchair, Ed’s arms were folded on the coffee table and his head was down on atop a chaotic spread of papers.  As far as Shezka could tell, he’d fallen asleep like that.  

That derailed her plans of asking what he might want for dinner.  Was Ed even staying for dinner again?  Did he want to cook again?  He was shockingly good at that.  Was he staying the night again?  Sheska honestly had no idea what his plans were.

Ed flinched and a tangled noise that sounded like a cross between a gasp and a choke coughed out of him.  Mumbling something incoherent, he fell silent again.

Freezing at the restless behaviour, Sheska stared wide eyed at her guest.  Maybe she should wake him up.  That might be fair, Ed did wake her up last night when he freaked out about something and she honestly thought her house was being robbed.  He never did explain what happened.  

Or maybe it was best to let him sleep.  He didn’t exactly seem to have a regular sleep schedule.  Maybe he’d be less antsy about what was going on in Xenotime with some more sleep. 

But… why was Al in Xenotime in the first place?  What was Ed so anxious about out there?  Something about Al and Xenotime seemed time sensitive and Ed was burying himself in busy work to distract himself from it.  Were they doing something to help with the government overthrow?  Neither of them really seem like the type. 

Slipping around her towers of books, Sheska tried her best to keep the floor from creaking as she knelt down next to Ed.  

There were so many questions she wasn’t getting clear answers to.  Like, why exactly did he look so old now?  How’d he get so tall so fast?  Yeah, she’d read that puberty can hit boys when they’re a bit older, but she wasn’t sure biology could accomplish this in under a year.  If she peered in close enough, if she inched in tight enough, Sheska swore he had stubble on his face.

Something fishy was going on.

If Al was responsible for getting Ed his flesh arm and leg back, and that only happened in the last few weeks, what was Al suddenly doing in Xenotime now?  Why weren’t they together?

And how come nobody but her cared how Winry was!?  Sure Ed was alive and in her home and the country was on the verge of civil war and she had to buy multiple weeks worth of groceries in case her store didn’t open ever again, but no one had heard from Winry in months!  Ed’s ‘I’m sure she’s fine’ gut feeling had zero basis in all the realities she’d concocted in her head.  He could stop being so casual about it and be a little more worried about her!

Sitting back, Sheska scanned her coffee table buried in pages upon pages of alchemical formulas, diagrams, transmutation circles, and sheets of… writing?  Yet another mysterious thing was looking her in the face.

Carefully sliding a page out from the pile Ed was sleeping on, Sheska adjusted her glasses and stared utterly bewildered at a page littered in words she couldn’t read .   

Wait, had she forgotten how to read?  

Sheska snatched a book out from under her sofa and opened it.  Okay, she still knew how to read.  

Holding the handwritten sheet in one hand and the book in the other, Shezka compared the two written pages to make sure there was no trickery going on and confirmed: yes, Ed had indeed written out something she couldn’t read.  Scanning the unreadable page line by line, she quickly noticed that it clearly had sentence structure and punctuation, but its words were incomprehensible.  It was written with English letters… for the most part, and some of the words looked like they could have been English, but it seemed like it was some kind of English derivative.  Did that exist anywhere in the world?  Sheska had seen books archived in the Central Library written in Drachmarian, Ishiballan, and Xinginese, but all those had different script types.  There were no other languages with a similar script to English.  Whatever Ed was writing was done in predominantly English letters, but different somehow.

Was this alchemy code!?  Sheska’s interest peaked again and her eyes flew wide - could this be a language code and not a Marcoh cookbook code?  A whole entire secret language created for alchemy?  Amazing.  What a fascinating thing to try and figure out.

Scanning the table for another cluttered sheet to scour over, Sheska snagged the corner of a busy page in the pile and tried to pull it out from under his elbow.

Ed startled.  

Shrieking as Ed jerked awake, Sheska scrambled back when he jumped and sent the coffee table astray.  Ed kicked his legs out and skirted along the floor, knocking the sofa out of place in a panic, and causing the towers of books piled high behind the sofa to graciously sway.  Both sets of eyes locked onto the leaning tower as it swayed one way, and then the other, and then back again where it toppled over with a deafening, dusty clatter to the hardwood floor.  

As the collapse settled, the noise dissipated, and the unexpected chaos ended, Sheska stared wide eyed at the spooked looking Elric sitting on his backside in the middle of her floor.  

Ed’s pinpoint, golden eyes darted around her apartment as he got his bearings again, before his hand swept through his face, shoving his bangs out of the way, “Fuck.” 

Sheska warily eyed Ed as he moved the coffee table back into place.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Sheska tightened her expression, got up, and adjusted her sofa.

Getting to his feet, Ed briskly moved around her and put himself to work clearing out the avalanche of books plugging the hall without a word to it. 

“Um, thanks again for the grocery money,” Sheska nervously patted her hands off her thighs, “I managed to get a bunch of things from a place up the street before they shuttered everything.”

“I heard on the radio this afternoon the city’s a mess.  I could hear it out the window sometimes too,” Ed threw a few books over the back of the sofa to get them out of the way, “you were gone all day, did you get in touch with anyone at Mustang’s operation?”

“I did, actually,” Sheska inched herself around and watched Ed as he tossed books, “Mr. Hakuro and Lt. Colonel Armstrong met with me and I think I can now be charged with theft and espionage and a handful of other things and I don’t think anyone’s going to ever have the time to figure that out.”

Ed sat back on his knees, “Hakuro?”

“Yeah, Brigadier General Mustang wasn’t available to see me, but Mr. Hakuro was there giving orders,” Sheska wove her brow, “I thought he’d resigned and left town with his family.”

Thrusting his arms into the pile of books, Ed drew them upwards and heaved an armload over the back of her sofa, “He’s a man who knows when to seize an opportunity,” Ed’s expression suddenly wrenched around in his face as he tried to stop himself from laughing, “Mustang’s going to be so pissed that guy is stealing his thunder.”

Heading around to pick up a few stray books that bounced to the floor, Sheska snuck a few side-eye glances at the pages of alchemical code on her coffee table, “What have you been working on all day?”

Ed abruptly lost his amused expression, “Your brain can’t translate that for some reason, can it?”

Sheska laughed, “No.”

Nodding in relief, Ed crouched back down and resumed digging, “I’ve been finishing a puzzle.”

“A puzzle,” Sheska eyed her table, “what sort of puzzle?”

“The kind that I need to use my head to solve.”

Frowning at the ambiguous answer, Sheska tossed another fallen book back onto her sofa, “What’s the puzzle for?”

“Alchemy.”

“Come on,” she sagged, “I can see that.  What are you getting up to in my house?”

Pushing back up to his feet, Ed adjusted his ponytail and walked back around to the table he’d cluttered, “I suppose you can call it a formula for inequivalent exchange.  It’s stuff everyone’s better off not knowing about.”

Her expression contorting, Shezka could only sigh, “How does dangerous alchemy follow you everywhere?” 

Ed knelt down across the table and started gathering his papers, “Alchemy isn’t dangerous, people are dangerous.”

“That’s true about everything,” Sheska put her elbows down on the table as Ed tidied the space, “if people intend to use something like a weapon, that’s what it becomes.”

“Exactly,” Ed nodded, straightened his papers, placed the neatly stacked pile of notes down at the centre of the table, and looked back at Sheska without another word.

Narrowing her gaze, Sheska examined the sleepless-looking man giving her a firm cold shoulder on the topic.  This guy was such a frustrating anomaly; nearly everything that came out of his mouth was guarded.  Every time she looked him in the eye for answers she was met with a stone wall.  There were moments where she'd talk to him and he'd feel lightyears away.  And then there were times like earlier where he was just straight up jumpy.  How did this odd stranger end up in her living room and start filling her life with riddles?  

Sheska suddenly clued back in that she was actually staring at Edward Elric and blurted, “How the heck did you go from fifteen to looking like you’re twenty-five?”

“I’m not THAT old!” Ed squawked, sprouting a few grey hairs, “and I was sixteen when I left!”

“Yeah, but where did--”

“Come on,” Ed stood up abruptly and marched back to the heap of fallen books blocking the hall, “let’s dig out your hallway and I’ll make dinner.”

Hanging her head sheepishly, Sheska followed him up to her feet, “Sorry, I’m a terrible cook.”

“It’s fine,” Ed shook her apology off, “I like cooking.”

 


 

While Dante puzzled through the construction of transmutation circles with the four characters his brother had scribed, Al stared out the window.  There wasn’t a whole lot for a view, just the faded silhouettes of greenspaces and sky masked by sheer curtains that occasionally offered gaps that let him see the wildness clearly, all of which was fading into the setting sun.  

Dante was having an immense amount of fun next to him.  Al figured it had probably been centuries since she’d last found a challenge with alchemy and her challenge was going to become more bountiful whenever Aisa came back and forced Al to write out the remaining eight.  

In the meantime, Al held his quiet vigil over the shrouded window and went through the information he had conceded to Dante.  

His brother had made no mention of a relationship with the Gate to him or anyone.  That was the truth and concealing that gave no benefit.  

His teacher had described Wrath’s behaviour prior to his departure identically to how Dante had.  The homunculus wasn’t shrewd enough to pull off any kind of large scale charade, so Al had to conclude both accounts were genuine.

And his brother had voiced concerns about clapping his hands now that he was home.  It was a truth that Al iced Dante’s cake with, to her absolute delight.  Despite it not containing any concrete details, it was a piece of information she had no other means of accessing, which seemed to cement her convictions and let her ease up on him.

Despite all the gross satisfaction he provided Dante, Al acknowledged that giving her his account of something she already believed to be true only provided her validation - it gave her no tangible information about the Gate, nor his brother, and it didn’t compromise or alter their situation.  

In a way… in a very small, tiny, miniscule, microscopic way that Al was almost too annoyed with his brother to put credit towards, Dante’s belief that Ed hadn’t been truthful with him kept her from digging around in his head.

And in his head, amongst all the parts of questions, partial truths, and things Al knew for certain about the other world, was also a single, tangible truth to his brother’s puzzle that Al had been able to keep from Dante.  One piece of the scattered puzzle that the Gate itself had given him personally: the refusal to permit his brother to return home.  

It was just simply a fundamental truth Al understood; even if the Gate never specified why, he knew it to be true.  Yet, somehow his brother had done something to bypass that restriction.  Ed had blatantly and jokingly avoided answering what he’d done to get around it, which allowed Al to open his mind to Dante’s claim that he was withholding information.  

Al solidified his resolve to skip the predictable rhetoric that came with asking ‘why’ and just go straight to beating some clear answers out of his older brother the moment he saw him.  Ed tended to be more cooperative if he’d been hit a few times anyways.  Then Al would punch some decent sense back into him once they were done.  

The mental plan for beating up his brother was put on pause when the door opened and Aisa presented to the room who Al had bowed to Dante for: Brigitte.

Alphonse’s heart sank when he saw her.  

Standing inside the door, Aisa had a hand locked on her upper arm and the expression and body language she wore reflected how Al felt deep down - weary, tired, and downtrodden.  Someone had gotten her re-dressed in clothes that looked like they’d been borrowed from kitchen staff: a stiff, wrinkled, button-up white dress shirt that was a bit too big, and a long, stiff, white skirt that stretched past her knees.  For no reason Al could see, she’d arrived without shoes or socks.  The exhausted look on Brigitte’s face made Al question if she’d been sleep deprived, but the mess of her bedhead hair had him wondering if she was trying and just simply couldn’t.  

The only consolation Al got was how Brigitte’s eyes brightened and her posture strengthened when she recognized him.

Dante returned her pencil to the pile on the table and slid aside the papers Aisa had brought in earlier.  Clasping her hands together neatly, she smiled at their newly arrived guest, “See, she’s perfectly fine.”

Al swallowed the sarcastic laugh he nearly choked out.

“Sit her at the end of the table, Aisa,” Dante swept a hand out, gesturing to the seat across from Al, “I need to check the authenticity of a few details Alphonse was given by his brother.”

Forcefully sat down in the chair, Brigitte stared wide eyed across the width of the table at Al without a word.  He watched her eyes dance over him, forgoing words in favour of what he figured was a futile attempt at telepathically to deliver her thoughts.  He watched her as she puzzled over how he sat ajar at the table, nervously eyed how his torso was bound to the back of his chair, took note of the damp stain down the front of his shirt and bindings, and uncomfortably acknowledged that his hands and wrists were caged in a cumbersome metal box.  

Brigitte swallowed, tucked her hands away in her lap, and sat in her seat perfectly straight.

Dante sifted through a few sheets of paper before pulling out one of interest.  Hopping up onto her knees in the chair, she cleared her throat and immediately commanded the attention of the room.  Directing her theatrics at Brigitte, she read aloud:  

“Deutschland.”

It was one of the few times where Al could honestly say he’d watched a person’s complexion drain of all the colour.  Brigitte lost her posture and sank back in her chair, elbows locked and hands burrowing deep into her lap.  Watching anxiously as the witch smiled at her visible discomfort, she clenched her jaw and stared nervously at the first person she’d ever heard on her journey voluntarily and knowingly provide the name of the country she’d been born in.

“München,” Dante spoke in contrast to the dread she was causing.

Like she wished she could melt off the chair, Brigitte squirmed uncomfortably and tried to bury her eyes as deeply into her lap as her hands were.

“Fascinating,” Dante addressed Brigitte regardless if she could understand or not, “these are words you recognize.  It’s where you’re from and where you’d like to return to.  Like Amestris is to our world, you are from the central country beyond the Gate: Deutschland.”

Brigitte quickly glanced up to catch Al’s hardened look before hiding her eyes in her lap again.

Dante snapped her fingers to get Brigitte to focus on her.  Collecting the foreign girl’s attention, she handed the unfolded piece of paper with four Cyrillic characters written down over to her, “I’d like to see your impression of these.”

Gingerly taking the paper from her, Brigitte collected it in both hands and stared at it.  Al watched curiously, as did Dante and Aisa, as Brigitte’s expression grew more puzzled, more confused, and more perplexed.  With her brow done up in knots, the German girl curiously flipped the paper over to see if there was something on the back, then flipped it upside down.  At a total loss, Brigitte took her eyes off it and looked into the tea room, watching Al deflate in quiet relief while Dante folded her arms in disappointment.  

Swallowing nervously, Brigitte put the paper down on the table and offered a response as lost in translation as everything else, “ Um… I don’t know Russian.

Dante frowned, slowly coming off her knees in the chair, “That’s not the kind of reception I was looking forward to.”

Al sighed, “I was worth a try.”

Before Dante could explore her options further, or Al could come up with a way to keep Brigitte with him a little longer, a clatter echoed in the hallway and caught the room’s attention.  The four heads at the table locked their attention on the door as a calamity in the hallway could be heard throwing open doors and shaking the floor with each heavy, desperate step taken.

“NINA!”

Dante’s shoulders rolled back and her expression bled foul, “What is he doing up here?”

“I’ll address him,” Aisa stood up.

The moment Aisa cracked the door open, the pristine presentation of the room was thrown into chaos.  Sebastien Mitchell, the man tasked to helm a nation set up to fail by the woman who’d seduced him, now whittled down to nothing more than Dante’s floundering puppet, forced himself into the room.  The aging, dishevelled, frazzled man in a grey suit frantically collided with the table, knocking everything astray, and sending Brigitte scrambling from her seat and into the farthest corner of the room.  His hands slammed down with force, throwing Al’s eyes wide and drawing the ire of Dante as he pleaded with the vile, offended face of a child now standing high on her seat across from him.

“Nina, sweetheart, I need your help!  Everything’s coming undone!”

“AISA,” Dante pounded power into her tiny voice, “remove him before I do.”

“No, dear!  You don’t understand,” he frantically wailed as Aisa began forcing the man out the door, “the military is trying to remove me!  They’re trying to break down all we’ve accomplished!”

A cold, uncaring look no child would have known how to wear crushed down on him, “That isn’t my concern.  Get out.”

“It is our concern,” Mitchell pleaded.  Struggling within Aisa’s iron grip, his vision and focus was so hopelessly locked on Dante he seemed unable to realize there were others in the room, “people will get hurt if Hakuro keeps this up!  We can’t allow that!”

The chill Dante shrouded herself in suddenly thinned, “... Hakuro?”

Al’s brow rose as he watched and listened.

“He’s going to ruin everything!” Mitchell pleaded over Aisa’s shoulder from the hall, “please!  We need to come up with a strategy.”

“Wait.”  

Dante issued the order she’d intended both Aisa and the man she escorted out to comply with.  As everything around her ceased moving - as Mitchell sagged in Aisa’s firm hold, as Brigitte pinned herself in the corner with untranslatable fear, as Alphonse's observing eyes flooded wide with interest, Dante made sure the attention of the room zeroed in on her.  She stepped off her chair and onto the floor, her shoes lightly clicking with her steps, and the childish features of her face began to deform from the discontent that overtook her.

Hakuro is helming the disruption?  Not Mustang?”

“YES!” Mitchell cried, “and he’s incited the entire city!  We have to find a way to stop this.”

Swiftly moving out from her position at the table, Dante swept around past Al and stormed towards the door, “We will have a discussion elsewhere.”

Stopping at the door, Dante looked pointedly at Brigitte cowering in the corner, snapped to Al watching the scene, looked around the room in disgust, punched her brow down low, and slammed the door shut.  

Brigitte flinched and both remaining children watched in dismay as an alchemical spark swallowed the doorknob and then fused the entire exit into a solid, seamless wall.  

Just like that, the disruption ended.

Seated in silence at opposite ends of the room, neither Brigitte nor Alphonse made a peep while they listened to the sound of Mitchell’s chaos fade away down the hall.

 


 

Mustang snapped his fingers to light a torch and his scowl deepened when he got no satisfaction from doing it.  The urge to snap his fingers and let loose the hot, volatile rage burning inside him was growing insufferable.

Literally kicking down the door to the mine that evening didn’t bring any relief either.  Subduing the evening guard was practically an afterthought.

“We should look for dynamite in the supply room,” Hawkeye eyed the locked door and reached for her sidearm in the hip pocket of her workman’s overalls.

“No need,” Mustang stopped her, “I’ll take care of it.”

Hawkeye wrapped her fingers around the handle of her gun, “Not to get in, but to collapse the mine shafts we marked.”

“I said I’ll take care of it!” the infuriated, ignited superior officer bellowed his intentions and stormed deeper into the mining tunnel.

Reluctantly releasing her weapon, but knowing better than to argue with his tone, Hawkeye hustled after him.

All communications with Central had been severed.  From what little information East City bragged about having over the radio, Hakuro had turned up sometime in their absence and, for some reason, attempted to change the power balance in Central City.  He tossed the city into upheaval, with rumoured military factions attempting to seize control, and the government was only holding on to it’s faculties by the lengths of the rifles they were pointing at its citizens.

Yes, they had run the risk of botching or retreating from their position at the government’s throat, and Mustang was fully prepared to accept that, so long as their missions succeeded in the end.  But… why the hell was Hakuro suddenly meddling in the middle of all this?  Mustang wanted to snap his fingers and blow a crater out of the mountain in frustration.  Where did he come from?  Hadn’t he left Central to prioritize his family?  Where had he been hiding his alliances?  

Why in the world would this man have handed his direct, subordinate team over to Mustang’s authority just to turn up with another group?

To unsettle the beleaguered officer further, but what kept him from flying completely off the handle, was the nagging voice in the back of his head that found the entire event suspicious.  Not a single news report had mentioned Hakuro had taken the opportunity to flaunt or gloat about his success, nor had he called out Mustang for his obvious absence.  Surely, the man would have recognized that he wasn’t in Central or Hakuro never would have acted, so why wasn’t he gloating?

Pinned at the outskirts of the country and entirely unable to exert his presence, the only course of action Mustang could take was to extract Brigitte now , while the building was in an uproar and Dante was minding her puppets, and get the hell back to Central.

“Do you honestly intend to collapse the mining tunnels with ignition cloth?” Hawkeye finally asked, “an explosion like that in a confined area like this…”

“No,” Mustang blurted, but quickly dialed back his tone, “I have another way.”

Hawkeye lowered her brow, “A way that doesn’t require dynamite?”

Mustang huffed to avoid smirking, “Yes.”

Taking the cue that he had no intention of explaining what his intentions were until he needed to act, Hawkeye unrolled their map as the first intersection in the mine shaft began to pick up the light.  The left turn they needed had been boarded up, but rather than pick up a discarded axe from the respite and hack it down, Mustang took out some of his frustrations on the brittle wood and used his boot to punch a few holes.  

Hawkeye stood aside, tucked her arms properly away behind her back, and let her superior officer vent while he dismantled the blockade.

The corridor that opened up was in a far poorer, dilapidated condition than the one they’d come from.  The wooden supports sagged from rot, the dirt ceiling bowed down from the earth’s weight overhead, and roots from the aged forest above had started to burrow in.  Mustang did himself a favour by lightly snapping his fingers and burning up all of the spiders and cobwebs for the next several hundred metres.

The tunnel stretched on for what seemed like ages and the silent trek he and Hawkeye embarked on felt like it took far longer than the map suggested.  Marching and weaving through the dank and dreary tunnel beneath Xenotime, breathing in the settled air growing thicker with the smell of raw earth, Mustang’s steps finally slowed as the next, and last, intersection available on the copied map came into view.

“We take the north tunnel from here,” Hawkeye let the map curl back up in her hand, “then we have one more interchange that’ll lead us to what should be connective routes into the laboratory.”

Stepping into the open cave of a five-way intersection, Mustang eyed two boarded up tunnels in a southern direction, peered down the open one to the west, and finally turned his attention north, “It has to, because getting out any other way is going to be hell.”

Hawkeye eyed him curiously and then looked down the eastern tunnel they’d exited, which had been the first one on the map Mustang had been marked for collapse.

Pivoting and handing the torch off to her, the brigadier general reached into the hip pocket of his overalls and gallantly produced a stick of chalk, showcasing it high in his fingers.

Hawkeye blinked twice before raising her brow.

“I did have to be fairly proficient with alchemy in general prior to specializing and gaining my title,” Mustang looked pointedly at the woman eyeing him with intrigue, “I’m not a one-trick pony.”

“I never thought you were,” she replied.

“Dynamite is crude, noisy, and leaves room for error,” on a dry piece of wood embedded into the dirt wall to stabilize the tunnel, Mustang swiftly drew out a transmutation circle and peeked over his shoulder when he felt a pair of curious eyes watching him.

Hawkeye’s brow travelled a little higher, “That’s the transmutation circle Lt. Colonel Armstrong had on his gauntlets.”

“Close,” Mustang corrected, “this is scaled down.  I just want to collapse the tunnel, not bring the entire forest above down with it.” 

At that, his fingers swiped the transmutation circle.  

Both officers took a quick breath and shielded their faces as a rush of air and dust surged back at them when the aged wood and caked dirt walls cracked and collapsed.  Despite losing their visual as the dust cloud thickened and the torch blew out, they were still able to hear the dull sounds of the travelling transmutation as the reaction cascaded farther down the reaches of the tunnel they’d entered from, before the noise petered out and everything settled into a deafening quiet again.  

Waving her hand in the dark to clear the air, Hawkeye coughed as the dust settled, “When was the last time you did a transmutation like that?”

“When I was a baby.”

Hawkeye stifled her laugh.

Mustang lightly snapped his fingers to get a visual in the dark intersection, then snapped once more to re-ignite the torch his partner held, and he directed her attention to the northern corridor.

“Now--”

The earth shook.

Both officers snatched up their sidearms and pointed them down the dark corridor that ventured west off their map.  

Sediment rained from the low dirt ceiling overhead as the tremor dissipated and pure silence swallowed the cavern again.  Dropping the torch on the ground, Hawkeye stomped out the flame and let everything fall to black.

No sooner had the room darkened than a light quake shook everything once more.  Again, a shower of sediment fell from the dirt ceiling overhead and the sound of dry rain echoed throughout the underground tunnels.  As the quake quickly subsided and the sound of the falling dirt faded, both officers remained fixated on the depths of the western corridor that they had no visual on.

Mustang brought his voice down as low as he could, “Who the hell…”

“We need to hurry and get into the lab,” Hawkeye hastily tried to wrangle his focus.

Mustang took a few cautious steps towards the western tunnel, “If someone is coming in from behind us, we--”

The faint light of a transmutation deep in the western corridor lit the eyes of the two officers debating their next move and commanded them to hastily vanish out of sight as the earth continued to tremble.

 


 

“Don’t worry about it,” Al spoke like Brigitte could understand him.

Frowning as though she had, Brigitte shoved the tip of a pencil into what little space there was around Al’s wrist and gave another shot at prying apart the box open.

And she cracked the tip of another pencil.

Exasperated, Brigitte threw it across the room and watched it clatter on the floor.

“It’s okay,” Al shook his head and peered out the window into the Xenotime forests again.

The door might have been gone, but Dante may as well have taken the window too.  The moment Brigitte got Al untied from the chair, and finished hugging the daylights out of him, and finished rambling off an absolutely frantic tale he couldn’t understand, the first thing they both did was try to see how they could get out the window.  The immediate, obvious conclusion was that they couldn’t.  The window panes didn’t open more than the width of an arm and, if they shattered the glass, it was still a four-storey drop straight down into the dark orange hues of the late sunset.

It left them trapped in a room with four chairs, a table, the remnants of Dante’s tea party, an assortment of pencils and paper, and no usable alchemist.  How the heck were they going to get out?  How would they let someone know where they were?  How much time did they have? 

Al needed to get his mental questions in better order.  Walking back to the spot where the door once was, he stared at the empty wall. 

How long was Hakuro going to keep Central in an uproar?  Why Hakuro?  Al quickly decided that didn’t matter.  How long before Dante began to question the brigadier general’s whereabouts in all this?  What exactly was going on, Al couldn’t pinpoint, but it read clearly like something had been done in Central City to force Dante to turn her attention to the government and Al needed to use the distraction to become apparent and accessible.

Brigitte borrowed Al’s attention again when she walked up next to him and looked at the vacant wall where a door had once been.  For a day where everything had been so demoralizing, exhausting, and frustrating while he’d been forced to bend and bow throughout Dante’s games, Al could at least say he had found her.

Stepping away from the empty wall, Al’s eyes wandered the tiny room.  The space had little to offer, but the one thing it did have was a generous grate shoved into the top corner of the wall that was responsible for bringing the circulated air into the room.  

Right, this was Xenotime… he’d been here before!  Alphonse knew what this place was all about: a massive laboratory for botanical alchemy research as a cover for the Red Water production going on within.  Both dealt with high levels of potentially toxic and reactive airborne elements, so the air circulation throughout the building had to be bountiful and top notch.  

And large as heck. 

“Brigitte,” Al looked to his shoulder and found her already there, “um… chair?”

“Chair?” she repeated, not sure of the word.

“Chair,” Al went over to the table, tucked his foot around the leg of a chair, and tried to tug it to the corner.

“OH,” Brigitte scrambled over, grabbed the back, and brought it over to the corner where Al was shaking his box.

With the chair tucked into the corner, Al hopped up and tried to look into the vent.  Straining on his tiptoes, he was still too short.  

Al blinked over to Brigitte when the sound of dishes began to clatter and, for the first time in what felt like days, Al smiled while he watched her move the entire contents of the table to the floor, rip off the table cloth, and start shoving the table towards the corner.  Hopping down, Al’s feet tugged on the chair legs until he'd moved it enough to chase it away with his backside.  Brigitte settled the table in the corner and promptly collected the chair Al had moved, put it on top of the table, and both children climbed up. 

The table on its own was an improvement, but the best vantage point happened when Al climbed onto the chair and he was able to stare straight through the grate into a wide, metallic air vent.  

“Perfect!”  

Al examined their next obstacle: the grate in their way had nothing to grab on to, but it was only attached to the wall with a single screw at each corner.  Bringing his arms up, Al tried to see if he could get any leverage from the edges of the metallic box around his hands in place of a screwdriver.  The large, cumbersome cage was clearly too big for the task, even when Brigitte helped give some stability and leverage, and the duo had to stop when it became apparent they were stripping the bottom screws, rather than making it budge.

When Brigitte’s fingernails were just as useless, the German girl hopped off their tower, collected a few pencils from the floor, and came back.  As futile as they had been trying to get the box off Al’s wrists, the lead pencil tips simply crumbled, shattered, and ripped out of the wood as the stubborn screw resisted.  Even the broken wood of the pencils did little good - it was all too soft.

The trapped pair withered; not only could they not get the grate off but, whenever Dante came back, she was going to see the absolute disaster their escape attempt had been and Al had nothing but disparaging thoughts on how that was going to go over.  

Slouched on the chair atop the tea table, Al cast his weary gaze over the mess of things on the floor and once again looked at the window, wondering if there were any options with the window he hadn’t thought of yet.  He could easily shatter the glass with the box confining his hands…

Brigitte moved in the corner of his eye and Al looked down.  He watched curiously as she collected one of the broken pencils from the floor and sat back down on the table.  Biting into the eraser at the end of the pencil, Brigitte wrestled with it in her teeth and extracted the eraser from the case holding it.  Shoving the tin end into the corner of her mouth, Brigitte chomped down on the empty eraser casing.  Al sat forward as she took the pencil and its flattened casing out of her mouth, eyed it, then stuck it back in.  Gnawing and wiggling the end of the pencil end through her molars, eventually she brought it out again and gave her creation a stern visual inspection.  The tin casing had been flattened and folded over in her teeth, leaving a firm, narrowed nub at the end.  Al’s grin ran ear to ear as he looked at the chewed up ‘screwdriver’ Brigitte had manufactured.

She stood up and Alphonse excitedly hopped off the seat.  

Don’t tell my mom I did that ,” Brigitte climbed onto the chair and dipped her head to keep from bumping it on the ceiling, “ she’s afraid I’ll get lead poisoning from chewing on my pencils.

Brigitte slipped the pencil end into the head of the screw, gave her tool a firm twist, and ripped the tin casing right off the wooden pencil.

Alphonse sank down on the table top as Brigitte let the stripped pencil clatter to the floor.  Getting down off the chair in a huff, she stomped her way down, snatched up another pencil, ripped the eraser out, and began grinding her teeth on the end of another one.  Al flexed his hands imprisoned uselessly in his lap while he watched Brigitte slide her backside onto the table again, give a few good chomps to the pencil end to secure it, and popped it out of her mouth to inspect it.

Scaling the chair once more, the Brigitte stood up tall, pressed the top of her head into the ceiling for stability, left the infuriating bottom screws alone, shoved her pencil high into the screw in the top right corner, gripped it high around the eraser casing, and turned it.

IT’S MOVING! ” her unintelligible squeal echoed inside the air vent.

Al nearly fell off the table trying to get up to his feet, “You got it!?”

It’s coming out! ” she shrieked, shoving her pencil behind her ear and freely spinning the screw with her fingers.

The accessible screw tumbled into her hands and Brigitte scrambled off the chair.  Cradling the screw in her hands, like she was presenting Al with some kind of silver jewel, Brigitte’s grin ran ear to ear.

A smile exploded through Al’s face and his voice pitched with excitement, “You did it!”

I got it out! ” Brigitte continued to glow and bounce on her toes.

For a brief moment, two unorthodox children acted like children and foolishly stood on the table in the room they were trapped in to squeal incoherently at their accomplishment.

 


 

Footsteps approached in the darkness, wildly igniting Mustang’s imagination, and the first concise detail that came to his mind’s eye was that the approaching body included weight .  

The steps were strong; they had weight and force behind them.  Mustang quickly concluded that, unless she’d changed bodies, their alchemist company was not Dante.  Aisa couldn’t do alchemy and there were no other alchemists in Dante’s party that he was aware of, so who the hell was left?

Accompanying the fearless strides walking through the dark was the clacking of a stick dragging along the wall.  The subtle noise it made changed every time it moved over a wooden pillar and that told Mustang whoever was approaching was just as blind as they were.

It had been some time since the transmutation light ceased and the earth had stopped shaking, and in an echoing space where so little sound existed, every movement, every breath taken too drastically, and every shift of fabric was noticeable.  When the encroaching presence passed into the open gap of the corridor’s interchange, Mustang made the decision to make the first move.

Squaring off against the sound of a moving body, the click of his gun setting echoed the loudest in the room, “Do--”

The gun was kicked from his hand before he’d finished his breath.  It was a blind swipe taken from the audible cue, and while the foot hadn’t landed cleanly, it connected with enough force to disarm him and Mustang promptly changed gears.  Tossing his left gloved hand out in place of his gun, he snapped his fingers, let his flames brilliantly swarm inside the underground pocket, and watched in surprise as Izumi clapped her hands amidst a flurry of papers. 

As quickly as his flames fanned out beneath the low hanging ceiling, Izumi just as quickly tinkered with the density of the molecules in the air, drew up a gust of wind, and blew his fire out.

“With the amount of shit they mine down here you’re lucky you haven’t blown a hole in the entire countryside yet,” Izumi barked as she stomped out the remnants of Mustang’s flame from the papers on the ground around her, “and what the hell would you have done if I’d been Dante?  She would have burnt you alive with your own flame, you idiot.”

Mustang stared dumbstruck at the woman berating him in the settling darkness, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I assume that was you who caused that rumble,” she looked at the collapsed eastern tunnel as it vanished to darkness, “guess I owe Vato a drink.”

Tucking her weapon away, Hawkeye maneuvered through the darkened intersection and swept her feet around, searching for the dropped torch, “Izumi, what are you doing here?”

Mustang’s voice suddenly snapped in the black void, “And what the hell is going on in Central!?”

Clapping her hands to offer a bit of light, Izumi stepped towards Hawkeye and pinched the top of the torch to light it as the officer picked it up.  Abruptly turning to face the man in charge of the mission, Izumi’s expression tensed.

“Dante has Ed and Al.”

“What!?” two voices echoed in the chamber.

“How?” Mustang abruptly demanded, “Ed is supposed to be up north.”

“Five more minutes and he would have been,” Izumi snarled, “Vato’s best guess is that Dante sent Aisa into Central City and used her to organize a loyal military group to feign allegiance to you.  They had enough people involved that they were able to piece together when and where Ed and Winry were supposed to head out.”

Mustang’s hands charged through his face as he digested what he’d just heard.  Every time information found him, the situation they faced grew monumentally worse.  How were they even supposed to keep up, let alone get a head, if every time they attempted to do anything, something else happened to set them back.  Even their best laid plans were being forced to kneel.

“Aisa was in Central?”

“She was,” Izumi nodded.

Mustang snarled in a deep breath, “Dante’s made her expendable then?”

“Yes,” Izumi confirmed, “if Aisa’s being used like this, the Philosopher’s Stone remnants that Al says are crystallizing inside her are almost ready to come out.  The moment Dante removes them, the chances that the Red Water inside her remains stable enough to maintain her drops dramatically.”

“Okay,” Mustang tried to get his thoughts in order - the scale of their mission had been drastically changed.  He needed to reorder their approach and adjust their tactics accordingly, “How long have Ed and Al been in there?”

The bridge of Izumi’s nose creased as her brow dipped lower, “Since early this morning.”

Frustration pumped through his veins; that was not an answer Mustang wanted to hear.  Until two minutes ago his motivation was to get Brigitte out so he could get back to Central and put his boot up Hakuro’s ass.  But, with Dante having free access to the Elric brothers, there was no room to entertain his selfish desires - any length of time that little terror had alone with Ed had the potential to be absolutely catastrophic for everyone. 

“Is that enough time for Dante to get anything out of Ed?”

Izumi delivered her response with a heavy sigh, “Dante’s not going to want to risk damaging Ed, he’s too valuable, so she’s going to have to go slowly and carefully with him.  But, we’re probably going to have to assume she knows something by now that we don’t want her to know.”

“Great,” Mustang scowled and smoothed his hands over his hair as he tried to think.  He suddenly wished he’d just hog-tied Ed and forced him up north kicking and screaming in the first place, “how the hell did she get both of them?  What was everyone doing?” his dark eye began overflowing with frustration, “Where were you!?”

“Oh no,” the implication of the question drew Izumi’s ire, “you don’t get to blame me for this.  I’m not the one whose failed security procedures put them in danger.”

Mustang scoffed “Right, you only take responsibility for their well being at your leisure.”

“Excuse me?” Izumi dug her heels in to challenge him, “You’ve only been irresponsibly stringing two teenaged boys around for years because it suits your politics.”

Mustang bit back at the accusation with a bitter retort, “And you just forget about them, or abandon one in Central, and only come back into their lives when it’s relevant for you to do so.”

Countering someone she firmly believed had no right to say anything to her on the matter, Izumi bristled, “That’s rich coming from the mouth of a mongrel who coerced a grieving child to become a dog of the military, feeding him hope that it might lead to solutions for his problems.”

“From what I’ve come to understand,” needlessly dramatic, Mustang threw his hands out as he paraded his words, “you’re the one responsible for empowering these two grieving children with knowledge well beyond their years, then abandoning them to it.”

“I did not teach them human transmutation!” Izumi drilled her anger into the single eye of the man in front of her, “the lessons I gave them were meant to drive home you should NEVER do what they did.”

“And they listened so well didn’t they!  Just like children,” Mustang slung his words back at her like mud, “you let two precocious young boys with no parents walk in and out of your life, like they could possibly do no wrong, and never once thought to check up on them.”

Izumi let the man’s fire boil her; stepping forwards, she met him nose to nose, “UNLIKE YOU? Pinako told me that YOU walked into their life, into her home knowing full well who they were, who their parents were, and what they had done, and you still filled Ed’s head full of ideas.”

Throwing his finger to the air with pointed authority, Mustang’s booming voice shook dust from the walls, “If I hadn’t stepped in when I did, someone else in the military would have come along for Ed and Al.  Someone with ties to Dante I don’t doubt and then where would they be?”

Izumi’s words crashed like thunder through the cavern, “Is THAT how you’ve been justifying manipulating them all these years?  You think you’ve been some kind of saviour?”

Mustang’s voice exploded in her face like he’d snapped his fingers, “You do NOT get to lecture me when you weren’t a factor in their lives ‘all these years’.  At least I have been TRYING to protect them!”

“AND I’M TRYING TO PROTECT THEM NOW .”

“SO AM I.”

Hawkeye fired her gun into the dirt overhead and immediately had two angry people latch their dark, enraged eyes on her.

She cleared her throat, “It’s obvious we’re all trying to do our best for Ed and Al right now , but we need a little more strategy and organization in our approach,” Hawkeye took a deep breath and swung the torch towards the western corridor, “Izumi, you were running transmutations prior to finding us, correct?”

Collecting herself, Izumi reached down and started collecting the paper maps that had been discarded at their feet, “I was.  When we got in I helped myself to resources at Town Hall, so I knew where to bugger things up on my way in.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Hawkeye looked back to the entirety of Mustang’s collapsed tunnel, “then, you’re going to be more efficient at irreparably damaging things down here than we will be.”

Izumi slammed the last map into her hand and stood up.  

“I know you want to go in,” Hawkeye tried to ease her reaction, “but, it’ll be in everyone’s best interest if you keep going through the tunnels and initiate as many massive collapses as you can.”

“You’re going to need all the hands you can get once you’re inside,” Izumi pushed back.

“I know,” Hawkeye didn’t argue with her sentiment, “but we don’t have a lot of time and a large-scale dismantling is something your skillset would be most efficient with, especially considering Aisa is also in the building and she hampers your best defence mechanisms.”

Straightening the collar of his shirt, Mustang added, “The more you do and the louder you do it, the more attention you’ll get from Dante’s party and that can offer us a distraction and get the boys’ attention as well.”  

Hawkeye continued his thought, “She’ll have both a government to puppet and her underground tunnel structure to investigate.  It’ll thin her resources for spotting the two of us and let us maneuver better.”

Sucking in her next breath through clenched teeth, the alchemy teacher reluctantly accepted the scenario, “Fine.  I’ll make it loud,” Izumi turned her frustrated gaze down the dark western tunnel, “but once I’ve made this a sufficient mess, you better be out or I’m coming in after you and nobody’s going to like what I intend to do to that place.”

“We’ll set off the fire alarms when we have everyone.  Let’s get going, we need to get this done quickly,” Hawkeye put a heavy hand on Mustang’s shoulder and gave him a strong, but encouraging shove towards the north tunnel as Izumi retreated down the westward passage.

Barely managing a few steps towards his destination, Mustang’s single eye lit with one final glow of frustration and he swung back, “What is Hakuro doing in Central?”

Walking back into the intersection to look at him, Izumi gave Mustang an honestly puzzled look, “Who’s Hakuro?”

Shaking like he was ready to explode, Mustang abruptly turned on his heels and stormed up the northern mineshaft without any further encouragement from his company.

 


 

They had two screws.  

But, they only had two screws.  

Brigitte had managed to successfully claim the other top screw while Al cheered her on, but it was the bottom two screws that foiled them.

The two bottom screws ruined all the other pencils too.

Refusing to surrender to a pair of stubborn fixtures, a new plan was hatched.  An extra chair was put on the table so Brigitte had better balance, and she scraped away the soft paint coating the top of the grate with the broken bits of pencils.  

Plucking the top edge of the grate away from the wall, she needed to create a better finger hold, so Brigitte wedged a pencil shard into the gap and began twisting and wrenching it around to widen the space.  The endeavour brought more success and, with enough space created to get her fingers into, she grabbed onto the upper lip of the air vent grate and started yanking.  The stiff metal barrier bent and the wall where the two stubborn screws remained quickly developed cracks, but progress was infuriatingly slow and eventually reached a standstill.

Al was shoo’d off the table when Brigitte steadied herself squarely on both chairs.  Gripping the grate at both ends, she gulped down a deep breath, cemented her hold, and picked up her feet.

Brigitte hung off the infuriating grate while it bent a little bit more.

“Let me help,” Al scrambled back onto the table as she put her feet down.  

Claiming the spot farther away from the wall corner, Al tried to figure out how best to wedge the box into the slowly growing gap between the grate, the wall, and the ceiling.  Awkwardly reaching up so his arms would dangle straight down, Al caught the edge of the metal box on the corner of the grate and slowly wedged it in tighter, digging a corner deep into the ceiling as he fought with it.  Reaching over, Brigitte gave Al’s cage a few good smacks to help shove it in tighter.

“Okay,” Al took a deep breath, looked at Brigitte as she secured the opposite corner, and offered a single emphatic word: “three.”

With a few good English words at her disposal now, Brigitte nodded, “Three.”

Al looked straight ahead, “One.  Two.  Three.”

The children picked their legs up and inexplicably hung off the front of the air vent secured to the wall by two infuriating screws.  Brigitte's face twisted as she fought to hold her grip on the corner and Al clenched his eyes as his body weight pulled on his trapped wrists.

A crack ripped into their ears and together they screamed as the grate tore off the wall without warning.  

Al and Brigitte landed on their knees atop the chairs, then fell further when both seats skidded wildly along the table top as unbalanced weights sent them astray.  Dumped heavily on the table as the chairs crashed to the floor, with the grate landing on them and torn bits of wall crumbling down, both curled up as the dust settled around them.

Ow… ” was the tiny, little whine that squeaked out from the clatter.

Al picked his head up and watched his bloodied nose run over the aggravating metal prison that had smacked him in the face somewhere in all that.  

Brigitte shook out her hair and gingerly slid off the table.  Al slowly brought himself up onto his elbows and knees and turned his eyes up to admire the hole they’d just ripped in the wall.  Success vanquished everything that hurt and, despite his nose coating his upper lip, the small Elric’s grin still curled proudly as he got off the table.

Al blinked when Brigitte turned him around, grabbed his chin, and put their dire situation on pause.  

He stood soundly on both feet while she washed a tea-soaked corner of the white table cloth over his bloodied face to clean it up.  Caught in a moment that made him feel as young as he looked, Al humbly let her tidy his face.  Wiping up the mess like he was a little boy who hadn't noticed his runny nose, Brigitte dried his face, wiped the metal box clean, and capped off the task by shoving a scrunched-up napkin into his leaking nostril.  Somewhere between feeling very young and very humbled, Al’s grin creaked sheepishly sideways as she nodded and patted him on the head.

With the sudden flash of Brigitte’s pointed finger, they snapped back to the mission at hand, “ It came off!

“We did it!” Al joined the childish, squealing cheer as Brigitte flew away and quickly got a chair back onto the table.

The ascent into the ventilation system went without any further fanfare.  Brigitte slid in first, then Al hopped up and tossed his torso into the vent.  The box immobilizing his hands crashed against the metal sides of their escape route, sending a wicked eruption of noise exploding through the air shaft.  Unable to grip anything as he tried to flounder his way in, Brigitte snagged Al by the belt loop on the back of his slacks and helped haul the poor Elric awkwardly in by the seat of his pants.

If there weren’t a hundred other things stewing in his head and needing his focus, Al would have just let himself have a moment of frustration to yell at the binding of his hands.  Nearly everything he tried to do was crippled by it and every which way he tried to move in the vent created noise so intense it clearly gave away that someone was crawling through the shaft.  The only solution Al could think of was to lay down on his back and push himself along…

When Al rolled over to give it a try, everything began to shake.

Snapping his knees into his chest, Al kicked his legs up and planted the soles of his shoes against the top of the shaft to steady himself while the building shook around them.  For a few seconds that seemed to last forever, the building rumbled and a tired, dull echo reverberated ominously low inside the metallic shaft as the tremble pulsed through the building.  Then it vanished.

Laying still on his back, not sure what had happened, Al craned his head back and looked down their escape route.  Amidst an eerie calm, he stared quietly at the rays of light leaking in through vents ahead of them, watching the disturbed layers of dust begin to resettle in the glow.  For as long as he stared, watching the dancing dust calm in the light, not a single sound found its way into the airway.

Al slowly pulled his feet off the ceiling of the ventilation shaft, “Brigitte…?”

Unable to sit up properly in the confines of the air shaft, Al peered as best he could over at her.

“Brigitte?”

Uncoiling from the ball she’d wrapped herself up in, she peeked an eye up at him.

The earth shook again.

Al flattened himself on his back and smacked his feet on the ceiling of the vent again.  His heart rate skyrocketed; what the heck was going on?

With less oomph than the prior one, the quake faded as quickly as it had arrived.

Laying on his back, Al stared at the walls of their metallic confines and took a slow, steady breath.  The quake hadn’t been enough to dislodge anything, or even tip something over.  It just rumbled quickly and then faded.  Even when it came up to interrupt their anxious silence a third time, it wasn’t enough to cause damage, it was just simply enough to unsettle their nerves.  To be a disruption.

To be noticed.

Al turned his head again and looked down their escape route again, his expression tensing with his thoughts.  

No matter what the reason for the shaking earth, he didn’t doubt for a second Dante had felt it too and someone would be on their way to monitor them both.  Al reached out with a foot and lightly tapped the top of Brigitte’s head to get her mobile.  Despite whatever was going on around them, the first thing they had to focus on was getting as far away from the gaping hole they’d created as possible.

 


To Be Continued...


 

Notes:

I was very very bored in school sometimes and I chewed on a lot of pencils and made some weird things out of them. I pass down my tips and tricks to Brigitte ;)

I do believe Izumi has met Hakuro in the story, but she wasn't really interested in who he was, so she didn't take note of him. If she sees him again, she'd recognize him.

I really really really want to post the next chapter on Oct 3, but it's sitting at Maybe right now. Crossing my fingers!

Chapter 53: Dante's Labyrinth

Summary:

Alphonse and Brigitte try to make their escape while Dante works to re-establish her advantage.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Dante flew into the stairwell and used her legs, not yet affected by the rot, to launch herself up through the floors.  Stair after stair she further abandoned the ridiculous political strife and all the nonsense that came with managing ambitious fools.  

Hakuro interfering while Mustang was dawdling was a boggling event, but without a way to communicate with Central, the details she wanted were either vague or unavailable.  Something wasn’t sitting right.  Dante had never been one to doubt her own gut feeling and when the quakes began - at such an opportune time - everything in motion became too convenient.  There was something linking everything somewhere, though she couldn’t say where, and the government upheaval was trying to be a noisy distraction.  

A distraction from what?  Well, that answer lay upstairs.

Dante left the room of quibbling old men after the fourth quake rumbled through - they could bemoan their fate amongst themselves.  It wasn’t as though any of them had ever been in control of their fate in the first place.

Throwing open the doors to the fourth floor, Dante surged through the empty halls, her bow-tied hair trailing in her wake as she stretched her limbs and ran.  The ruffles of her childish white dress danced around her knees as she flew and the entire ensemble swirled around her body when she came to a stop.  The ocean blue of Nina’s eyes captured the reflection of transmutation energy when Dante clapped her hands.  

A vacant space was transmuted into the wall.

The self-designated overseer of a nation, who’d controlled its people as she desired to sustain her longevity, glared into the dishevelled remains of an empty cavity in her commandeered Xenotime castle.  Mankind was becoming a little too disobedient… 

The room trembled weakly as a faint quake disturbed the silence, barely strong enough to affect the wave of the curtains drifting in the evening breeze.  

Slowly entering, Dante stepped through the floor cluttered with her table dressings.  She kicked aside a fallen cup, listening to it crack apart as it tinkered along the floor.  She walked through the shards, grinding them to dust under her toes, and approached the base of a hastily constructed monument to youthful ingenuity.  Staring up, she absorbed the details of a crude escape ladder reaching to a hole ripped out of the wall.  Dante’s eyes fell down to her feet and she looked at the bent metallic grate discarded on the floor.

Aisa’s feet echoed faintly when passed through the forged entry. 

Dante corralled her discontent and held her voice numbingly calm, “What a precocious pair of children we have running amok.”

“You’d like me to search for them?” 

“Aisa,” Dante held the situation on pause, weighing a multitude of options.  Their guests had turned an otherwise simple situation into something that needed further thought and strategy; she looked at the woman coldly from the corner of her eye, “Has the Philosopher’s Stone finished crystalizing?”

Aisa shook her head, “No.”

Dante clenched her hands, “Very well.”

Another earthly rumble disturbed the room.  A scowl twisted Dante’s nose, muddled her brow, narrowed her eyes, and pinched her lips - someone was signalling her guests.  The rescue party was early it seemed and the government baboons were plugging up the main floor in an uproar.  What a nuisance everything had become. 

Swiftly turning to face Aisa, Dante moved to reestablish control, “Lock all the exits, seal the stairwells, bind Brigitte and break Alphonse’s ankles when you find them, then load them in the van.  We’re leaving.  Please dispose of anyone who interferes.”

“Yes Miss,” Aisa nodded and quickly took her leave.

The building trembled once more, subsiding as quickly as it arrived.

Dante’s fingers danced around her sides while she glowered at the torn escape route, “I will address whoever’s trying to get our attention.”

She left the room and stormed down the hall.  Dante marched a jagged path through the building, sharply turning down every other hall, and approached the central stairwell.  She clapped her hands and dismissed the door before arriving.  Ignoring the steps leading down in favour of a path going up, she firmly gripped the rungs of a wooden ladder nailed to the wall and climbed.  

Dante easily threw open the hatch to the roof.

The wind rolling off the mountains caught her pigtails sucked them out ahead of her.  Nina’s hair blew wildly around her ears and shoulders as she emerged atop the building and the ruffles of her dress thrashed around madly at her arms and knees.  The chilled mountain wind forced the fabric of her dress to cling to her body while she marched across the top of the building beneath a ceiling of stars.  At the front ledge of the roof Dante stopped and stood tall on the highest man-made perch in eastern Amestris, looking down at humanity occupying the Xenotime valley below.

She watched, waited, and listened for them.

There was never any smoke to see.  No gathering of lights ever happened.  The wilderness slumbered and the town glowed like it always did, despite the obvious disruption.  There were no collections of humanity in any unusual spots to lead her towards a single source for the tremors.  

Drawing her tiny arms up and folding her arms across her chest, Dante stood in the face of a low lying moon, looked down, and continued patiently waiting.

Eventually, the earth shook once more.

Narrowing her eyes, Dante scanned the town and the wilderness - there was no visual source beyond a few unsettled birds.  But the rumble was clear, she could hear it rise up and feel it fade away, and the sound of the night way up on high settled back in briefly before another quake quickly disturbed everything again.

There was nothing to see. 

If nothing could be seen above ground, then the source obviously had to be below.

Dante nearly laughed, not only were the rescuers early, they were in her underground channels.  If someone had entered them and started causing a disturbance, then they understood one of the fates she'd established for the town.  If they were hell bent on crippling the transmutation’s purpose, any amount of damage would render it inoperative and significant damage would be an absolute nuisance to fix.  

What an unfortunate predicament humanity was encroaching on - there was too much knowledge in common hands.  They were starting to figure details out.

Perhaps it was time to stop playing the cat and mouse game.  The situation called for Dante to firmly reign in her control over what mankind understood, or thought it understood, and close a few eyes that had opened too far.  

Turning away from scenes of nothing, the raging wind helped carry Dante away from her perch and she walked back to the rooftop hatch.

 


 

A dark room echoed unforgivingly at the impact of a metal grate crashing to the floor, the absence of light amplifying the egregious sound.  Both Alphonse and Brigitte hid from the colossal clatter but, once it was clear no one was coming to investigate, Al took the lead and squeezed his way out of the ventilation system.  He landed in some kind of cluttered storage closet.  While Brigitte worked her way out, the light peeking in around the seams of a door drew Al to the opposing wall and he swept his shoulder around.  His arm caught a light switch and he flipped it on.

A tired bulb flickered and struggled to gain strength, but it was enough for the two of them to see where they’d landed: a cramped closet filled with a hodgepodge of things.  Bags of soil, dirty pots, rickety buckets, frayed brooms, and rusted gardening hand tools of all sorts were both neatly shelved and haphazardly dumped in the room.  Tarnished lab coats and crusty overalls were piled high at the opposite wall, along with worn boots, well used gloves, old masks, and a myriad of tools lining a number of shelves.  A few chipped shovels and mining axes accented the corners of this space of uncared for things.

Brigitte began rummaging around in the shelves and Al stared in awe at a mountain of stuff that he wasn’t sure would do them any good.  It wasn’t like he could hold anything.

But, Brigitte could.  She dug out a pair of decently-sharpened gardening shears and spun around triumphantly, “ Al!”

Al took one look at the sharp object and responded with a wary eye.

Unfazed by the lack of enthusiasm, she grinned and snipped the air a few times.

Al added confusion to his concerns.

Reaching out, Brigitte started to mock-snip a seam through the centre of his metal box.

“OH,” Al’s voice accidentally cracked with delight.  Eagerly he offered the metal box around his hands and Brigitte gave the contraption a thorough eyeing, trying to figure out how to use the shears to pry it off.  Together they moved down to their knees and elbows and Al stretched his arms out, putting the metal cage on the floor for stability.  

Jamming anything sharp into the wrist holes wasn’t an option, so Brigitte threw the shears open as wide as they would go, placed the blade against the edge of the box, and tried sawing.  Both children squirmed and shivered at the shrill, screeching sound of metal grinding on metal.  

Searching for another option that didn’t make their hair stand on end, Brigitte fished through the messy shelves of tools and Al’s expression widened when she pulled out a rubber mallet.  Clamping the shears shut, she steadied the pointed end over the centre of the metal box.  Before Al could act on any of his concerns, Brigitte raised her arm above her head and smacked the mallet down on the butt end of the shears’ handle.  

They both cringed at the sharp, piercing sound that happened as the shears skated around wildly on the top of the box.  Brigitte was too stubborn to be easily dissuaded; she reaffirmed her grip and returned the pointed end to the centre of the box.  She raised her mallet arm once more and wholloped the end of the handles cleanly.

A muted clank tingled in their ears.  Much more pleasant than all the other sounds produced so far, the noise collected both sets of delighted eyes to examine a clear, pointed dent in the top of the metal box.  

Settling the sharp end of the shears into the divot and gripping the handle of the mallet firmly, Brigitte and Al both held their breaths while the hammer smashed down twice more.  Pulling the shears away, they took a moment to silently marvel at the hole Brigitte had begun punching in the top.  

Getting up on her knees, she gripped the ends of the shears’ handles with both hands and tried to use her body weight to wedge them in deeper.  She heaved what strength she had into her shoulders and upper body, trying to wiggle around to widen the hole.  Brigitte eventually sat back to examine her progress.  

It was a punched and mangled hole that was barely a finger’s width in size, but the dent forced into the metal from all the weight and abuse was deepening.  Al could actually touch the inside if he stretched his index fingers.  Unfortunately, there was an inescapable problem making itself clear to him.  

Sitting back on his knees and bringing his prison up to eye level, Al’s shoulders sagged, “This is going to take forever.”

Holding up her shears once more, Al deflated Brigitte’s enthusiasm with the shake of his head.

The earth trembled, startling the pair in the closet.  By this point it was clear the tremors weren’t a natural phenomena and Al had every reason to believe that someone was trying to make their presence known.  He was quietly confident that a rescue party was preparing to swoop in.

But, a rescue party would only be effective if they could find someone to save.  Already down on his knees, Al put his cheek to the floor.  Peering out from beneath the door, he eyed the hallway beyond, watching and waiting and counting how many sets of feet wandered by.  It was a relieving sight to watch only a single person pass.  

Not wanting to stay in the building any longer than they had to, the young Elric got to his feet, “Brigitte…”

“Hm?”

Al motioned to the door and nudged the knob with his elbow.

Brigitte’s expression held a number of questions she couldn’t put to voice and twisted uneasily instead.

Al offered a single word he was sure she understood, “Go.”

Eyeing the door cautiously, then placing her concerned gaze on her company, Brigitte’s attention abruptly broke from Al.  Quickly turning away, she started looking around the storage room once again.

His posture sagging, Al elbowed the doorknob, “Please, we need to go.”

Clearly ignoring him, Brigitte’s distraction brought her to a corner and she pulled out a rusted mining axe by its handle.  She assessed it under the flickering light like some well-to-do inspector and, with a nod of approval, the axe was firmly taken in her hand.

Brigitte fermented her scowl, “ Something for self-defence.”

Al raised a single eyebrow, still a little lost.

The storage room door opened easily.  Smooth hinges released the children into the hallway without a creak, squeak, or any other sound.  Alphonse and Brigitte cautiously peered up and down the brightly-lit hall, their eyes bouncing around a quiet, empty corridor. 

There wasn’t a whole lot for either of them to take note of.  Rooms with closed doors were the most obvious thing, though one a fair bit down the way was open, but the entire hall was nothing more than a long, narrow, windowless stretch of research labs, capped at both ends by adjoining halls.  

Standing free in an unnotable, unknown hallway on the fourth floor of the laboratory that confined them, Al picked a direction and they scampered away.

 


 

Dante tapped her bedroom door shut when she settled into the room and her despondent gaze wandered the childish décor.  Just like sugar and spice, all her things were nice.  Ruffles, bows, dresses, pretty dolls, toy animals, books... it would have been the perfect childhood to know nothing but this.  What little she remembered of her own had diminished to nothing more than some disjointed memories of illness and famine.  The impression left behind by her childhood clung to the fringes of her memories, never completely fading away; it wasn’t happy.

Alchemy made her happy when she’d learnt it.  The Philosopher’s Stone made her happy when she had it.  She’d created many happy childhoods for humanity with both.

Before she and Hohenheim had risen hundreds of years ago, the country and its people and its lands were desolate things.  That man, Edward’s father, had the gall to leave her before she’d had a chance to entrench herself - to fully realize how to protect mankind from its own inherent faults.  The country was shaped the way it was because she was the gardener who controlled where the seeds had been laid.  Alchemy rose at the forefront because she allowed it - encouraged it - to flourish over centuries.  Medicine thrived because it became a passion of Dante’s in her youth; plague existed in the history books because she’d made it so with the Red Stones.  

These little nuisances running amok had no idea how the red water experiments she’d been conducting over the last three centuries had helped further society.  It was all for their own good.  And every time the country went to war over for some petty reason or another, Dante widened the gap between her knowledge and what remained for mankind. 

War allowed Dante to remove from society all the written words she wanted under her control, no, under her guard.

Strife allowed Dante to remove from society all the people who’d encroached too far onto the truth founding the lies of their lives.

Stepping up to her polished oak dressing table, she sat down on the cushioned stool, looked at herself in the circular mirror, and tidied her bangs with a comb.  

Adjusting the bows at the ends of her hair that had been tossed about in the wind, Dante straightened herself out in the mirror and pulled open the thin drawer at the front of the table.  In the middle of a mix of hair ties, pins, bows, and a variety of childish accessories, she pulled out a black jewel box and sat it down at the centre of the table.  

Flipping the latch, she opened the case, bringing to light her glistening blood-red pendant bound to a thin gold chain.  Nestled in a soft cotton bed, a glossy gleam hugged the rich crimson stone and let Dante see her reflection as clearly as the mirror she ignored.

Scooping up the chain, her tiny fingers unlatched the clasp and she gently pulled the necklace out.  Holding her chin high, Dante clipped it back together behind her neck and settled the nearly weightless pendant down below her collar bones.  She had to remind herself that it was actually much less than it appeared; her body was so small that the final token of her previous Philosopher’s Stone appeared larger than it really was. 

Once endowed with the lives of so many more, this final remnant of an old stone was only large enough for one purpose - obtaining the contents of Edward’s mind.

Tucking the prized possession away into the protective high collar of her frilly white dress, Dante clicked the box shut and slipped it back into the drawer again.

Her pigtails flaring out as she swung out of her seat, Dante left the room.

Weaving her way through the third floor hallways buzzing with nervous people, she slipped into the central stairwell and ventured down to the main floor.  Emerging into a bustle of people, Dante breezed through the unsettled occupants wandering the halls of the laboratory.  The vocal murmur they gave her ears was that the government officials were deciding if an evacuation was an appropriate response to the tremors, but they seemed indecisive.  Dante was more than happy to let the lot of them bumble about in disarray. 

Near the back of the building nestled in the mountainside, Dante arrived at a grand set of double doors and promptly clapped her hands.  Putting a palm down on one of the handles, she transmuted the lock and let herself into a generously wide research room sunken in darkness.  She shut the door and transmuted the handles away.

Dante crossed through the room, forgoing the lights in favour of the moonlight filtering in through uncovered windows at the room’s far side, and she passed table after table decorated with jars, flasks, vials, papers upon papers, and all manner of colourful chemical equipment.  Slipping away into an alcove at the corner of the room, she flipped on an overhead light and opened an equipment locker.  Scanning its contents, Dante picked out an air mask small enough to fit her, tucked it under her arm, and continued on.  

An unlocked door at the back wall offered unhindered entry to a secondary room she slipped into.  Marching through a cluttered testing lab and nearly completely sunken in darkness, Dante grabbed a wheeled cart of flasks and pushed it away.  The cart clattered along the floor as Dante stepped up to an undecorated wall.  Her ensuing handclap cracked the darkness. 

A hole ripped into the wall, then deeper to the bed of rock beyond it, and light filled her eyes.

Squinting into the entry of a mountain tunnel, Dante tossed her pigtails over her shoulders and stepped into the artificially lit corridor.  Clapping her hands once again, she returned the wall to the way she’d found it, then transmuted the surrounding earth to fill in and seal her entry point.

Locking her arms behind her back, she walked to the clap of her footsteps connecting to the rock floor in total peace.  The tunnel slowly widened into a generous thoroughfare deep into the Xenotime mountain and, long before the passageway ended, Dante turned her attention to a metal door on her left side.  She let herself in.  

A lengthy stretch of carefully molded stairs opened up for her to scamper down and she emerged into a cavern welcoming her at the base.  In the poorly lit cocoon, several heavy, metallic doors with no handles were embedded in the rock faces on either side, but it was the centre most one that drew Dante to its threshold.  

Slipping her air mask on and tightening it, Dante clapped her hands to create a latch and, as she cracked the door open, a red cloud bloomed at her feet.  Wading into a cave emitting a deep red glow, the walls sparkled like they’d been showered in glitter and Dante casually strode through a thick haze suffocating the oxygen.  

She invaded the deepest part of the hollowed earth.  

“Enjoying yourself?”

Wrath blinked slowly and gave no response.

Drawing to a stop, Dante tilted her head and cast an emotionless gaze down at the docile homunculus.  

Sprawled out on his back and nested in his own bed of untamed hair, Wrath’s limbs lay lifeless around his body.  His mouth hung open just far enough that the tips of his fangs glowed, his disinterested eyes swam around lazily and eventually floated into the back of his head.  His chest swelled with every breath he took of the rolling red haze that flowed around his body. 

“Time to get up, we have company to entertain,” Dante reached down, grabbed Wrath by the front of his shirt, and hauled him upright.

Wrath’s head rolled around atop his shoulders like his spine had liquified.

“Come along,” Dante gave his face a few quick slaps to try and draw out his senses, but Wrath’s mind insisted on drowning in the fog.  Tangling her fingers into the knots in his hair, rather than work to get him mobile, Dante started dragging him towards the door, “A few minutes of fresh air and you’ll start feeling right as rain.”

The low-lying red haze bubbled around Wrath as Dante pulled him along like an oversized rag doll, his backside and AutoMail leg carving a trail in the dirt floor when he gave no effort to help himself along.  The whites of Wrath’s eyes glowed in the haze, entirely detached from his thoughts and completely unaware of anything going on around him. 

 


 

Al watched and waited as Brigitte controlled the stairwell door; she closed it without making a sound.  Together they stepped up to the edge of the wooden stairwell that wound its way to the main floor.  It probably creaked.  It probably made all the noises they didn’t want to hear - it was wood after all.  Behind a gulp of air for their nerves and an anxious pause on their toes, they took off and made the stairs complain.

Al flew down every third and fourth step as he ran, followed closely behind by Brigitte who relied on the handrail as she descended.  Her bare feet clapped louder than the soles of his shoes.  Soaring fast with gravity and momentum on their sides, and nearly dizzy from so many sharp turns, the base of the stairwell came clearly into view.  Scrambling down to the ground floor, Al staggered to a stop and Brigitte launched herself past him, grabbing the doorknob.

It didn’t budge.

Wretched door, why is it locked!? ”  A question she wouldn’t get an answer to.

The echo of their hurried footsteps settled and the fresh sound of Al’s groan overtook it.  Everything had been going so good up until now - they were so close.

Setting her axe down next to the door, Brigitte took the knob in both hands and stubbornly wrenched it around.

Turning his eyes over to the first flight of stairs, Al mulled their options, “We should try the second floor.”

Brigitte responded to Al’s unintelligible thought with a frustrated huff.  Collecting her pickaxe in both hands, she brazenly stepped back from the door, “ I’ll break it open.”

Al squeaked when he watched her raise the axe and rushed between Brigitte and the door, “No!  Don’t do that!”

Her hands strangling the handle of the axe as she struggled to hold the weight above her shoulders, Brigitte’s eyes flipped between her readied weapon and Al.  Visually confused about why he was stopping her, she gave the axe an encouraging shake.

Al shook his head, “No.  No, no.  We don’t know who’s on the other side.”

Furrowing her brow, Brigitte waggled the axe up a little higher.

His expression pleading, Al shook his head with all the vigor he had.

Brigitte’s brows weighed down over her eyes in confusion and disappointment while she lowered her weapon.

Al tossed his head towards the stairs and started to inch his way towards the bottom steps, “Go.  Go.”

Her brow twisting, she scowled at the locked door and begrudgingly followed Al back up the stairs.

Unlike the main floor, the door to the second floor was unlocked.  But, much to Al’s dismay, there were actually a few people on the second floor.  Peering out into the hall, he tried to analyze their predicament a little further - could they trust these people?  Al wasn’t sure who, if anyone, was aware they were there, or if they could ask any of them for help.  There was no way to know if any of them were directly involved with Dante or not.  

On the other hand, considering Dante had him sequestered away in a part of the building where he couldn’t hear anyone, or more likely that no one would hear him, the chances people knew who he was and that he was there were low.  

But, what about Brigitte?  How many people knew about her?  And where were all the other stairwells that would take them down?  Al hadn’t exactly gotten familiar with the floorplan of the lab when he’d been here last. 

Brigitte scared the daylights out of Al when she firmly grabbed him by the forearm and hauled him into the hallway before he could protest.  With her axe secured in one hand and Al with his unexplainable metal box in her other, Brigitte put her chin up and brazenly marched barefoot straight down the centre of the hallway.  

Not wanting to cause a scene, Al followed alongside her anxiously, keeping his nervous wide eyes locked dead ahead.  Of the few people they passed, he could only hope that nobody started to question what two strange kids were doing there at that time of day, why they were a mess, why they were covered in air vent dust, or what in the world this damaged box was that Al had pulled against his stomach.

Despite his concerns, the pair wandered the evening halls relatively unhindered.  

Long stretches of hallways filled with doors ended up not producing a whole lot of people.  Those that did turn up were completely wrapped up in talk about the tremors and evacuation buzz.  Al idly hoped that some of them would actually evacuate so they could follow the crowd out.  

Coming to a stop, Brigitte suddenly let go of his arm and brought Al back to the mission at hand - they stood beneath a stairwell sign.  Al’s first, second, and third questions all revolved around getting Brigitte to explain how she knew where this was.  How come she seemed to know where to go?  Al’s next realization told him flatly that he’d have to wait for his brother to translate if he ever wanted to actually find out.

Brigitte opened the door to their next escape and Alphonse led the charge in.

The charge ended when Al nearly fell down the stairs.  Reversing his steps faster than he’d made them, Al’s heels skirted off the lips of the steps and gravity dropped him on his backside atop the second floor landing.  

His golden eyes locked on Aisa paused in mid-motion at the stairwell’s lower bend.

Aisa allowed her own surprise to reflect back in return.

One hand on the railing and the other decorated with keys dangling through her fingers, Aisa stared up at the silent, growing horror contorting two children’s faces.  The surprise visible in her reaction did not filter into her voice, “You managed to get yourselves all the way down here?”

Al nearly choked when his heart thundered into his throat.  His legs frantically swam over the stairs, trying to get up, acutely aware he had no way to defend himself from her.  Bumbling back up to his feet, the captured Elric backed up into Brigitte, the wheeze of her panicked breaths ringing in his ears until she scrambled back to the door.

Tucking the set of keys into her pocket, Aisa brought herself completely around the bend and locked her attention on the frantic pair fumbling through their actions.

The door opened and Brigitte’s piercing scream released from her lungs.  Her voice exploded through the reaches of the stairwell and flooded the second floor as she tore back into the depths of the building.  

Practically falling out the door in his escape, Al’s feet pounded on the hallway floor as he ran, caught in the flow of Brigitte’s shrill voice ahead of him.  Clenching his eyes as tight as his trapped fists, he put his head down and chased the screams through the building.  His imagination flashing with visions of Aisa in pursuit, and amplified by the never ending soundtrack Brigitte produced, he ran through the maze of halls hardly able to hold his focus forwards, let alone look back.  Taking his turns sharply and nearly stumbling off his feet for it, Al fled as fast as his legs would take him.  

But… why hadn’t Aisa caught up to him yet?

It was a rational question that interrupted the chaos boiling in his head.  Without realizing how it had happened, Al lifted his eyes and a fog cleared from his thoughts.  

Logically, she should have caught up to him moments after he’d started running.  Even if he’d made it around his first corner, she could have just followed the sound… 

The sound was gone.  Wait, where was Brigitte?

Alphonse staggered to a stop and every worry his mind dredged up fed his horrified expression.  He looked up and down the narrow, quiet hall containing no essence of life within the walls, waiting for the air to scream in fear again.  There was no Aisa, no Brigitte, not anyone.  The dread filling the younger Elric brother’s eyes sagged down his face - the sound of Brigitte's fears were silent and Al’s were screaming at him for losing her.

Staring down the length of a corridor filled with nothing but identical closed doors that stretched on forever, Al stood alone in the hall.

 


 

Dante clapped her hands and cleared another collapsed artery beneath Xenotime. 

Someone was putting a good amount of effort into making an absolute mess of the underground system.  From collapsed channels to reforged passage ways, for each thing Dante mended as she passed by, another destructive tremble arose in its wake.  Undeterred by the ruins, Dante was actually learning a great deal about the alchemist crippling the earthbound transmutation circle.  

Alphonse’s rescue party was showing they were adept.  The locations of underground collapses told her that the demise of one of her tertiary plans was being executed with knowledge of the system.  How did they get maps?  Dante didn't like how organised this seemed to be and it only served to reinforce her resolve to start reclaiming information. 

It was a waste of time to restore what needed to be, attempting to do so would keep her occupied for far too long, so Dante instead studied the misdemeanours going on within the earth in an effort to identify a point to intercept her guests at.

She was starting to feel she was close.  

Emerging in a connective artery, Dante held her lantern out and looked at the branching veins of the underground maze.  The tiny oil-lit flame of the lantern danced with each quake that came and went, throwing her shadow merrily around the walls.  Brushing away the sediment that dusted her hair, she passed effortlessly through the interchange and continued onwards through her labyrinth.  

The swaying flame in her hand stretched long into the darkness and Dante implored the light to flow as far as it could reach.  She made no attempt to conceal her approach down the corridor - in fact, she welcomed it.  And, indeed, the bold strategy yielded results; she smiled when it became apparent that the quaking earth had fallen silent.  

The outstretched arms of the flame’s light breached the end of the tunnel long before she’d arrived.  Her approach generously announced, Dante stepped out into a thinned connecting vein and she lifted her lantern high.   She peered playfully up and down the intersecting tunnel, the lamplight swirling in her eyes, and she mockingly examined the two directions of this next path, teasing uncertainty about which way to go.  Eventually, she turned left.  

Confident strides drove her down the carved corridor without another sound intruding.  Dante walked in the underground to the sound of her pristinely polished shoes clapping beneath her, uninterrupted by the shivering earth.  

She carried herself right up to an unsurprising dead end manufactured with broken rock.

“I ought to put you over my knee and turn your ass red.”

Dante’s brow bounced at the sound of a familiar voice and she swung around, throwing her oil lantern light back into the dark tunnel as her pigtails flew around her shoulders, “I wasn’t expecting you.”

Izumi scowled, “Who were you expecting?”

“There was a State Alchemist who excelled at this sort of thing,” she waved her hand around, “I thought since you figured out what this was, he would have been the one you’d assigned to the task.  It only made sense.”

“He’s busy,” Izumi replied bluntly.

Dante shrugged, “Regardless, I honestly thought you’d be up top putting all your energy into retrieving my guests.  Who were you forced to leave that to - some military puppies?” she brought her free hand to her chest and placed her palm over the stone concealed beneath her dress, “Edward, perhaps?” 

Izumi’s gaze narrowed at the petite figure holding the shivering light.

The flame danced at Dante’s command and she grinned, “I’ve been betting with myself whether or not you’d allow him to come rescue his little brother or if he’d simply give you no choice in the matter, considering what he’s capable of.”

“Ed… or myself aren’t capable of a whole lot with Aisa up there.  I’m assuming she’s the babysitter,” Izumi folded her arms tightly across her chest. 

“Yes she is, very true,” Dante nodded, “but I’d love it if he’d try and clap his hands next to her, though I’d prefer if he waits until after we've had a chance to chat.”

Izumi stiffened her jaw, weighing her words as she proceeded, “I don’t want to know what’ll happen if Ed claps his hands at all and I won’t allow you to get close enough to him to find out.”

Throwing a childish laugh at someone who remained her ignorant pupil, Dante disregarded the fierce eyes trying to pin her in the corner, “Yes, I’m sure you’ll try.  But, Edward is his father’s son and he will eventually come to me.  And I will continue to give him reasons why he should.”

Izumi scowled, “What Ed has learnt isn’t some pinnacle of achievements.  It’s knowledge that we aren’t meant to have.”

“That knowledge was meant to be ours,” Dante’s childish tone crumbled out of her mouth and exposed a tone as rotten as her decaying body, “we were too infantile in our civilization’s youth to realize their gifts or understand the magnitude of the relationship they were offering, and now we are shackled by the confines of our ignorant limitations.”

“You can’t know that,” Izumi countered her teacher’s claims, “there are reasons we don’t have this knowledge - reasons greater than you.”

“Is that what Ed has told you?” the tiny woman shook her head and tossed her braids over her shoulders, “tell me, does he still childishly adhere to his fallacies when it comes to all he’s learnt?  Or is it that the other world showed him enough to open his eyes and broaden his horizons?”

Izumi dropped her arms defiantly to her sides, “Whatever Ed believes is irrelevant, the knowledge he gained beyond the Gate is his to assess.”

“Mentally… emotionally and psychologically, Edward has shown he is just like the rest of humanity and too immature to find appropriate applications for what he learns when the answers reside outside his desired beliefs,” dangling the lantern in her fingers, Dante stepped away from the seal of fallen rock and encroached on her company, “I have the impartiality and willingness to show the other world what this world has the ability to achieve.  When I reach them, I will learn everything we’ve been denied.”

“And then what?  You’ll add more strings to all your puppets?” Izumi stood firmly in the way of her former teacher, “who are you to designate yourself as the one to pick and choose what we can and cannot know, or is it all just the excuse you’ve given yourself to justify reinforcing your soul so you can escape your own mortality.”

“Mortality is a fact of the world,” Dante said, “mankind has shown time and again it is too weak to handle the potential it possesses and constantly teeters on the brink of mass, uncontrollable slaughter by its own hands.  Every second generation is the same; as the grandparents pass, the children know nothing of the hardships they endured for the luxuries they enjoy.  But I have to continue to exist, so I can remind mankind of its fragility - to protect you all from yourselves.  You live with the luxuries you have today because I’ve allowed them to flourish, because I ensure unrestrained ambition doesn’t lead to the incalculable atrocities you’re worried about.”

“You aren’t a god.  Nothing gives you that right,” Izumi’s eyes darkened, “mankind is not so fragile that we need someone like you constantly culling the herd to keep us in our place while you soar beyond reach.”

Tisking, Dante took one more gracious step forwards in the stale earthbound tunnel and lifted the lantern dangling in her fingers up high.  Giving it a shake, the container sealing the oil flame rattled around like a broken metallic chime.

Her eyes flying wide, Izumi snapped her head over her shoulder.  A cursed pair of purple eyes picked up the glow of the light and an incomplete body stalked into view.  Clenching her teeth and throwing her shoulders back, Izumi watched the lantern reveal Wrath creeping up behind her in the underground tunnel, the clank of his metal leg deliberately growing louder.

The homunculus flashed the whites of his teeth in the flickering light.

“Izumi…”

Dante summoned her student’s attention and let her watch the childish face she wore drain of its life, revealing the cold, dispassionate visage of an ancient creature long removed from humanity.  She drew the lantern to her cheek and pursed her lips.  Watching Izumi with eyes growing dull from the rot and age she battled, Dante turned the oil knob on the lantern and mockingly blew out the flame.  

“You are fragile.”

The tunnel plunged into darkness.

 


 

Al was faced with accepting that he had no idea where he’d ended up in this laboratory maze.  He couldn’t even begin to figure out where Brigitte or Aisa might have gone.  Every corner was blind and had to be approached with caution, every hall was long and had to be dashed through quickly.  Nothing offered any glimpse or sound to shed light on either the woman he was running from or the girl he was running to. The end of another hall did nothing but inflate his growing frustration with the situation and his helplessness.  It was beginning to feel like he was running out of corners to go around before he turned the one that walked him into Aisa.  Then what would he do?

If he could get something like a pin or a nail or a screw to fall into the hole on the top of his box, Al could jingle it around inside and catch it in his fingers.  The top of the box had collapsed enough thanks to Brigitte that he could touch it and, if he could scratch in a transmutation circle, he could transmute the whole damn contraption away.  Why was everyone so tidy that nothing useful had been lost on the floor?

Ducking around another safe corner, Al shuffled to a stop when his ears picked up a curious sound coming from the hall he’d just cleared.  Doors were opening?  Peeking around the corner, Al watched curiously as a handful of Xenotime botanists working in the late hour came out of their labs.  

“Listen up!” 

Al ducked back behind the wall. 

“They're leading us out through the central stairwell.  Once we're outside everyone can head home.  We'll reassess everything in the morning.”

Murmurs of agreement bubbled in people’s words and the gathering of a dozen or so men and women began walking away.  

Al’s eyes snapped to the part of the building he’d been about to advance on and then looked around to the parade of lab coats escaping.  He could follow the evacuation out and get help! 

His expression losing bits of the tension that had gripped him, Al waited for the last one to turn the corner and he trailed after them.  Keeping a hallway length between himself and a chorus of people heading out, each hallway brought more bodies into the crowd; rooms emptied, laboratories cleared, and evening studies were ended.  By the time they’d made their way around to the central stairwell, more than one hallway was bustling with people trying to feed into a single exit. 

It was perfect, Al could hide in a sea of lab coats and slip out for help.  In a gathering this size, he’d be dismissed as somebody’s son.  Knitting his brow with a helping of reinforced determination and a dash of rejuvenation, Al pulled his metal box against his stomach and scampered into the crowd.  

Only shoulder and armpit height to most everyone, Al ducked down and excused himself as he nestled into the protective cover of taller adults.  Shuffling along with the flow and trying to see past the shoulders and elbows around him, the pack of people tightened trying to hasten their way out.  Lab coats and long jackets shielded the young Elric a little further while they all worked to squeeze into the lone exit.

“Single file, please.”

All the hair on Al’s body stood on end when he heard the voice.  

“Don’t shove into the stairwell.”

Encased in a crowd of people, Al rose onto his toes and peered through a maze of heads.  The sight made him blanche: Aisa stood at the side of the stairwell door and was coordinating everyone who passed through it.  The heavy sag of his distraught expression returned as panic swelled; this wasn’t an escape, this was a trap.  

That made too much terrible sense.  Aisa had the potential to move at speeds that could overtake Al or Brigitte if she’d chosen to.  If she hadn’t pursued them, what had she done?  Alphonse hated the answer he came up with - she had keys in her hand in that stairwell... was she responsible for the locked stairwell door?  Had she gone to lock the exits instead?  It would explain why she was so confidently out in the open like this and not pursuing them - they had no other way out.  The evacuation was an attempt to filter them out by emptying the floor through a single point.  She’d either find them in the swell of people or be able to freely hunt them down when everything was empty afterward.  

But, that also meant Aisa didn’t have Brigitte.  Brigitte had been ahead of Al… where did she go? 

The crowd of people shoved Al closer to the door and the alarm ringing in his head directed him to turn around and get out.  Ducking his head down, Al gingerly wormed his way around the hips of already frustrated people, trying desperately not to create any visible disturbances in the flow.  When the packed gathering of white coats thinned enough, Al picked his eyes up, dug his toes in, and ran.  

Bursting free, he ran through the end of the hall, shot around the first available turn, and fled.  If Aisa didn’t have Brigitte, and she wasn’t able to escape the floor, then she was hiding and at this point that was pretty much all Al had left for options: hold on until help arrived.  

At his next turn Al rushed to the closest door and locked his eyes on the knob.  Clenching his jaw and firming his resolve, Al kicked his shoes and socks off.  Balancing on one foot, Al gripped the doorknob with his toes and tried to turn it.  The door was locked.  Dashing across the hall, so was the next.  Worry began to set back in as Al started realizing all of the door had been locked by the vacating staff.  

Exposed in the hallway, his heart racing and his fraying nerves leaving him short of breath, Al picked up the pace again and ran to an adjoining hall.  Hoping to find an open door Alphonse staggered to a stop when he found his reflection glowing back at him on the glass of an outside window instead.

Options that hadn’t existed until this point all lit up.

Scrambling to the window, Al tried his best to look beyond the bright reflection of the indoors and survey the darkened landscape below.  It looked like nothing but bushes.  He could jump.  Cuts and bruises from a jump like this weren’t enough to worry about.  He couldn’t open the window, but the wretched metal box Dante cursed him with would definitely shatter it.

Backing up in the hall, Al took a few deep breaths to focus.  This wasn’t like every window he’d easily broken as a suit of armour - he was lighter and needed a direct hit at the centre of one of the panes.  Leading with his arms, a corner of the box could take the initial contact and the rest of his body would disperse the cracked or broken glass.  Once he was outside he could find someone to get his hands free and he could go back for Brigitte.  Or he could find whoever had come to rescue them and let them know Brigitte was still hiding inside.  One way or another, he'd get help.

Locking his focus, Al picked up his golden eyes, looked into his crystal clear reflection in the window, and watched Aisa step up behind him.

Al’s legs drove him forwards before his mind finished processing the image.

Not more than a half dozen strides in, Aisa’s hand caught the collar of his shirt and ripped the fleeing Elric off his feet.  

His legs flying out from under him, Al crashed to the floor.  Gasping for his next breath and throwing his eyes wide, he looked up to Aisa’s body eclipsing the overhead lights.  Her hand reached in and Alphonse shrieked - curling up and raising his sealed arms in defence, the inhuman woman’s hand gripped the box, tucking a finger into the punched hole to secure her grip.  Like she’d reached into his chest and crushed his lungs, Al’s scream tried to shatter the glass as he watched Aisa crumple the centre portion of his metallic cage like it was cardboard.  

Frantically trying to twist his hands out of the way as the box deformed under the monstrous grip, Al wrung every last ounce of air out of lungs.  There was nothing else to do but scream.  Even if he had his hands, he couldn’t clap them around Aisa.  Al could kick his legs, he could frantically flail, but he could do very little else - there was a crowd of people in this building stuck at the stairwell, someone had to be able to hear him.  

Tightening her grip, Aisa hoisted the frantic Elric to his feet, “That’s enough or I will quiet you.”

“LET ME GO!” screams turned to words.  Al planted his bare feet and tried to break free of a grip he didn’t have the physical strength to overpower, “Let go of me, Aisa!”

Aisa immediately ended his physical struggles by hoisting him up off the ground.

Clenching his teeth as he dangled by his wrists, Al swung his legs up.  Hooking his heel onto her shoulder, Al drew his other leg up and punched the bottom of his foot into her face.  He kicked repeatedly, again and again, until Aisa’s free arm managed to reach across and snag his dangerous ankle with a vicious grip.

Two gunshots overpowered the noise being twisted out of Al. 

Aisa took a staggering step back and released her hold on his leg.  Promptly accosted with three more shots, Aisa released him entirely and curled away from the assault, retreating towards the window.  Alphonse crumpled to the floor, landing in a heap.

“The more holes I put in you, the sooner you’ll ‘bleed out’, right?”

“Al, come over here!”

Grimacing as he gasped through repeated attempts to fill his chest with air again, Al lifted his eyes and stared at the brigadier general standing at the head of the hallway.  

Mustang stood firmly; his gun drawn and pointed in his right hand, left gloved hand readied at his side.  Feet planted, shoulders locked, arms readied, head held high - he carried himself just as poignantly in dusty, faded blue overalls as he did in the richer Amestris shades.  

“ALPHONSE,” the words boomed from his chest.  

Pulling himself up to his elbows and knees, Al crawled, staggered, and eventually stumbled forwards as he got back to his feet.  Dragging himself out of the hallways, Mustang’s free left hand grabbed Al by the front of his shirt to steady him.  Still struggling to catch his breath, he stared wordlessly at the red transmutation circle etched in the back of a familiar white glove.  Movement in the corner of his eye brought Al’s focus down the adjoining hall.  There he found the other voice - Major Hawkeye’s voice - standing out of Aisa’s line of sight, Brigitte in hand.

The tension in Al’s shoulders eased.  He turned around at Mustang’s side and looked at their reflections in the hallway window.  He watched his shoulders rock while he heaved through his breaths, trying to steady his heartbeat.  He looked at Mustang’s expression and was sucked into the depths of a dark, unwavering, hardened look he wore - this wasn’t a face he normally let people see. 

His good eye met Al’s in the reflection, “Are you okay?”

“I am,” Al struggled to put his thoughts back in order, his attention drifting to the monster recomposing herself in the corner.  Trying to swallow to ease his raw throat, Al let himself savour his next breath, “Thank you.”

 


To Be Continued...


Notes:

Happy October 3! Here’s my favourite random FMA03/October 03 factoid:

FMA began airing on Saturday October 4, 2003, with it’s final episode airing Saturday October 2, 2004. It covered 364 days. The missing 365th day to make a calendar year: October 3

My birthday was just before the final episode aired, so it’ll always be my traumatic birthday finale LOL

This chapter and the next were supposed to be one chapter. I checked the word count at one point and it said 14K. That’s too much, but rather than remove stuff (which buggered timing up) I cut it in half and fluffed the halves up instead. I guess we’re going over 60 chapters now, welp. Stuff’ll happen! Enjoy the ride! THANK YOU FOR READING ♡

Actually relevant to the chapter: Brigitte was allowed to freely wander the building in The Xenotime Gambit, so long as she didn't leave the property. She got familiar-ish with the layout then and was able to lead Al to another set of stairs.

Holy, this is my 10th chapter since I picked the story up again :’)

I managed some art for the chapter! My tumblr has the collection.

This is a whole dang chapter without Ed LMAO. Have I ever done that? Guess we're making up for those two chapters without Al. Hope Ed enjoys everything he’s cooking at Sheska’s, I still need him >>

I feel like there's an egregious typo/defective sentence in this chapter that I can't see (like that feeling you have that you've forgotten something on the way out the door).

Next chapter is Oct 24 :)

Chapter 54: Firestone

Notes:

While not out of line for the story or the series, the following chapter is more graphic than usual. Discretion is advised.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Swallowed by the thick darkness in the bowels of the mountain, Wrath became a far easier target for Izumi to maneuver around than Dante.  Her ears became her eyes and she let the creature’s bare AutoMail leg give away every mechanical step he made.  

The clear clank of a metallic foot threw Izumi into motion.  Diving past Wrath’s open right side as he charged, she tangled her fingers in his mess of black hair and yanked the homunculus off his feet.  A stride and a half later, she heard his yelp that popped off the walls when his back hit the ground.

The creature made a hell of a racket getting back to his feet, but before the sound of AutoMail became solid footfalls in pursuit, Izumi clapped her hands.  Throwing them to the dirt floor, Izumi allowed her transmutation to spark brilliantly and caught a shrouded glimpse of the hollowed, emotionless look Dante dressed herself in behind the feral homunculus.  

The transmutation executed and a dirt wall rose up to plug the tunnel; a momentary means to slow her pursuers.  

Back on her toes again, Izumi raced through the vein of the mountain to the growing echo of Wrath’s fists smashing through the earth.  She needed a way out and she needed one fast, but the tunnel only led her straight, venturing neither upwards or downwards, curving left nor right, which forced Izumi to try and calculate the scale of mountain rock rising above her the deeper she went. 

A handclap that was not her own burst with light.  Not needing to look back, Izumi watched Dante’s show of prowess as the light clawed through the walls.  The transmutation raced past her without interference and continued travelling down the lengths of the corridor, far into the distance, until the darkness swallowed the last remnants of the power.

“There are no exits, Izumi,” her words chilled the smooth tunnel sides.

Clapping her hands, Izumi spun on the tip of a toe and punched the palms of her hands to the wall.  She snapped her head back to watch multiple columns of rock begin shooting out from the wall behind her, jettisoning out horizontally and indiscriminately, anywhere from forehead to shin level.  The obstacle course gave Izumi a far more accurate audio cue for Wrath’s location as she raced ahead.

Dante rose again to give Izumi a reason to hold her breath.  Her tiny handclap popped without light - emphatically cracking in the darkness protecting it.  

A cascading echo of crumbling earth rose like an avalanche behind Izumi, gaining faster than her legs could take her.  The normal steady strides she made began to lose footing as surging waves of unsettled earth rolled through the tunnel floor.  Staggering and stumbling forwards, fighting to remain balanced, Izumi’s eyes lit in the darkness when her foot landed firmly on the crest of a wave.  Jumping up, she clapped her hands and slammed them into the low-hanging ceiling above their heads.  

Allowing the transmutation light to shine, Izumi caught a glimpse of the rock and dirt overhead that began to crumble down around the creatures gaining on her.  The unsteady ground at her feet settled as the earth overhead fell apart, but the reprieve only lasted until Izumi regained steady footing.  

Dante’s shrouded handclap cut through the sound of crumbling rock.  

Izumi was blown off her feet by an eruption of wind Dante churned through the old mining corridor.  

As free and weightless as everything the wind collected, Izumi tumbled in the uncontrolled maelstrom amidst the dirt, rock, and debris of the overhead collapse she’d instigated.  Dante hadn’t bothered to spare Wrath from the bedlam, and when the sound of his shrill voice and clanking AutoMail reached her, one of Izumi’s hands caught the homunculus as she skirted along the ground.  Locking her grip in his hair and securing his single free arm behind his body, Izumi stabilized herself on her knees, compacted her body behind him, and used the immortal creature to shield herself from Dante’s onslaught. 

Fermenting her hold as she rode out the storm, Izumi grimaced with each heavy impact she felt Wrath take, holding him steady as the pounding storm eroded his resilience.  By the time the dust settled and the silent tide rolled back in, the only reason the homunculus remained upright was because Izumi held him there.

Quietly catching her breath in the blind tunnel, Izumi took the grip she had on his hair, slipped it gingerly under his chin, wrapped her other arm around his side, and carefully lay Wrath down on the cool, littered floor.

Cautiously standing up, grimacing at the cuts and gashes she’d taken, Izumi knew full well Wrath would bounce back sooner than she’d like.  She slowly started stepping away.  Backing up nearly twenty paces, unable to keep her escape silent in the tunnel smothered in debris, it became frighteningly clear that running was no longer a safe option. 

Izumi put her hands back together, focussed on controlling her transmutation to not give off any light, and she placed her hands on the ground again.  Another earthly barrier was erected to separate herself from Dante and Wrath.  

Backing up another fifteen strides, Izumi built another - this one thicker.  

Twenty strides further, yet another.  Thicker.

If Wrath tried to smash through it before Dante made her way deeper down the tunnel, Izumi would at least be able to feel it.  If Dante wanted to blow it away before getting to it, at least the wind had put sufficient distance between them. 

A few minutes of time appeared in Izumi’s possession - what was the best way to get out?  In a confined space like this, she was at a massive disadvantage. 

Izumi couldn't spare the energy to kick herself; the first thing she should have done when she realized Dante didn’t have Ed was find a way to get the hell out of there.  The fact this little nightmare had turned up in the tunnels in the first place was curious and confusing enough that she needed to investigate, but if the rescue mission was only for Al and Brigitte, that changed everything.  Most critically, it allowed Dante to maneuver freely and eliminate people who had the ability to get between her and wherever Ed had ended up.

Where the hell was Ed if Dante didn’t have him!?

Izumi reexamined her teacher’s wording.  She believed Ed was still with them?   Did Aisa not realize… had that godawful disguise Armstrong coerced Ed into actually worked?  Was he here and they didn’t know?  No, Dante would have recognized him… it was Aisa who had never met him before.  What did that imply?

Izumi didn’t have the luxury of time to entertain so many questions.  Nor could she afford to entertain Dante in a confined space like this with Wrath at her side.  

She clapped her hands.

Hopping up onto her toes, Izumi jumped and smacked her hands off of the dirt overhead and created a cavity with a narrow entrance.  

Clapping her hands once more, she knelt down and touched the ground at her feet.  

A jagged chunk of rock cracked around her body and the surface Izumi knelt on carried her up to the cavity on a pillar.  Crouching low, she slowed the transmutation to a stop once she was tucked away inside.  Crawling into the carved rock pocket she could hardly sit up in, one more hand clap dismissed the pillar back down to the floor and sealed her in the earth.  

Rolling onto her back, Izumi took a few moments to steady her breathing.  She’d spent far more energy than her body was regularly comfortable with and she wasn’t done yet.  Intent on getting out before either Dante exercised her authority again or the oxygen ran out, one last lengthy transmutation remained.

Locking her focus forwards, towards the sky she intended to see again, Izumi clapped her hands and slammed them down on the mountain above her.  The rock at her hands crumbled, streamed down the sides of her cocoon, and flooded in beneath her.  The constant flow of rock around her body began buoying the Elric’s teacher up through the mountain.

 


 

Mustang’s free left hand held Al by the front of his shirt to steady him, “Is your leg okay?”

“I think it’s just twisted a bit,” Al took a deep breath, “give me a minute.”

His gun pointed forwards, Mustang didn’t have the time available that the boy in his custody needed, “Where’s your brother?”

“Not here.”

That wasn’t an answer Mustang was expecting.  His eye narrowed, “Exactly how not here?”

Al tightened his position against the officer’s side and kept his voice low, “Aisa didn't know who he was.”

Mustang’s voice withdrew as quietly as he could, “Mrs. Curtis told me that she had taken both of you.”

“Yeah, she did,” Al nodded and glanced over his shoulder, before he whispered, “but Lt. Colonel Armstrong had him disguised and she dumped him in the streets when she couldn’t identify him.  He’s still in Central City.”

It took a lot of effort on Mustang’s part to not smirk at the development, “Your brother had better have parked his ass there or I’ll kill him.”

Al gave a disparaging laugh, “I’m going to kick his butt first, so hold that thought.”

Mustang’s brow rose at a statement he was going to demand information on later.  Putting his hand down on the young Elric’s shoulder, he gave it a firm pat and ushered him securely away to Hawkeye.

Moving Al safely into the hall towards Brigitte, with a gun in one hand and Brigitte’s axe in the other, Hawkeye stepped up to Mustang’s side.

“Get the kids out of here,” he ordered.

“What are you going to do?” she exchanged the gun in his hand with a fully loaded one of her own.

“I’m going to drain Dante’s power supply,” the officer’s good eye darkened, his focus locked on what loitered in the hall, “I need you to move those two to safety.  Get Al’s hands free, we’re going to need them.”

Hawkeye’s eye jumped from the inhuman woman straightening herself out at the end of the hall to the man who stood in the way, “If you’re not out by the time I’m done that, I’m coming back.”

Now Mustang smirked, “I’ll hold you to that.”

Holding his head high, weapon poised, and solitary eye cast forwards, Mustang briefly glanced to his hip when Hawkeye latched Brigitte’s axe into one of the loops of his workman’s overalls before she vanished from his periphery.  Squarely placed in the centre of the hallway, Mustang returned his attention to the vile existence pinned at the end of the hall as she finally turned her attention onto him.

“You can’t arbitrarily heal yourself, correct?” he asked hotly, “that’s a homunculus trick, which you are not.”

Aisa stared back at him, “Shouldn’t you be in Central City?”

Mustang lifted his chin a little higher, “So, the holes will continue to leak until you’re patched or run out.  Red water contains no coagulants, as far as I understand.”

Her voice rose, “Shouldn’t you be in Central?”

“I certainly should,” he decided to acknowledge the question, “but, it seems every way I turn lately I’m denied a number of things that I’d prefer and now I’m here.”

Aisa rolled her shoulders and perfected her posture, “I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally introduced, Brigadier General Mustang.”

“We have not,” Mustang launched his voice and listened to it echo weakly back at him, “but I don’t require an introduction from you.  While everyone in Dante and Sabastian Mitchell’s acquaintance addresses you Aisa, I know you were born Gillian Atropos.”

Aisa raised an eyebrow at the address, “That information is useless.  Are you expecting an accommodation for your pedestrian detective work?”

Mustang nodded, “That would be nice for a change.”

The callous chill in her voice iced the hall, “Gillian is dead.”

“Yes, she is,” Mustang flashed his left gloved hand in the air, “and what’s left of her has been embalmed with red water and you are now kept alive by an alchemical procedure I don’t want to comprehend.”

“As it stands, it is beyond your comprehension,” Aisa offered dryly.

His brow growing heavy, Mustang wasn’t interested in the verbal diversion of what he did and did not know about the lengths Dante had gone to defy understanding, “Suffice it to say, once the red water in you is used up you will cease to exist.”

Frowning at the man parading his prowess around in front of her, Aisa calmly raised a warning, “As I warned Izumi the first time we met: if you snap your fingers, Flame Alchemist, and the results will be far beyond what you intend.”

“Yes, I understand you took her on quite the ride.  However, I believe our relationship will be different,” Mustang’s expression grew heavy from a dark memory, “I have experience with the red water’s material application on my alchemy, and taking into consideration what you are and how much we’re dealing with, it’ll be interesting to see just how brilliantly a catalyst like yourself will affect things.”

Aisa remained stoic in the depths of the hall, “We teach children not to play with fire for a reason.”

A scoff burst from his lips, “You don’t have the right to speak of nurturing children,” the thumb of his left hand dug into the bed at the tip of his middle finger, “did your child even have a name before you allowed Dante to defile her?”

“Her name has always been Diana,” the response was robotic - cold, emotionless, without care, “she was born to be fused with a child extracted from the Gate, an experimental alchemical procedure which was successfully executed at her birth.”

It was absolutely flooring how this woman had taken those words and put them together to form such an ugly statement, and further astounding that she gave them a voice.  The officer struggled to control the volume of his disgust and his words boomed in the hall, “Children are not born to be experimented on.  There is no justification of any kind for perverting the life of a living, breathing infant.

Aisa stared back at the man locked in his stance, blocking her path.  She cast her eyes over her shoulder to the window, as if she were offering a passing thought to escaping through it, before returning her attention dead ahead again.  Compassion long drained from her face, humanity well past expired, she looked at him squarely in his single, dark eye and responded.

“Would Alphonse have been able to succeed in bringing home his brother without her?  In that light, Diana was a worthwhile scientific experiment that produced remarkable results, wouldn’t you say?”

Mustang snapped his fingers.

 


 

Concealed from the moonlight by branches of pine that stretched to the stars, Izumi let her aching body have a moment to rest.  

Carving her escape through thick dirt, solid rock, and robust roots, Izumi’s transmutation had bubbled up in the middle of the foothill forests that filled the countryside of Xenotime.  The rock fountain had spilled her into the woodlands, now the murmur of the quiet forest and cool evening grass was a welcomed respite.

The first thing she wanted to do was to let Mustang know Ed was out of the equation and Dante was freely roaming.

The first thing she had to do was make sure she could keep Dante occupied while Mustang dealt with the situation inside - her teacher and her sin had surfaced not long after she had.

Wrath remained the easier of the two to audibly track, but with the expanse of the outdoors, it became a double edged sword.  On the one hand it allowed Izumi to monitor his location to avoid him, on the other Dante knew Wrath’s noise would allow her to plot her own silent moves accordingly.

In the middle of a deadly game of hide and seek, an explosion brought Izumi’s eyes up.  Peering up the hill from her protective cover, a flaring orange light filtered through the forest for a few moments before it dimmed.  Originating from what had to be the Xenotime lab, the event gave her some indication of her relation to everything else.  But it also made her unease a little worse.  What was going on in the lab to cause an explosion?  

Even if she wanted to get up the mountain and investigate, Dante and Wrath were in the way.  Izumi was going to have to let her concerns slide and focus on keeping the rest of the party outside.

Wrath’s bare AutoMail foot clanked off a rock and the sound carried through the forest.  Izumi cringed and ducked back down into the brush - he was being uncomfortably obedient with Dante.

“Izumi, I haven’t had a chance to ask you…” 

The tiny, maleficent voice calling out startled her student. 

“…how have you been feeling lately?”

What an ugly question.  Izumi scowled at the taunt; Dante had been responsible for her medicine for over a decade.  She hated looking back at the time when this terror wore the face of that elder woman - the one who’d taught her everything she knew about alchemy.  It was hard to accept that she had been manipulated by her every step of the way.

“Who have you been seeing for your medicine over the last year?”

Thinking of her was like imagining a different person who carried the same name.  Despite how their relationship ended up, that Dante had been kind and understanding when Izumi had reached out to her for help after everything had happened.  She’d confided in her teacher and then Dante, an incredible pharmacist, provided her with the medicine she’d used to maintain some resemblance of a normal life. 

But, Dante had also turned her life on its head when she asked if Izumi had been given ‘the handclap’.  At the time, the old woman had lied and said it wasn’t something she could do, but explained it was a privilege gifted to anyone who had seen the so-called ‘Gate’.  It did not feel like a gift, Izumi’s wilting body was proof.  

“Has anyone been able to offer you anything that comes close to what I always prepared for you?”

It was because of what she’d done that Dante explained how a homunculus was born: through failed human transmutations.  Dante had said at one point she’d been ‘thankful’ that Izumi had returned the creature to the Gate.  How hard must it have been for her true persona to withhold how angry she must have been that she hadn’t been able to get her hands on that poor creature back then.  

It wasn’t long after that the two of them stopped seeing eye to eye.

“I’m assuming you’ve found nothing that compares my remedies.”

Discarding her torn, knee-length white cover in favour of darker clothes underneath, Izumi kept low, ducked into the shield of forest brush, and moved away from the obscene chatter spinning her head.  Her ears remained on high alert, listening for the brash noises of a wild homunculus tracking her from the trees and she settled low on her hands and knees, tucked away at the base of an ancient pine tree.

A childish clap of hands intruded into the night and Izumi sank lower to the ground.  Dante wouldn’t have clapped her hands so loud unless she wanted her to hear it, yet the subsequent transmutation was eerily quiet.  What the hell was this woman up to?  

Wanting to peek above the foliage to get a visual on Dante’s ploy, Izumi remained low and listened, opting to not fall prey to growing curiosity.  Keeping motionless in the quiet night, even Wrath had gone silent, and the only noise she could pick up was something that sounded like the wind rustling through the grass, weeds, and lower leaves.  Izumi tested the air - it was still. 

Tendrils of branches and vines began snaking past her and Izumi snapped her attention to her ankles.

The forest bed came alive and Izumi scrambled through the active plantlife, her sudden movements exposing her location.  A shadow blocked what little moonlight filtered in and she threw her body out of the way as Wrath descended on her.  The homunculus missed his strike when he crashed to the earth.  

Rolling away at Wrath’s open side and escaping the stretching tendrils Dante searched the forest floor with, Izumi hurried through the lower mountainside.  

Another handclap sounded, deliberately emphatic and bright, bringing Izumi to a staggering stop as a wall of earth surged skyward beyond the tallest reaches of the forest, caging her within.  It was an awesome, imposing structure and her face twisted with a frustrated scowl; neither end of the wall was visible - how far did this monstrosity stretch?  Clapping her hands, Izumi threw them against the wall and forged a hole through.

Wrath soared in before she’d taken her first step forwards.  Izumi dodged his physical attack, but rather than aiming to strike her, Wrath changed his boorish tactics and clumsily scrambled to latch on.  First catching her leg as he caught her off guard, then lurching up to her waist, the homunculus tried to tie his legs around her knees.  Sent staggering as she tried to fight free from his inhuman grasp, Wrath forcefully tore a scream from Izumi’s lungs when he sunk his teeth into her hip.

Obscured by the furor, Dante brought the forest floor alive.

Izumi’s pain vanished, supplemented by fear, her eyes flying wide in alarm as the earthy vines, young branches, and tendrils of roots decorating the forest floor began to entangle around her.  Falling to her knees, she recognized that what Dante had done before was nothing compared to the hungry wilderness she controlled now.  Frantically swimming around on top of the earth as the forest crawled up her legs and wound through her arms, Wrath detached from Izumi when the strong wooden bindings seized control of her movements.  The living forest tendrils secured her limbs, wrapped around her body, and began dragging her up the mountain.

 


 

Whatever Mustang had been prepared for at the moment he snapped, he immediately realized he’d underestimated it.  

Bolstered by more force than he’d intended, the explosion and flames blew out the exterior wall behind Aisa, destroyed the interior rooms lining the hall, and devoured the ceiling overhead.  The surprising intensity of an explosion he'd tried to keep to a minimum launched Mustang off his feet and sent him crashing into the far wall of the main hall behind him.

Singed from head to toe, triggering alarms that began wailing all around him, the officer scrambled up to his knees.  Without the time he needed to mentally adjust his transmutation, Mustang’s right hand brandished his gun and he opened fire on the woman who burst out with phenomenal speed from the dispersing flames.  Dodging out of her way when bullets did nothing to compromise her movements, Mustang watched Aisa plunge her fist into the wall behind him like it was water.  

Bullets would only be as good as the surfaces they penetrated.  Considering what had been done to her and how she wasn't reacting to being shot, Mustang had to conclude Aisa felt no pain.  Knowing that she could use the red water to enhance her strength and speed, but without the regenerative abilities of a homunculus, anything that he damaged on her would require Dante to repair.

He also knew she was also Gillian Atropos, which was not useless information.  

She was a scientist.  

She wasn’t an athlete and she wasn’t a soldier.  

Aisa existed as a protective container with heightened attributes, but had no more skillful coordination or practical combat knowledge than what she’d had when she’d been properly human.

His thoughts in order, the alchemist’s arm shot out again.  Swiftly adjusting the oxygen concentration of his transmutation, Mustang snapped using his weaker pinky finger to lessen the spark.

It wasn’t as though Mustang was experimenting with a few solidified samples of red water - the make-up of Aisa’s leaking system continued to add a phenomenal punch to his transmutations.  He had never felt the explosion's force bounce back on him quite like this before.  While he was able to maintain the transmutation on a relatively smaller scale, so he didn’t kill himself, the force of the compact explosion and subsequent burst continued to be adversely enhanced by the red water’s presence.

But, Mustang hadn’t been sent flying onto his backside this time and he chalked that up to progress.  His eye looked through the additional stretches of walls that had been blown through; the ceiling overhead had begun to crack while the flames hungrily latched onto the crumbling infrastructure that struggled to remain together. 

Wiping his face with the back of his arm, Mustang glanced at the ignition glove on his left hand, growing uneasy with how the pads of the fingers had started to blacken from the intensity.  He again tweaked how he would handle the oxygen concentration and straightened up.

Cautiously making his way out from a hallway slowly being eaten by his flames, the officer’s good eye interrogated the mess and searched the thickening smoke and debris, trying to pinpoint which crumbling room Aisa had landed in.  Despite how the woman concealed herself in the growing fire, it was clear that the red water continued to leak at a decent rate - Mustang cautiously eyed the plume of red-tinted smoke that began polluting the hall.  

Hooking his shirt collar over his nose, the officer looked up to the burning ceiling panels overhead.  Taking a few more cautious steps back, he brought his gun up, pointed it ahead, and waited as portions of the ceiling began to crumble away.  

The expected overhead collapse flushed Aisa out and Mustang emptied his weapon into the cloud of reddened smoke that burst to life.  Adding a few more holes for the toxic red water to leak out from, he dodged her rush once more and discarded the gun.  

Reaching for the axe Hawkeye had latched onto his hip as he spun around, Mustang turned to find himself nose to nose with the scorched face of his inhuman adversary.  

He threw his elbow into her eyes.  Aisa lurched back in surprise and the officer did it once more, then swooped down low, ran his shoulder into her hips, and heaved Aisa over his back.  Mustang rose up quickly, tossing her head over heels, and dumped Aisa onto her head on the floor behind him. 

Spinning around on his toes, Mustang watched Aisa land in a heap.  So long as she didn’t get the opportunity to secure a firm hold on him, he could handle her physically.  Shuffling back several strides, the officer punched out his left arm again and snapped his fingers.

Shielding himself and skidding back on his toes, Mustang looked out into the burning structure - at some point there was going to be enough red water fumes present in the air that he was going to lose his handle on the transmutation altogether, no matter how he adjusted things.  

More foreboding than that - the thicker the air got with red water, the greater the danger the toxicity posed to him.  His shirt came up over his nose again.

It had started becoming clear that Aisa’s tactics revolved around surprising her opponent with a burst of speed, relying on the moment of surprise to give her an opening where she could use her basic enhanced strength to strike.  Peering beyond his shoulders, Mustang weighed his options for what would be the best way to take the fight.  He wanted to lure her to an external wall, drag her outside, and let her burn up without the threat of the roof falling in on them.

The smoldering cloud shrouding Aisa roared to life again and Mustang quickly swung out of her way.  Snatching the stiff, crushing arm she’d reached for him with, Mustang used the limb like a propeller and spun Aisa around.  With his opponent off balance, Mustang steadied her only long enough to chop his fist into her neck and knock the backs of her knees out.  Her legs forcefully buckling, Aisa returned to the floor.

Distancing himself once more and bracing for the impact, Mustang snapped his fingers.

Nothing happened.

Flaring his hand open, Mustang looked at the fabric on the pads of his fingers and palm - blackened to a crisp.

Throwing his left arm out as Aisa came back to her feet, he held up his left hand and scratched his right fingers across the embroidered transmutation circle on the back of his ignition glove.  There was more than one way to draw a spark out of ignition cloth.

As the circle glowed and flames escaped his grasp, Aisa disregarded caution and charged straight into the bursting fire, igniting a storm that swallowed her.  Crashing into Mustang, she jarred his arms skyward, launching a canon of flame into the ceiling, and kept running through him.  

With Aisa’s shoulder buried in his chest, the officer was driven down the hall at an alarming speed and she crashed him into the wall at the end.  Bouncing off the wall, Mustang fell to the ground gasping for air, winded from the impact.

Throwing him onto his back, Aisa used her strength to dig her knee into his chest as he struggled to breathe, pinned his right wrist to the floor, and ripped the glove off of his left hand.

Mustang looked up into the unnerving reincarnation of a woman repeatedly subjected to the scorching power of his flame, her crumbling state resembling scenes from his nightmares and brought to life.  The officer struggled to rationalize how she could remain entirely unfazed by the state of her body or the flames eagerly devouring her hair.  

Aisa continued to leak steady streams of red water from every point he’d managed to puncture her.  

Mustang’s left hand frantically fished around at his side when Aisa favoured taking a merciless grip on his face.  The heel of her palm settling into the damaged eye socket and facial bones at his left side, Aisa forced Mustang to writhe beneath her while she twisted her hand into an old wound.  She steadied her hand and hovered her thumb above his good eye.

“You do not need the other one.”

Mustang slapped his hand down on a hastily drawn transmutation circle.  

Made from Aisa’s endless streams red water, he’d blindly drafted the simple transmutation circle on the floor boards.  Mustang executed a bright transmutation powered by a thin amount of red water and drove a myriad of jagged fissures into the floor, causing the wood to crack like ice as it fanned out.

As Aisa startled and leaned back to take in the scale of what he had done, the entire hallway of the Xenotime laboratory’s second floor shattered, crumbling down to the floor below.

 


 

Izumi didn’t know how long she’d been dragged for or where she’d ended up when it all stopped.  Laying face down in the soft dirt, struggling to breathe, she remained immobilized and imprisoned in a body wrap of vines, branches, and whatever foliage Dante had at her disposal.  Her abdomen had begun screaming along the way and eventually stopped protesting after she’d completely discoloured the greenery where her head lay.  

In hindsight, it made sense Dante would have an expert hand at transmuting plant life - medicine was founded in herbology.  As a pharmacist, her knowledge of how to manipulate every last mineral in the roots and vines would be centuries old.  The quiet revelation also explained the lure of Xenotime for Izumi as well, a remote location enraptured with botanical alchemy would not have escaped her interests.  Surely there was some correlation between that and her choice to process red water here…   

A solemn moment was taken to wonder what Dante had been putting in the medicine that helped keep her alive.

Behind the shaking draw of a breath, Izumi moved her head to expose one eye.  Through the mud caked in her eyelashes she could see the lights of the laboratory beyond the trees.  It wasn’t that far off anymore.  Despite the rustling of the forest and the faint wail of alarms, she swore her exposed ear was picking up the sound of voices in the distance.  

Branches cracked under the weight of Wrath’s AutoMail foot, the sound snapping loudly in Izumi’s ear.  His single good hand wrapped around the knot of her ponytail and he extracted Izumi from the forest floor.  Hauling her up to her knees, Izumi lifted her eyes to Dante’s petite figure standing firmly in front of her at eye level, her baby-faced expression smothered in disappointment.

Reaching into one of the lace pockets decorating her white dress, Dante pulled out a handkerchief and began wiping Izumi’s muddied, bruised, and bloodied face, “I can give you something for the pain?”

“Fuck off,” she spat.

“Now now,” Dante wiped away the mess under Izumi’s nose, “I thought we cleared that sort of crude language from--”

All three bodies startled when an explosion in the laboratory drew their attention.  

Wrath inadvertently moved enough that Izumi could turn her head to see the glow burning brightly through the forest.  Her eyes strayed, traipsing to the main road just beyond a thinning section of trees.  With the light shining on their backs, she could see people move - see them run.  A stream of people fled down the mountain.  

Izumi buried her pupils in the corners of her eyes to watch Dante’s expression sour at the sound of the building’s alarm system now clearly reaching in their ears.

“Wrath…”

The obedient homunculus focussed and brought Izumi back to face their master once again.

Standing eye to eye with Izumi on her knees, Dante reached out with her handkerchief again to sweep away the mixture of dirt and blood drying on her cheek, “Looks like I have some business to attend to.”

“You can’t have Al,” Izumi wheezed.

Her attention flickered up the mountainside to the unsettling scene beyond the trees.  The tension in her expression lifted and Dante dismissively shrugged her statement off.  She smiled, “There are only so many people available to watch over him, Izumi.  Even if he escapes, I’ll simply find an opportunity to take the younger brother again, or anyone or anything that matters to Ed until either I find him or he presents himself to me,” her focus wandered with her thoughts, “it’s been a few centuries, I’m sure Resembool is due for a wildfire about now.  It’s really up to him in the end how it plays out.”

Her breaths seething as they pulled through her teeth, the astounding amount of casual dismissal in her grotesque intentions made Izumi want to voluntarily heave again, “Someone will stop you.”

Winding her brow with mocking sorrow, Dante shook her head, “It’s such a shame.  I once honestly believed that our relationship could have been more than this.”

An inexplicable rage charged through Izumi’s chest, burning like the fire claiming the building behind her, “I’d rather have this , than have had anything to do with whatever you’d wanted from me.”

Dante moved a few fallen locks of hair out of Izumi’s face, tucking them behind her ears.  She wrapped the handkerchief around her index finger and started to clean the mud out of her eyes as both Wrath and the vines held her steady.

“You had so much potential,” she tossed her eyes up to the sin, “I keep forgetting how stupid humanity can be sometimes.”

“YOU ARE HUMAN,” unrestrained words charged from Izumi's mouth, “There is NOTHING about you that places you beyond the laws of nature or the limitations of alchemy.  You are as much a part of the flow of life as I am.  Even if you’ve perverted the rules to your liking, you cannot transcend it.  You CANNOT change that you are human.  WE ARE BOTH HUMAN .”

“I am not,” words spoken coldly, emotion rotted away.  Dante drained the vibrancy from Nina’s eyes to look down at humanity kneeling before her, “I discarded that weakness quite some time ago.”

“What does discarding humanity make you, then?” her body stiffening inside the confining restraints already paralyzing her, Izumi clenched her teeth, “You can’t be a god.”

Dante rolled her eyes up to the stars, “My potential lies with knowledge from beyond the Gate,” hints of a smile curled the corners of her lips.  She looked back into the ferocious eyes trying to claw into her, “I will learn what that is from Edward.”

Heavily drawing her breaths, Izumi searched the hollowed gazed of the tiny woman lurking in the shadow Izumi’s body cast in the light of the burning laboratory behind her.  She had no more of a soul left than any of her homunculus ever had.

“I hope you find nothing but hell through him.”

Dante let the dirtied handkerchief slip off her fingers, discarding it into the grass.  Drawing her hands up, she put the soft pads of her childish fingertips on Izumi’s cheeks, “There is no heaven and there is no hell.  There are no gods and there are no devils.  Good and bad are subjective opinions.”  

Izumi curled her lips in disgust as Dante swept her fingers off her cheeks.  

“The only certainties are life and death.  A beginning and an end.”  

Between their locked gazes, Dante clapped her hands.  Her palms separated, flaring the energy in spectacle and, without any sign of remorse or hint of hesitation, she reached in for Izumi’s temples.

Refusing to flinch or look away, remaining defiantly steadfast at the merciless whims of someone who’d once been her mentor, Izumi watched Dante’s right hand explode.

Izumi choked on her next breath when the circulating power of the transmutation splashed blood across her face.  

Time inexplicably stopped and Izumi stood locked on her knees, staring wide-eyed into the astounded expression of an ancient alchemist frozen childishly in unspeakable shock.  As if she could not understand what had happened, nor comprehend how much it hurt, Dante’s pinpoint pupils fluttered around in their wide white oceans while she tried to process the image of her ravaged right hand frozen in mid-motion.  The soft, round jaw Dante had taken visibly trembled at the sight of the bloodied, gaping space where the knuckles of her index and middle fingers had once been on a tiny, immature hand.  Her ring finger barely hung on while it was tossed about in the cycling transmutation energy that had sprayed red all over her dress.

The second gunshot that decimated Dante’s right hand rang in Izumi’s ear when it flew by.  

 


 

Mustang picked himself out of the rubble and had to check to make sure he had all his faculties in order.  He’d been able to shove Aisa off as everything crumbled and at least try to brace himself for a fall, even if it had hurt like all hell coming down.  He was beginning to suspect he might need his tailbone looked at to go along with all the ribs Aisa tried to crack.  Externally, a few gashes, cuts, and bruises weren’t anything to worry about.  Nothing that was injured prevented him from being mobile, or at least adrenalin was making it so.

It was time to get out.

A new problem possibly more detrimental to his health than Aisa filled the air around the officer - Mustang stood the poisonous swell of burning debris, dust, and smoke, all tinted red by the toxic water fueling it.  The air burned with every breath; the red water infused smoke had gotten into his lungs and was making him dizzy.  For what little good it might do, Mustang pulled his shirt up over his nose again.  

Thankfully, the crux of the hungry fire and thickest smoke still hung overhead in the exposed floor above, not yet completely crumbling down to hinder his escape.  Accepting his choices were either get out or suffocate, whatever he’d done to Aisa by now was enough.  If they were lucky, there wouldn’t be enough material left to salvage and the completion of the Philosopher’s Stone would be hampered, inhibited, or flawed.  There was some margin of victory to be had.

But, where was she?  

Finally able to unhook the axe from his side, Mustang used the tool to aide his climb through the debris and make his way out of the collapse.  Latching it onto chunks of floor to clear them away and scrambling around other pockets that burned, the officer let his eye dart around and entertain any shifting debris, any dancing flame, or any blooming smoke cloud that could come back to life after Aisa was done playing possum.  

Scaling a crumbled pile of smoldering floor, he didn’t have to wait long - the debris beneath Mustang rocked and dumped him off his feet.  Catching his balance, the officer’s good eye caught enough movement from a smoldering shape in the corner of his eye that he was able to maneuver away from it.  

Squaring himself and tensing his hands, Mustang sifted through his surroundings and cursed.  Whatever was left of the horrific thing had driven him back into the collapse and smoke. 

Positioning himself with his back to a wall and looking into the mess, Mustang weighed the option of backtracking and making his way out through the deeper halls, but he didn’t like the length of the trek or how it positioned him so far from an exit.  

The smoldering figure lunged past him again - slower and clunkier than she had been before and enveloped by a rancid odour - but still making no effort to engage, only containing his movement.

Casting his gaze skyward, the officer examined the flames devouring the edges of the gaping second floor.  Mustang ground his teeth in frustration - he still had his right handed glove in his pocket, but if he snapped his fingers in a space with so much airborne volatility, he’d end up not just killing himself but blowing a crater in the slope of the mountain in the process.  He needed a way to dilute the transmutation as much as possible if he was going to execute it.

Through the smoke, the haze, his coughs, and the swirling sensation starting to swim in his head, Mustang picked up a mangled chunk of ceiling with the sharp end of his axe and threw it at the dark, smoke shrouded figure blocking his path in frustration.  It was practically laughable how little good it did him.

Aisa was going to win the fight through asphyxiation and Mustang struggled with his intoxicated thoughts, searching for his options.  

Right, there was more in his pockets than just his right handed glove.  

Mustang dug out a broken piece of the chalk he’d used in Dante’s underground transmutation circle.  Against a flat section of wall, the officer took a moment to mentally construct his transmutation and etched the circle into the wall.  Swiping his hand over it, he quickly adjusted the surrounding air pressure with his transmutation, as Izumi had done with his flames in the cavern below, and actively manipulated the weight of his surrounding air molecules.  He created a cool breeze to clear out the air.

Red water pollutants turned the transmuted breeze into a generous wind and, while the fresh air drawn in from the distant halls felt amazing, it fanned the excited flames above his head, stirred all the pollutants in the air, and made the smell radiating off Aisa more repugnant - it also lured her back to him.  Mustang only managed a handful of modestly clean breaths before her charred figure lumbered in and smashed into the wall to end the transmutation.  

But, while Aisa silenced the wind, she’d opened a window for him to get by.  

Scaling a collapsed section of jagged floor and hurdling over crumbling piles of burning debris, without her to block the way, the officer burst into a portion of the building that remained solidly standing.  He dug his toes into the tips of his boots and charged through the halls steeped in a muddy red fog.  Racing down the vacated corridor, his strides stretched out long above manageable footing.

At the next sharply taken turn he’d make in his charge, a light-headed wave washed over Mustang's body, sweeping from the top of his head down to the base of his feet, and his legs felt like they'd liquified. 

Skidding into the wall, the officer melted down to his hands and knees.  He looked ahead through the stretch of hall and watched his vision surrender to the corruption of red water poisoning while his head drowned in a stew of airborne toxins.

Mustang struggled to breathe; all he did was cough until he saw stars.  

He tried to think - tried to focus.  Where was the exit?  He had to be close to the exit.  

Heavy footsteps dragged a foul smell made of burnt flesh and heated red water into the halls of the building.  Invading the already offensive air of smoke and red water, a putrid odour flooded into Mustang’s nostrils and nearly made him wretch.  He needed a way to defend himself before he could even consider getting to the door and a solution from actions earlier surfaced in the poisonous stew.

Trying to focus his thoughts on a single task, Mustang’s hands trembled while he clawed his right ignition glove out of his pocket.  Fighting to put the watery, titled vision together clearly enough to secure his focus, he began dressing the pick end of the axe in the glove.  Turning away from the danger he could smell and curling his body against the wall, Mustang allowed his body to go limp over his knees as he tore the pointed end of the axe through the fingers of his glove.  

In the mangled orchestra of wailing alarms and the distant crackle of fire, he listened to Aisa’s footsteps bring her to his side.  He waited and listened to the uncomfortable sound of her ruined body move and lean in.  He let her listen to his rasping breaths wheeze and gasp for clean air as she hovered.

Her hands were hot and crisp when they reached in from behind to take him by the throat.  Her two-handed grip, as intense as his fire, quickly crushed down with nearly intolerable pressure - Mustang’s body lurched and he came alive.  He thrust the back of his shoulders into Aisa, drawing his body up high on his knees, and he startled her with his actions.  Grabbing onto one of the wrists at his neck and seizing his staggered opponent, he used her as leverage to twist around on his knees.  Mustang’s right arm flew out as he turned, the head of the axe locked in his hand, and he plunged the pick end into the raw side of her abdomen.

The embroidered transmutation circle on the ignition glove lay beneath his fingers, drawn up the length of the pick until the fabric body hugged the iron snugly.  The nail of his curled middle finger scratched across the cloth to draw a spark.  Enhanced by the red water trove the axe had sunken into - the source that fed the product flowing through her veins - Mustang lit Aisa up from the inside.

 


 

The shrill, piercing, chilling scream that a wounded animal let out at the forceful dismantling of her own flesh thrashed through the Amestris forest.  Dante’s screams flew out of her lungs at a horrific pitch - voicing an indescribable pain, fueled by the offensive sight of her own mortal frailty.  

Taking a staggering step back, she hunched forwards, burying herself in Izumi’s protective shadow.  Holding her arms out in front of her body, Dante locked her focus on the crumbling, leaking appendage, while the other fluttered around with uncertainty.  Her mouth hung open as her lungs continually forced out her deafening cries, unable or unwilling to relinquish the surging transmutation current raging through her.  

Izumi slowly leaned back into Wrath as he loosened his grip on her hair.  

The unhinged look in Dante’s childish eyes shivered madly as she began allowing the energy of her transmutation to course freely through her.  Suddenly lurching, Dante dropped to her knees, slammed her good hand to the dirt, released the transmutation energy into the earth, and made the ground heave.

“SENSEI!”

The ties that bound her gave way and Izumi threw her head over her shoulder in alarm to a distant voice in the night as the forest floor beneath her surged.  Like Dante had dropped a boulder into a pool of molten rock, Izumi and Wrath were sent tumbling through a shockwave of earth as it spread.

The roots that laid the foundation of centuries old pine filling the forest were ripped from their beds.  Wildlife fled their homes as the earthbound wave rolled, tossing Izumi and Wrath into the deafening onslaught of trees cracking, crumbling, and collapsing down around them.  

Released from both Dante and Wrath’s hold, Izumi clapped her hands and slammed them to the active forest floor.  She reached into the earth and conducted her transmutation through the soil, flooding the power into the disturbed roots of the collapsing trees.  Transmuting the trunks and branches into harmless wood fibres for lengths around herself, the emancipated needles and leaves, pounds of dust, and everything else the forest held in its branches rained down around her.  

In the storm’s wake, Izumi picked her eyes up and looked ahead.

Emerging into the clearing she’d made, she watched a solidly built, golden-eyed boy run in.  A fierce look she’d never seen this soft child wear before set the golden shine of his eyes on fire.  He slammed his hands together and Izumi watched the small Elric tear his palms apart, flex his hands swelling with power, and he sucked the transmutation energy back inside his body when his fists clenched shut.  Alphonse planted his foot in the clearing and powered his next step into the ground, blowing the transmutation energy into the shaken earth through the base of his bare foot. 

A rush of wind blew over Izumi’s back as a column of rock fired out of the ground behind her.  Looking up, she watched Wrath, who’d risen from the chaos behind her, get launched high into the sky - his screams drowned out by the torrential thunder brought on by forest continuing to collapse well beyond the clearing.  

The homunculus vanished above the falling treetops and Izumi was left to stare into the glow of the rising moon.  Outshining the stars to showcase all its textures, the moon took away her thoughts and left Izumi with nothing but an indescribable need to let her exhausted body melt into the ruined forest floor.  It took every ounce of energy she had left to turn back around.

Dropping to his knees, Al threw his arms around her neck and squeezed tight.

“Gotcha.”

Izumi gazed wordlessly out beyond Al’s shoulder, slowly realizing Major Hawkeye and Brigitte had joined them in the transmuted clearing.  Like her arms were suddenly weighed down by boulders, Izumi couldn’t lift them to hug this boy back.

“You’re okay?” she lifted her voice.

“Yeah.”

“Your brother’s not here?” Izumi asked hoarsely, growing numb as she eyed the hunting rifle in Hawkeye’s hand.

“No,” Al tightened his hold, “Aisa left him in Central.”

“Oh,” the explanation for how that happened would have to come later.  Her shoulders sagging, Izumi was losing the strength she needed to hold herself up.

Putting her weapon aside, Hawkeye swooped in.  Resting a hand on Al’s shoulder, she slipped her other arm around Izumi’s back, “We need to get you off this mountain as fast as possible.” 

“Dante’s here,” Izumi protested.

“I don’t think she’s here anymore,” Al looked out into the unsettled forest.

Hawkeye knelt down and slipped her shoulder under Izumi’s arm to bring her up, “Come on.”

“HEY!”

Eyes lifted to the woods at a bellowing voice.  

Rushing into the clearing, Falman emerged covered in dirt, axe in hand, and nearly out of breath, “What… what happened here?  Where did that dirt wall come from?” his brow shot into his hair as he looked at Izumi, “are you okay!?”

“I’m alive,” was the answer.

“Dante made the dirt wall I guess,” Al looked at the barrier at the base of the mountain, “is it keeping everyone from getting down?”

“It was,” Falman tossed his axe down into the layers of wooden dust, “the fire crews were trying to get up the mountain to deal with the building, but the wall came up.  Firemen and a bunch of townsfolk have been working on digging a hole for people to escape through.  They’re still working on widening it, but no one’s gotten up yet to address the fire.”

Turning on his toes, Al rushed away before anyone could stop him, “I’ll open the road for them!”

Izumi grit her teeth, “The whole mountain’s going to burn down at this rate.”

“Officer Falman,” Hawkeye’s voice hardened, “take Mrs. Curtis, Alphonse, and Brigitte down the mountain and find somewhere safe to secure them.”

“Yes Ma’am,” sliding into Izumi’s opposite side, he took her from him.

“Most of the building’s exits were locked,” Hawkeye left the rifle for Falman and picked up the axe in exchange from the ground, “there are probably people trapped - I’ll open as many doors as I can and make sure the brigadier general has gotten out.”

Securing her hand weakly at Falman’s back, Izumi scowled up to the burning building glowing through the trees and lighting the night, “Yeah, don’t let that asshole kill himself out here.”

Hawkeye secured the axe in one hand, took her handgun out of her pocket into the other, and stormed back up the hill.

 


 

Causing people to explode were the mantra’s of others; Scar and Kimblee were the first to come to mind.  Offensive people that Mustang had low opinions of.  

He himself had done horrific things to innocent people in the Ishbalan war - with his gun and with his alchemy, but he found something inherently grotesque about applying the principles of alchemy to living flesh.  It was a feeling that reasserted itself when he looked into human transmutation.  He didn’t want that mantra; there were other ways and other mantles to take up.  But, he wasn’t ignorant to how it was done.

In Scar’s method, he only applied one of the three parts in the process required for alchemy to destroy a human body: deconstruction.  It was a disgusting exhibition of one's ability to dismantle a person down to its core elements.

In Kimblee’s method, he transmuted elements within the human body and created an explosive.  Chemically ingenious, in practice it was well beyond cruel, and the lengths of which he enjoyed that cruelty, and found ways to showcase his cruelty, was abhorred.

In Mustang’s method, he used the substituted life blood embalmed in a dead woman like it was kerosene and ignited her.  He burned Aisa from the inside out and lit up all the parts of her body that the red water flowed through - including the womb nurturing Red Stones and the stomach needed to finish actualizing the remnants of the Philosopher’s Stone.  

What was left of Dante’s flesh container had dampened the force of the modest explosion at least.  

Mustang regained some illusion of his senses with his face on the floor in a pool of foul smelling liquid and he tried to push up to his elbows and knees.  Two thoughts turned up as he tried: the building was on fire and he had to get out.  Every move he made and each simple tilt of his head spun the worlds around him and the officer felt like he’d been dumped on his back.  Concluding he was still on his stomach, Mustang’s elbows quaked as he tried to pull himself up again.  

Looking around in the haze of thickening smoke and warped visibility, something caught his eye.  It was a strange sensation - despite all the distortion and overriding the noise in his head, this existed clearly.  The draw of some primal force got his body to lurch forwards and, in a puddle of red water mess left behind by Aisa to pollute the floor, Mustang pulled himself over a tiny raw gem - so pure, so red - it wiped the lens of his messy vision.  

Perfectly symmetrical, beautifully unscathed, bountifully coloured, and inexplicably alluring, Mustang picked up the final remnant of Alphonse’s Philosopher’s Stone that had begun to take shape inside Aisa.  

Nestled neatly in the palm of his burnt right hand, it was about the size of the pad of his thumb and weighed practically nothing.  How did it feel so enormous?

Somewhere in the back of his mind the two thoughts returned and Mustang screamed orders at himself to escape, he was just too caught off guard by the enchantment and fixated on it.  The only new sense that came to him clearly was the recognition that everything had gone quiet.  How could that be?  Were his ears falling apart like everything seemed to be?

A hand reached in and it should have startled him, but his body didn’t react.  Fragments of clarity puzzled themselves together and Mustang realized that someone was touching his back.  A shadow partially shielded the offensive light.  He idly watched a familiar hand help him close his sore fingers around the Philosopher’s Stone and tuck it away into his chest.

The urgency to escape the burning building had abandoned him.  

Mustang couldn’t quite say he was even aware it was falling apart.  

But, he was aware of his own hand at his chest clutching the stone and aware of the shoulder that came in under his arm and the blonde hair that accompanied it and how that hair beautifully captured the glow of the dancing fireflies around them. 

 


To Be Continued...


Notes:

Al is a good boy ;A;

And Riza’s the stalwart hero :’)

There's not a whole lot of science available about ignition cloth (since it doesn't actually exist lol). However ignition cloth is manufactured, Mustang chose to go with the flashiest looking way for him to do his transmutation with one hand, and I've tried to expand on the fabric's functionality a little :)

Al's new trick at the end will be explained later.

This chapter had been called Firestone since June. The final version ended up deviating far enough from the original take(s) that it didn't fit as well anymore. Nah, I changed it to Firestone lol. It's Firestone in my head.

Woah, Tea, did you change the chapter count?
Yeah I did. Honestly I'm not sure how far over 60 it'll go, but as much as this is a plotfic, it's most importantly a character fic. The plot needs to be/will be resolved (and obviously we're getting there), but the characters deserve resolution most of all. Stories that end when the plot does leave holes in my heart, I want to know a bit about what happens after. I'm treating myself to some gratuitous character writing at the end :)

Nov 14 sounds like a good slot for the next chapter.

Chapter 55: Dichotomy of the Two

Summary:

The dust settles around the Xenotime excursion.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

With his cheek pressed against the glass, Al let his sleepless eyes tumble out the window.  The sun had finally cracked the horizon, lighting the dew coating the eastern Amestris landscape.  The endless stretches of shimmering morning would eventually be flooded by the warm swell of daylight and Al wasn’t sure if he was thankful for the sun’s rise or dreading how it would highlight the state they were in.  

Trying again to let himself relax into the pillow jammed in between the back seat and the door, Al was still unable to sleep.  Peeking out from beneath half-fallen eyelids, he stared up at the headrest behind the driver’s seat in front of him.  As boring as counting sheep, his tired golden gaze travelled through the seams of the fabric, dipping into every needle puncture point he could find in the stitching, until his mind grew disinterested and his eyelids dropped away. 

How the heck did his brother manage to sleep in every nook and cranny and weird position in all those years of travelling together?  Al couldn’t do it.  His mind refused to shut off.

Digging out a fragment of energy, the younger brother pulled his eyelids up halfway and heaved his tired pupils across the back seat to Brigitte.  Major Hawkeye had taken the pillows and bedsheets from her motel room and spread them out between everyone who wasn’t behind the wheel enroute to East City.  Brigitte had her pillow wrapped in her arms with her face planted in the soft cotton; she was curled up and embedded in the corner like Al wanted to be.  He was so jealous when she’d fallen asleep.

His teacher was asleep in the passenger's seat.  At least, Al was hoping she was.  Out of everyone in this vehicle, she was the one who needed it the most - the ill grey colour of her complexion under the town lights had really unsettled him.  But, they had to get out of Xenotime and couldn’t afford the time needed to find any medical help for either her or the brigadier general.  Al dearly hoped Izumi wasn’t lying when she had said she was okay enough for a drive into East City.

What a gut wrenching sight it was fleeing Xenotime like they had, watching the mountainside burn behind them.  No one could place Dante in the aftermath and they all worried that the size of the targets on their backs put the entire town in jeopardy.  For everyone’s safety, they left as quickly as they’d found their vehicles.

Rolling his head back to the window, Al tried to peer beyond Officer Falman’s shoulder.  If he pressed his face hard enough into the glass, he could see both tail lights of Major Hawkeye’s car leading their two-vehicle procession.  

Somewhere in the chaos of his overtired thoughts, Al concluded Dante must have vanished into the underground tunnel system.  

Where would she go from there?  She was hurt, would she seek medical help?  She could probably do most of it on her own, Al assumed.  Did she have any Philosopher’s Stone left outside of Aisa to her to recreate her hand?  Find a new body?  Would she follow them into East City or head straight into Central?  How much time did that give them?  

Al’s tired thoughts latched onto a single, central concern: where was his brother?  Did he go back to Armstrong and get sent north with Winr...

No, Al stopped that thought.  His older brother wouldn’t willingly put himself in that situation.  He wouldn’t let anyone try to send him away after what had happened.  

Al’s concerns began to flourish - was Ed making his way east on his own? Were they going to intercept each other at some point? 

Getting out east was a task easier said than done. With the city shut down and the trains hardly running, how would his brother get transportation?  He could hitchhike, but that wasn’t the most reliable option.  He could drive if he found a vehicle that was robust enough to hold up over a long highway drive, but most of those were limited to freight carriers and military commissioned cars or other vehicles.  Did his brother even know how to drive?  Did they have cars beyond the Gate?  That was a strange question to have to ask, but Al didn’t honestly know if they did.

“Did you want something to eat?”

Al’s eyes fluttered around at the low voice that caught his ears.

Softly smiling into the driver’s side mirror for the passenger behind him, Falman pushed a bag sitting between the two front seats towards the back, “There should be something in there you can munch on.”

Extracting himself from the warmth of his uncomfortable corner, Al drooped forwards and quietly started to look through the bag.

“Have you had any sleep?” Falman asked as the car bounced.

“No,” Al pulled out a slightly bruised banana.  This would do, he didn’t have the energy to put much effort into chewing, “Are you doing okay after driving all night?”

The officer laughed lightly, “Don’t worry about me, I’ve done lots of long shifts in the military, this is nothing.”

Sinking back into his corner pillow, Al put his head down against the window and slowly started peeling, “Is Sensei sleeping or is she just being polite and pretending?”

Glancing to his shoulder, Falman answered quietly, “I’d say she’s asleep.”

“Good,” the young Elric nibbled on the end of his breakfast, “how far do we have to go before we get to East City?”

“We still have a ways to go,” Falman returned his attention to the road and the tail lights ahead of them dimming in the slow rise of the early morning sun, “we’ve been going at a good clip, we should get in some time in the afternoon.”

“That’s still forever away,” Al grumbled.

“That’s still plenty of time for you to try and get some sleep,” Falman said.

The young Elric’s gaze tiredly wandered out the window again and found the blur of field fences flying by, “I have too much on my mind to sleep.”

“It’s been a hectic time,” Falman glanced into his mirror again, “anything particular you can’t shake?”

Anything particular?  Al’s eyes glazed over as he tried to chew and think at the same time.  Where was Dante?  Where was his brother?  What was going on with his brother?  Was the brigadier general going to be okay?  How hurt was Sensei really?  How was Brigitte actually holding up with all this?  Had the townsfolk managed to contain the fire back in Xenotime?  

Al stopped mentally writing his list of concerns - he was okay just imagining how gigantic the full list was.

“I don’t know, lots of things,” losing his focus in the early morning landscape, he mumbled, “I just wish I could talk to my brother right now.”

Falman grinned and kept his tone light for his overtired passenger, “You know, I think the brigadier general’s going to be really disappointed when he finds out he missed seeing Ed in uniform.  It was quite the sight.”

Slouching into his pillow, Al’s chin landed on his chest, “He used to tease him that they didn’t have a uniform small enough to fit him.”

“Right,” Falman mused softly, watching Al slump further in the mirror's reflection, “that used to make him really mad.”

The corner of Al’s mouth curled slowly as he drifted into memories filled with the exaggerated, explosive reactions his brother used to give in response to anyone mocking his height, “He’s taller than the brigadier general now.”

The officer laughed lightly, keeping an eye on his drifting passenger, “I’d imagine he was really pleased with himself when he started to grow.”

Somewhere between a stretch of thinly dressed trees and another blurry fence, Al fell into his imagination and set his mind free to create what it must have been like when his brother had finally started growing.  He didn’t know the London scenery, or what the house his brother had lived in was like, so his imagination concocted something arbitrary for the setting.  Even if Al had very little he could contribute to the daydream, he could at least offer his dad, and he could stick himself there too, because it would have been fun to enjoy that time in his life together with him.

 


 

Sheska had been out less an hour before she’d turned around and went right back home.  

Despite the furor Central City was bubbling with, she desperately hung onto her daily routine and was rewarded with the welcoming ‘Open’ sign hanging in the window of her favourite corner coffee shop that morning.  To say it was packed was an understatement.  Men, women, and children of all walks of life, who were more than prepared to fill the streets in protest of everything that morning, had crammed inside one of the few places with opened doors. 

In the middle of the busy hubbub, a single radio report silenced everyone.  If Central itself weren’t in enough chaos already, it was about to get a whole lot worse.

The morning sun had barely begun wrapping around the front of her building when Sheska flung herself through the front door and the aged wooden stairs of her apartment cried as she thundered up them.  Booting her door open with her hip, she stumbled into her apartment out of breath.

“Ed!?”

There was a long pause before Ed’s muffled voice replied.

“... Yeah?”

“Have you been listening to the radio?” 

Sheska flew around a wall of books into her tiny living room and staggered to a stop.  At the heart of her suite bursting at its seams, Ed was accumulating a hearty collection of papers of his own.  Stacks of loose sheets had been piled on her coffee table and garnished the floor around it.  It was a substantial amount more than he’d had out yesterday.  Sheska examined the blankets and pillow neatly piled on her sofa and questioned if he’d slept last night.

“Ed?”

The bathroom door popped open, “What?”

Sheska swung back around and rushed through her apartment, “Have you been listening to the radio!?”

“No?”

Flying around her literature walls, Sheska stumbled into Ed’s exit from her bathroom, watched him latch the belt on his slacks, caught a glimpse of him without his shirt on, and promptly fell sideways into her kitchen with a clatter.

“O-oh… well, uhm,” Sheska fumbled around with her glasses on her face and scrambled to straighten herself out.

“I can’t concentrate with the radio on,” Ed explained.  Following Sheska into the kitchen, he scratched one of her flower-print towels through his soggy hair, “What’s going on now?”

Sheska glanced up at the half dressed Elric, then to her cracked tile floor, over to the window, back to Ed drying himself with the towel, then locked her eyes straight ahead at her kitchen sink.  Wait, had he cleaned everything in the sink after she’d left this morning!?

“The, uh, government is falling apart in Xenotime,” she sputtered.

Ed slowed as he wound his hair up into the towel, “Falling apart how?”

Fluttering her hands around at her sides, Sheska snuck a glimpse of the shirtless obstacle standing between her and the radio in the main room beyond, took a deep breath, and flew past Ed into the core of her apartment as he settled the towel bundle on top of his head.

“There was a massive fire in Xenotime!”

Concern in his voice flared like Mustang had snapped his fingers and Ed chased after her, “What!?  What kind of fire?”

Scampering over to a cluttered table of books and plants at her front window welcoming the 8am sun, she turned the dial on her radio and bumbled around with the tuner.  In the middle of an merciless stream of grinding static, the realization struck Sheska that she was going to be responsible for delivering the news to him.  

She paled; she’d run home to tell him about it, but in the heat of the moment, she hadn't exactly thought that through.  Was there any way to soften it?  Ed had obviously been agitated about whatever the heck the predicament was in Xenotime actually was and she wasn’t sure how he was going to react.  He’d flown off the handle when she’d revealed Hughes’ passing without realizing he didn’t know, but now this involved his little brother.  It wasn’t like she thought Al was dead, but there was no way to know if he was hurt or not, so it would be better coming from her than if he casually found out from the inhuman radio. 

“I went to grab coffee before heading in and the radio in the shop said they’d gotten a report overnight that there’d been a fire in Xenotime.  News outlets have been trying to get another line into the town, but no one’s been able to confirm or deny the report yet.”

Sheska didn’t have to turn around to feel the discontent that flooded her apartment - it radiated in waves off of him.  Ed’s hardened voice only amplified it.

“What are they reporting, exactly?” 

Finding a merry interlude on one of only three stations still broadcasting, Sheska checked the time and figured nothing would come back on again until the bottom of the hour.  She snuck a curious peek again at Ed in the corner of her eye; he stood firmly at the side of her sofa, jaw locked and firm, gaze narrowed with focus, hand up at his mouth, his fingers slowly scratching through his chin, everything about his presence firmly engaged with her words.

What in the world was actually going on?  There was a wild disaster unfolding in Xenotime that had ties in some way to this man standing in her apartment.  Looking at Ed only cemented Sheska’s belief that there was a much larger mystery going on that she wasn’t being told about and every inch of her tingled at the prospect of what that might be.  No power on earth existed that would convince her that this guy was actually seventeen.  How the heck was she going to find out what was really going on?  

Lamenting that it wasn’t the time or the place to start accosting him with a thousand wayward questions, Sheska shoved her imagination aside to remain focussed on the concerning topic at hand.  

Slowly, she turned herself around to face him - at least he was less imposing with one of her flowery towels bundled on his head, “Now, remember there was no one to corroborate this, but the report said that the entire Xenotime laboratory, where all the government officials had been set up the last while, burnt down overnight.  This one whole single report with no supporting evidence said that people died because they couldn’t get out of the building.  The fire had spread to the forest and they were working on putting that out.  Apparently, a huge dirt wall sprung up between the lab and the town and it was containing the spread of the fire well enough that they aren’t worried about it going down into the town.”

The ticking of the tiny pendulum in her table clock morphed into an overwhelming gong that felt like it was counting down to the point where Sheska’s company would lose the reins on his composure.  Submerged in a poignant moment of silence, a spark of clear frustration was freed in his eyes and, for a second, she wondered if Ed now possessed the power to destroy something with only a single thought.  It startled her enough that the clock was silenced and she almost missed how he cursed before storming out of sight, vanishing behind her walls of books as he marched through her apartment.

“How many people died?” the harsh question filled the hollow spaces in the suite.

“They didn’t say,” Sheska stepped away from the radio, but didn’t follow him out of the front room.  Listening to Ed rummage around in her bathroom, she raised her voice to try and calm the mood, “But they were confident that the dirt wall protecting the city was done by a skilled alchemist, because there was no other way it would have gotten there.  I’d bet my bottom dollar Al did that, so I don’t think you need to worry, I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Right,” Ed’s voice rumbled, “do they know what caused it?”

She hesitated on her reply, knowing the answer wasn’t going to do anything to help the situation, “The unconfirmed report said that something in the laboratory blew up.”

No acknowledgement, no sound at all, came in response to the statement for quite some time, until Ed’s weighted steps on the wooden floor made their way through the suite again and he came back into view.  While his hands worked their way through the buttons of his shirt, Sheska's eyes travelled up, past his collar, cautiously examining the angered and frustrated look swelling in Ed's gaze.  Knitting her fingers together, she watching the molten cores of his golden eyes churn.  

“Ed, I’m sure Al’s fine.”

“Yeah,” he snapped his shirt straight.  Scratching his hand through his chin and up his jaw line, Ed eventually smoothed his hand over his face, “Anything else?”

“Um… the prime minister is in the hospital and is really out of sorts because they couldn’t find his daughters," she offered.

“Okay,” Ed abruptly sat down on the sofa and adjusted a few of the top pages on the coffee table, “are you still heading out to Mustang’s operation today?” 

The unexpected question sidetracked Sheska’s concerns.  Was she?  Was it even worth it at this point?  Dragging herself away from the front room, she wandered over to Ed, “I was going to, but there’s not much I can really do, they’re sort of in the middle of overthrowing the government I worked for and betrayed.  It’s not like I have a job to go to… it’s not like I have any job now at all,” she gave a deflated shrug, “I don’t think anybody’s paying me to do anything, I might as well stay home.”

His focus securely locked on his paperwork, Ed idly scratched his hand through his face, before running his fingers off the end of his chin, “You interested in helping me work through some final kinks in this a bit later?”

Yet another unexpected question left Sheska a little baffled, “You want me to help?”

“Yeah,” Ed nodded, “I need someone around to help test something with.”

She narrowed an eye curiously, “Test what?”

“Alchemy stuff.” 

Sheska’s shoulders cautiously ventured up to her ears over the vague response, “Sure, I guess.”

“Thanks.”

Yes, she was going to stay home all day.  There was definitely, absolutely, without a doubt, something extra strange going on and she wanted some way to start figuring it out - she had a feeling it was far, far more interesting than any page in one of the thousands of books she had decorating the empty spaces around her.  Sheska placed the questionable Elric in her investigative eye; staying home and helping him might begin unlocking a few answers and she left him with a parting thought to make sure he didn’t forget to call on her later.  

“Let me know when you’re ready for my help," she smiled.

 


 

At some point sometime later, Al awoke somewhere else.  The sound of a door clicking shut made its way through his closed ears, and Al realized all the unfamiliar sounds and smells he’d been perceiving had actually been coming in from outside his dreams.

Her lower lip caught sheepishly in her teeth and a glass of water in hand, Brigitte stepped away from the door, “I’m sorry.”

It took Al’s tired mind far too many seconds to process that she'd given him a basic statement in English.

Picking his head up out of a warm pillow, Al watched Brigitte sit herself down in a nest of comforters piled in a corner.  A few cushions wrapped in a sandy-coloured blanket had become the bed he’d woken up on.  Lost golden eyes drifted tiredly through the small room lit only by hot daylight seeping in from around the fringes of dark curtains shielding a small window.  There was noise - faint, nondescript chatter of people and sounds of life filtered in from beyond the walls.  Other than the two children on the floor, the only additional things filling the room were an old wooden dresser up against the wall near Alphonse’s head and an iron bed frame holding the mattress Izumi slept on.

Al let the image of his teacher sink in and he stood up.

Walking up to the side of her bed, Al peered in at his teacher.  She was sound asleep.  Even in the weak light, her complexion was still drained and the wide patch on her cheek emphasized the look.  A few bandages were wrapped around spots on her arms and the rest of her body was hidden beneath a blanket.

The weight of his thoughts encompassing the last week caused his posture to sag and Al turned back to look at Brigitte.  

She was watching him.

There was no way for Al to explain to her what had happened to them in Xenotime, but the jarring escapade clearly took a great deal of energy out of her sails too.  ‘I’m sorry’ was the first thing she’d said since he’d last heard her scream.  Brigitte probably needed someone to talk to about the millions of feelings she didn’t know what to do with, but there wasn’t anyone around who’d understand her.  There were a lot of reasons for her to be scared and no words he could use to make her feel safe.

The door to the room creaked open, startling them both.  

Major Hawkeye poked her head in, “You’re up.”

The familiar presence eased the sudden apprehension in the room.

“Where are we?” it was the foremost question Al had.

“Safe in East City,” was the whispered answer before the officer’s gaze locked firmly on the young Elric, “Al, can I speak to you out here for a moment?”

“Sure.” 

Crossing the room and reaching out to take the door from Hawkeye, Al abruptly stopped.  Staring at his hand while the edge of the door settled in his fingertips, Al's mind was suddenly racing so fast he couldn’t collect his thoughts.  There was something in his head.  It felt like a noise, but it had no sound.  There was information mingling his thoughts that wasn’t his own, but there were no words.  A sensation pounded in his chest, mirroring his heartbeat, but when he put his hand down he felt nothing.  He felt out of breath, but he hadn't been running.  What was going on?

“Al?”

A bewildered look flashed up to Hawkeye, “Sorry, I think I’m still half asleep…” 

No, he was wide awake.  Something was wrong, he just didn’t know what.

Stepping out into a stout, low-lit hall, Al breathed in the household air rich with a mixture of cinnamon, fresh baking, and pipe smoke.  Looking at the closed doors flanking them, he listened to the abstract sound of activity happening in an open room he couldn’t see around the corner.  The undefinable sensory feedback in his head was making his heart race and Al made no attempt to explore the building until he could figure out why.

“Is the brigadier general going to be okay?” he opened his mouth and put to voice the first thing that came to mind, hoping to settle himself.

Forcing a smile, Hawkeye’s tone remained solemn while she quietly latched the door, “We’ll know more over the next couple of days.  Red water isn’t a stable substance and its toxins can be tricky.  It’s illegal for a reason.”

Tightening his jaw, Al tried to focus his hectic thoughts, attempting to push away the invasion of wordless meanings so he could think of something he could do to help, “Last year, after everything with Laboratory 5, Lt Colonel Armstrong said that Dr. Marcoh had colleagues working under him who’d also have knowledge on things like the Philosopher’s Stone and red water.  Mr. Hughes said he’d look into it, but we told him not to.  If Dr. Marcoh was hiding in East City, are there any of his associates hiding here that we can reach out to for help?”

Hawkeye's smile softened at the suggestion and she let her posture ease, “Yes, there are.  One of them is taking care of Lieutenant Ross and another is with the brigadier general now.”

“Oh…” Al’s shoulders fell; of course they’d already known who to seek out, they’d always known about the red water to some degree.  There wasn’t really anything else for him to offer - there wasn’t anything he could really do like this.  He just had to sit around and wait, but there was too much at stake for him to be idle like this, “Major, I want to head into Central City ahead of you and--”

“Alphonse.”

The younger Elric was quieted by the uneasy tone in Hawkeye’s voice.  She kneeled down, presented her closed hand between them, and Al watched her fingers uncoil to offer the final remnants of the Philosopher’s Stone in the palm of her hand.

“The brigadier general found this in Aisa’s remains.  I think it might be yours.”

The intangible disruption Al had been feeling swept into focus and his eyes were sucked into the potent hue of the tiny stone’s fine edges.  This was what was resonating with him.  It was so tiny in the palm of Hawkeye’s hand, yet the presence of the stone somehow felt massive and intensely… alluring?  He couldn’t quite put his finger on a word to describe his attraction to it.  

Pulled into the draw of the gem, the red of the Philosopher’s Stone was something that exceeded description - like it was the kind of red all other shades aspired to be, but could never quite achieve.  The longer Al stared at it, the more he started to wonder if it was going to devour the gold in his eyes. 

Al picked it up out of Hawkeye’s hand.

It was entirely different than how he’d felt at the Gate when it was still forming inside Aisa.  He didn’t know how to explain the sensation looking at it left him with; how could look at something and, without giving a thought to it, undoubtedly know ‘yeah, this is mine.’  The only other experience he could liken it to were the fundamental understandings he’d received at the Gate, he just knew facts for no reason other than it was simply so.  And this stone was his.

“I don’t want this.”

The words came out freely, practically startling him, but that feeling was as inarguably true as the fact it belonged to him.

Al tore his gaze away from the stone and looked at Hawkeye, “This isn’t going to help me with anything.”

“It gives us, gives you, some options,” Hawkeye offered, “we don’t know what remaining resources Dante has available to her.”

Al’s shoulders fell.  They had no idea what the extent of Dante’s assets were, but what they did know was that Aisa represented her most recent atrocity - a remnant from the horrors of Ishibal and Lior.  Neither calamity would have happened if Dante’s resources hadn’t become limited.  Aisa wouldn’t have existed like she did if Dante had other options to crystalize his Philosopher’s Stone.  Xenotime wouldn't have been a choice if there were better ones.  Everything suggested that Dante's resources were limited and that left Al fearing the existence of this shard had the potential to do more harm than good.

“I understand that, but everything is complicated enough.  We need to get rid of it, so there's zero chance Dante can ever use it.”

Rising back up to her feet, Hawkeye let her gaze travel through the seams of the wall, considering his sentiment, “Before your brother vanished last year, he’d told us he was going to find a way to destroy it.  That’s an option you can explore.”

Looking into his hand, Al stared at his reflection shining back at him in a stone made out of countless lives sacrificed to fulfill someone’s unending greed for life.  

When the journey began, the brothers had set out together with coinciding motives: to retrieve each other’s bodies.  The task required the Philosopher’s Stone, but no matter how hard they searched, they couldn’t find a way to create the stone without a significant human sacrifice, and neither one of them would entertain that cost.  The stone was created anyway and landed in their hands through circumstance.  

While the older brother had decided to destroy the stone, the younger brother had done the complete opposite - he’d used it.

Al had been used by Tucker to create Nina’s shell, but then he used up the remainder of the Philosopher’s Stone Gluttony hadn’t eaten to revive his brother.  And he didn’t harbour any guilt about that.  He could see where his brother was coming from, and understood why he felt the way he did with his desire to destroy the stone, but Alphonse didn’t feel the same way.  

There wasn’t anything either of them could have done to bring the people sacrificed back and the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone wasn’t their crime, they were simply caught up in it.  Forsaking the stone just meant forsaking so many lives to a nothing end, so Al used the stone as it was meant to be used and brought his brother back.  

The application of his morals was different from his older brother and now there was another piece he found himself responsible for.

“No.  Destroying it wastes these people’s lives again and offers no better legacy for them than Dante using it.  I don’t think they’d want that… I wouldn't want that,” Al looked into the reddened hues of his partial reflection in a stone made pure by mankind’s suffering, “these people were forced out of this world.  Their minds were snuffed out, their bodies can’t return to the earth, and their souls won’t go wherever our souls go - they shouldn’t end without meaning like that.  All that’s left of them is in this stone,” he shook his head lightly, feeling his bangs sweep across his forehead, “if I had any say over what the last spark of my life could offer, I’d want it to be put to good use.” 

Al looked up and met Hawkeye’s concerned gaze.  Dante paraded herself around as a pharmacist, someone who should have been helping people, and if she wouldn’t willingly care for the world she lived in, Alphonse would force her assets into the role.  Repurposing a shard once meant to extend the life of a single person who’d already lived beyond her years, Al offered the final fragment of the Philosopher’s Stone back to Major Hawkeye.

“Anyone with significant training in the applications of red water or the red stones should be able to use this.  I don’t know how much use we can get out of a stone this small, but we have a bit of power to help some people.  Anybody in East City who needs care from one of the doctors is free to get it until the stone runs out.  Can you and the brigadier general make sure that’s what happens?”

Alphonse already had what he wanted.  The brothers’ sought the Philosopher’s Stone to retrieve their bodies and they had that.  It wasn’t perfect, in fact it was quite flawed, but they had their bodies and they were alive and they were both so close to home.  But, the benefits the stone offered couldn’t ensure they’d finish getting home - that was up to them.  Whatever was left in this fragment could heal bodies, save lives, and give others the joy of going home to family as well.

Standing silently in the hall for a moment, Hawkeye gazed down at a tiny golden Elric firmly acting far older than his youthful visual suggested, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Hawkeye’s expression softened.  Reaching down, she collected the stone out of his soft palm, “I’ll take care of that for you.”

Al smiled and gave the most coveted alchemical creation back to the hands of people he trusted, “Thank you.” 

 


 

Sheska put her hands on her hips, “Okay, what do I do?”

Moving a stack of papers from the coffee table to the floor, Ed remained seated on the sofa, “Sit on the table.”

Shuffling over, Sheska did as she was told, sat down on the edge of her coffee table facing Ed, and put her hands on her knees.

It was a little comical how eager she was to help him, Ed had to admit, she’d asked him a couple of times throughout the day if he’d needed her help yet.  He hadn’t even considered asking for her assistance until now, he was already imposing on her enough, but the news of the morning both clogged and cleared his head. 

How the hell had he gotten to the point where he was comfortable not crossing every T and dotting every I?  Dammit, he was an alchemist - a scientist - and his life beyond the Gate had made him complacent with his craft.  It was a world where alchemy didn’t function and he’d gotten comfortable assuming conclusions.  Considering everything they were up against, the luxury of confidence wasn’t something he could afford.  Once he got his head out of his ass, Ed was fairly annoyed with himself for his arrogance.   

He needed to be certain about assumptions.

Something had happened in Xenotime and the framework for it was entirely different in his mind than Sheska’s. There were so many additional pieces involved that added layers to the news and he couldn’t allow himself to dwell on his worries in a negative mindset, especially ones he had no control over.  He needed to remain focussed on what he could control, because if the news was right and Dante had been reported as missing, what did that mean going forwards?  

Dante had her claws entrenched in the government; she used it as a shield and as leverage to flaunt her presence.  If she’d broken away from that cover, what was her reason?  Speculating she’d died was too much of a reach for a woman of her skill who’d lived as long as she had, so Ed concluded she needed mobility that was out of the public eye.  She needed to be able to operate without either being burdened by governance or having to pretend she was the child of someone with a high profile.  If Dante had achieved any success, or even if she still had Al, Ed didn’t doubt she’d have strung heads up a flagpole to show off her position.  She’d have found a way to publicly taunt him with it.  The opposite of that was happening, which bolstered his belief that Al and everyone were actually fine.  Where did that leave Dante, then?

The most logical conclusion was that Dante was actually on the run.  Where would she run to if she’d suffered some kind of loss - where does anyone run when they’re not at their best?  

Home.  

That was certainly where Ed wanted to go.  But, for Dante, it wasn’t a country field in Resembool, and it wasn’t the childish bedroom in the government manor, it was that other one .  And he was a lot closer to it than she was.

Ed cleared his throat, “Have you ever tried alchemy, Sheska?”

“When I was a kid,” she laughed, “I can’t do it though, does it matter?”

“Nope,” he shook his head.

“Okay,” Sheska rolled her shoulders back and sat as attentive as she could.

Cementing his resolve, Ed eased out a slow breath, “I need you to tell me if, at any point, you notice changes in your environment.”

Sheska’s brows knotted up curiously, “What kind?”

Humming his thoughts, he verbalized a few possibilities, “Unusual sounds, visual changes, sudden smells, invasive mental imagery, intrusive thoug-”

“Invasive mental what!?” she squawked.

Ed hesitated as he searched for a way to reword her concerns, “Hallucinations.”

That wasn’t much of an improvement.  The corners of Sheska’s mouth folded down sharply, not liking his amendment, “Am I going to have to try drugs or something?”

“No,” he dismissed the worry, “I’m just going to clap my hands and I want to know if it affects your environment at this proximity.”

Sheska’s brow rose with fascination, “Like, for alchemy?”

Ed nodded and waited for her to silently reconcile the thousand questions he could see her mind’s eye toiling with, “Ready?”

“Okay,” she shook her thoughts away.

Locking his focus onto Sheska, digging his eyes in to study any changes to the look behind her glasses, between their faces at nose level, Ed clapped his hands.  

The apartment was too stuffed to get an echo out of the handclap.  The afternoon silence wrapping tightly around his palms pressing together, Ed drilled into Sheska’s gaze, searching for anything that gave away a change in her thought processes.  All he ever saw was the fascination she looked back at him with.

“Nothing?” Ed asked.

Sheska shook her head, “Nothing.”

Releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, Ed brought his hands down and placed them on his knees, “Good.”

“What would you have done if I’d started hallucinating?” the curious question rushed at him.

A curl found its way into the corner of Ed’s mouth and he smirked, “I wouldn’t have done it if I thought you would have.  It was just a theoretical side effect.”

Sulking over the non-answer, Sheska let things move on, “Is that it?”

“No,” Ed collected his focus and picked his hands up again, “I’m going to do the same thing, but this time I’m going to put my hand on your forehead after I clap.”

“Wait.  Waitwait wait waaaiiiit,” Sheska’s pupils tried to fill her glasses, “if you clap your hands for alchemy then touch me, isn’t that like human transmutation?”

“Not for this scenario,” Ed reached out and firmly put his left hand on her forehead, “I’m not executing a transmutation.  What I’m testing for is if I trigger any of the previous symptoms I outlined, but when I touch you.  I won’t transmute you in the process.”

Uneasily pinching her expression, Sheska’s shoulders drew up to her ears, “But… you don’t expect anything to happen, right?”

Withdrawing his hand, Ed sat back, “Right.  I wouldn’t be doing it if I thought the chances were high enough that something would, I’m just testing to make sure of that.”

Slapping her hands down onto her thighs, Sheska straightened herself out, “Okay.  Test me.”

Ed’s dulled handclap popped in the apartment and nothing was heard when his hand landed on her forehead.  

Again, Ed dug his focus into Sheska’s eyes, looking for any sign of something out of the ordinary.  As confidence settled in that she hadn't experienced anything, Ed studied her gaze one last time and suddenly realized she was very intently staring right back at him.  Caught off guard by the assertive behaviour, Ed popped his hand off her forehead and sat back.

“Um, anything?”

Sheska adjusted her glasses, “Nothing.”

Ed narrowed an eye, “You’re sure?”

“Yup.”

“Good,” shaking his thoughts free of her quirky behaviour, Ed scratched his fingers along his chin before he picked up a sheet of paper from the seat cushion next to him, “Thanks Sheska.  Now, there is one last thing I’d like your help with.”

Nodding, she remained perfectly attentive on the coffee table, “Sure!”

Ed handed a list of names he’d written down over to her, “Do you recognize anyone on this page?”

Turning the sheet around in her hand, Sheska’s nose wrinkled as she started scanning the list, “What for?”

“They’re resources,” Ed said, “I’d like to know if any of them are alive and if they’re in Central.”

Her eyes charging through the page, Sheska read the sheet from top to bottom, then bottom to top, before her eyes drifted off the page in thought.  Puzzled about why her focus had wandered away, Ed leaned in to try and corral it again.

“Sheska?”

The page abruptly landed in her lap, “How old are you?”

Ed’s expression collapsed, “What?”

The look on her face souring, Sheska punched her question into the Elric seated across from her, “How old are you, Edward Elric?”

His eyes flying wide, Ed garbled his words.  It wasn’t like he was going out of his way to keep her from knowing, it was just easier if he never brought it up.  How the hell was he going to explain it anyways?  His hand scratched through his hair, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

Slapping the sheet of paper against her chest, Sheska folded her arms and secured it there, “Every time I look at you it gets harder to find ways to rationalize how you could be seventeen.  At this point, I’m just making stuff up.”

“W--”

“I’ll tell you what I know about these people,” she cut him off, “I just want to know how old you are first.  Equivalent exchange or something.”

“That’s not…” 

Ed’s hand clawed through his face.  The list of names he’d remembered his father mention over the years was something he could easily replicate, but he was going to have to concede to Sheska’s whims if he had any chance of finding out if these people were accessible.  Ed dragged his hands down his face and scratched his fingers along his chin, lamenting the predicament.  

“Stop scratching your face!” she chirped, “it’s turning red!”

Ed slapped his hands down on his thighs, “It’s itchy!”

“Why’s your face itchy?”

“'Cause I need to shave it!”

“Since when did you need to shave!? ” 

Ed had to bite his tongue on that reply.  

He hadn’t been around anyone who didn’t already know how old he was, so there’d been no reason to think up an excuse.  He’d be a fool to ignore Sheska’s observation skills - bolstered by her sharp memory she’d have had more than enough time to puzzle over him by now.  Lying about it would only drive her suspicions through the roof and the last thing Ed needed was her to get too curious and start asking people at Mustang’s group if they knew anything about him.  On top of all that, he had no other resources available to tell him about the people on that list… 

Ed let his shoulders fall in resignation, “I’m twenty-two.”

Pursing her lips and wrinkling her nose, Ed watched Sheska process the improbable answer.  Sinking back into the sofa, he watched her eyes shoot to the corners of her apartment as she aligned all of her suspicions up with the response.  Ed sighed and waited for Sheska to come to, then accept, all her conclusions and move on to a question that was a whole lot harder for him to answer.

“How?”

“It’s complicated,” he replied, then stubbornly tucked his gaze away beneath a flat brow and blocked an avalanche of information he didn’t have time to explain, “and you never said I had to tell you how.”

Sheska backed off from the question and resumed mentally reorganizing her thoughts, her face twisting and contorting with every realignment she made.

Reaching down, Ed picked up a pencil from the floor and interrupted her thought processes by slipping it into her hand, “All except one of them are reputable scientists.  You can cross out the name of anyone who’s passed away, there are probably a few.”

Sheska spun the pencil through her fingers as her thoughts continued to run.

Ed continued unfazed, “The only person I’m certain is alive is the one at the bottom, so I just need to know where to find him.  For the rest, I’m looking for anyone who’s alive, if they’re in Central, and where I can find them.”  

Glancing at the name at the bottom of the list, Sheska’s eyes flashed back into her glasses frames, “ twenty-two?”

Ed sighed, “Yeah, twenty-two.”

 


 

Cautiously opening the bedroom door, Al peeked in, “Hi.”

Propped up in the bed, a book in hand, Izumi lifted her attention to her visitor.

Al smiled.

Apparently, his smile looked guilty, because he got ‘that look’ from her and Izumi put the book down.

“So?”

“Sooo… “ ensnared in his teacher’s interrogative stare, Al dragged out his last syllable nervously and slipped into the room, shutting the door behind himself, “Rose is outside with Major Hawkeye and Lieutenant Havoc.  She’s going to take Brigitte to stay with her and the Tringham brothers since Central’s a big mess.”

“Hopefully lightning doesn’t strike twice for that group,” Izumi’s sentiments came out reluctantly.

Everyone was in agreement, even if it was begrudgingly so, that hiding Brigitte away in East City was the safest option, until they could either settle Central City down or pin Dante.  There was an air of confidence amongst the military officers about their strengths in East City and that sentiment wasn’t lost on Al.

“It should be okay.  Brigitte seems pretty worn out, anyways.  It’ll be best for her to stay put for a while with people she recognizes.”

Running her gaze over the Elric in her room, Izumi lifted her brow to peer beyond the foot of the bed to his feet, “Where’d you get those?”

Glancing down, Al laughed, “They’re Fletcher’s shoes.  Rose brought them.  Major Hawkeye mentioned I was barefoot and Rose knew my shoe size.  I think this was the first time in six years where I was actually glad to be putting shoes on my feet.” 

“Don’t lose these ones, you have to give them back,” her words scolding him before he could commit any offense.

“I won’t lose them,” Al grinned sheepishly, “it was really neat running around barefoot though, it was like I’d forgotten what--”

“So?”

“So…” Al deflated.

Izumi could tell from a mile away when he had something on his mind to say and was avoiding it.  Honestly, Al thought, how was he supposed to expect her to have any confidence in him if he wasn’t showing it himself?  That was half the challenge with his teacher most of the time, believing strongly enough in what he wanted to accomplish that it overshadowed the fear of her repercussions.  Maybe that was why she acted that way with them, to make sure they had fortitude in their resolve.

Huffing his next breath, Al straightened himself out, put his shoulders back, and walked to the foot of her bed, “I’m going to head back to Central with Lieutenant Havoc shortly.”

“Al,” Izumi’s tone was deep, voicing a firm statement, “I don’t want you running off.  We need everyone to stay together.”

“It’s important that I go ahead,” Al contested, “just like it's important for you and the brigadier general to take the time you need to recover.”

“No,” the refusal was abrupt, “we are going to find your brother, but I don’t want you --”

“Sensei.”

Al spoke before he was completely ready and he tightened the seam of his lips.  Waiting to see how his teacher would react to cutting her off like that, he watched her sit in the bed, sheets bundled at her waist, book in her lap, and choose to do nothing.  Maybe Al was wishing she would hit him, it was honestly easier to cope with than listening to all the sentences he was composing in his head.  All of them made him anxious, worried, and nervous.

But, his teacher continued to offer the speaking floor to him and she waited for the younger brother to explain himself.  Al tensed when he opened his mouth again.

“Sensei, I think my brother showed Wrath the Gate.”

Izumi stared back at the young Elric addressing her like she thought she’d heard him incorrectly.

Al clenched his hands, “And I think that’s what caused the change in Wrath’s behaviour you saw before he left.”

Hesitantly processing his words, Izumi tore into the boy with her eyes, trying to find some way to further dissect what he’d said, “Explain.”

A deep breath was needed for his answer, “Dante said that he clapped his hands and showed Wrath the Gate and I don’t think she was lying.  The more I think about things that were said, by Dante and by my brother, and the more I think about what went on, the harder it is for me to look at the information and think she was wrong.  I don’t know how it works, but I think he has some kind of access to the Gate and, if that’s the case, I don’t think he went back to see Lt. Colonel Armstrong after he fell out of the van,” Al shook his head while he thought back, “communication is broken across the country and we have no reliable way of reaching anyone in Central.  My brother could be anywhere by now - I’m the most able body we have here at the moment and I need to get back to try to find out what’s going on.”

Alphonse’s explanation lengthened the moment of time the room remained submerged in anxious silence.  The urge to leave East City was swelling inside of him, doing nothing but making him feel like he was falling farther and farther behind the longer he waited, because there was no telling what Dante’s next move was or what his brother had the potential to get up to.  Every important hour spent out east was another hour Al lost.

Izumi eventually organized a few of her thoughts into words, “The knowledge Ed came back with is information we aren’t meant to have here.  It could be possible that he has a level of control over his alchemy that--”

Al slowly started shaking his head and stopped her, “I don’t think that’s it.”

The visual interrogation by his teacher again demanded an answer.

Of all the conclusions Al had come to throughout the day, this one scared him the most, “The Gate wouldn’t let me bring him home, because he wasn’t supposed to come back.  The Gate made sure I understood that, even though I didn't like it or agree with it, it was a fact.  The thing is, Winry was with him, but the rule didn’t apply to her.  So, it wasn’t anything to do with coming or going between the sides of the Gate - it was specific to him.  The only reason I couldn’t bring Winry home separately was because I transmuted her with him and they arrived as a package.  So, the only way he could have gotten through the Gate was if he’d done something to override the restrictions - if he’d made some kind of deal with the Gate so he could come home again.”

Al’s last syllables faded away and the foreboding silence dimmed the room again.  Watching his teacher’s eyes flicker around with her thoughts, something she rarely allowed him to see, Al sighed and walked around to the side of her creaky bed.  He sat himself down on the edge of the mattress.

“I asked him shortly after he’d gotten back what he’d done to get home and he just joked and brushed it off.”

Izumi’s brow creased when she shut her eyes, “He knows what he did.”

That was the worst part.  His brother knew something, something important, and had kept it to himself.  If he knew he could clap his hands to reach the Gate, was that why he played up his alchemy as being so dangerous that he shouldn’t do it around people?  He couldn’t have kept that a secret for long up north, at some point he was going to have to try to perform alchemy again.  Why would he have shown the Gate to Wrath in the basement if he’d been so emphatic to not clap his hands in a space where people could be involved.  Did he actually have some level of control over what he’d done, like his teacher had started to suggest?  

How did having access to the Gate relate back to overriding the conditions preventing him from coming home?

“Sensei,” frustration and disappointment flooded into Al’s voice, “I don’t know if I’m furious with him or terrified for him, but I have no idea what he’s thinking or what he’s doing.”

Slowly shaking her head as the volume of the information Al offered digested, Izumi could only find one suggestion to help him, “If Armstrong hasn’t sent Winry north yet, talk to her.  She was with him at the Gate and might be able to tell you something.”

Al nodded slowly, “Yeah, I’m going to find her when I get back.”

“Al…”

A light hand landed on top of his head when the younger brother looked to his teacher.  Despite the age he felt inside and all the burdens that kept coming his way, Al didn’t really mind when she decided to treat him like his childish size and fluff his hair.  

Izumi softened, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” Al shook his head, “I just hope he has a good explanation for himself when I find him.”

A light laugh preceded Izumi’s sentiments, “When you find Ed, whether or not you like his answer, hold him until I get there.  I went easy on him when we were in Central.”

Al gave a nervous grin to his teacher’s intentions, “I’d like to still have a brother when you’re done with him, please.”

Izumi only smiled in response and ruffled Al’s hair.

 


 

In the darkened sliver of an alley between Sheska’s building and the next, Ed grabbed a metallic garbage bin at it’s handle and base and dumped it out into the street.  Picking the empty container up, he walked to the other end of the alley next to the escape ladder and placed the emptied can down.  Scaling the rusted metal ladder, Ed sat himself on the lowest platform and looked down at the can positioned below his feet.

Ed sighed in disgust of himself, “I hated when people did this to me, now I’m doing it to myself.”

Reaching behind, he picked up the first stack of papers and dropped them off the fire escape into the noisy tin can below.  Despondently watching a few scattered sheets flutter away into the alley rot, he shook his head at what he was doing and grabbed another stack to drop.  Everything that hit the tin garbage can went in with a clatter. 

In total, four piles of work were sent into the trash that night.  Left looking at the scattered mess of white sheets of paper that had tried to flutter free into the alley below, Ed leaned his shoulder against the wall and put the side of his head down against the brick wall.

Al was fine.  Ed told himself that again.  He’d been telling himself that all day - all week.  Mustang was fine, his teacher was fine, Brigitte was fine… he had to believe they were all fine.  Al could take care of himself; he was an amazing alchemist and sometimes the older brother forgot that behind the memory of the younger brother he felt responsible for.  Admittedly, sometimes Ed wished Al wasn’t as strong as he was, because he wanted to take care of him.

And Al wasn’t just alive - he was thriving - in a life Ed had given to him when he’d surrendered his own life in exchange.  Ed didn’t regret the decision in the slightest and watching Al now did nothing but cement that.

Shortly before he’d set out to find Hermann Oberth their father had told Ed that the reason he’d woken up on the other side of the Gate was because he’d done something subconsciously.  It was a sentiment that sounded like his old man was just trying to be kind, because the more Ed learned the more he realized that the explanation didn’t make sense.  

The people who journeyed beyond the Gate had their bonds broken: Hohenheim, Ed the first time, and then finally Winry.  But Ed hadn’t broken his bonds to bring Al back, he’d offered his life.  His mind, his body, and his soul; his present and his future - his fate - was given to and belonged to the Gate in its entirety.  He became its property.  Just like Al’s body had been, like his arm and leg had been, except in Ed’s case the Gate now had all three essential parts.  The only plausible reason he could think of that would explain why he’d woken up on the other side of the Gate, and why he’d had to make arrangements with it to get home again, was because he’d crossed at the Gate’s discretion.  Nothing else added up.  

Because he was supposed to be dead, yet he wasn’t.

It wasn’t like Ed had tried very hard to live when he first found himself in London.  Eventually, he motivated himself to keep going, to actually get out of bed every day, by trying to find a way back to the life he did want.  He wasn’t supposed to be alive, but he was and he didn’t want to live his there or live it on his own, so he could only motivate himself to keep going by trying to get back something he’d lost.  No, something he’d given up.  He wanted to get home to be with Al again and to be around people he trusted - people he believed in and people he had faith in.  

People he hadn’t given appropriate value to until he didn’t have them anymore.  They were what motivated him.

Yet, here he was struggling to trust that they could manage what they were up against.  The harder Ed looked at that feeling, the more he began to turn his eyes towards the source of his doubts.

He’d seen a very ugly side of humanity assert itself without respect for the value of a life beyond the Gate.  A horrific war he’d woken up in the middle of, the pompous arrogance of victors flouting their success, and the discontent left to brew in a country of people that were struggling to rise after defeat.  All of it happening atop countless graves.  People saw themselves above others for no logical reason other than it suited them and the constructed narratives had started to flourish on an enormous scale.  

His time away hadn’t shaken his belief in Al, or his teacher, or any of them out in Xenotime - the journey had made him acutely aware of the way people and their morals could be corrupted to serve a selfish interest.  How easy it was for someone to arbitrarily strip someone else’s life of its value when it suited them and the echoes of gunshots rang in his ears to remind him of it.

Atrocities existed in Amestris, all he had to do was look to Ishbal and Lior for a recent example of that, but nothing quite reached what post-war Europe felt like.  That… whatever that had been, didn’t exist here.  The Great War was a calamity created by humanity, but Amestris and its people were manipulated by Dante.  

Maybe she actually scared him now.  Not because of anything new she’d done, Ed was just able to put her in a different context, and that was probably a good thing.

Ed pried himself away from the wall and climbed down the fire escape ladder.  Picking up the papers that had tried to flee, he struggled to shake the sensation that left him feeling horribly detached from the place he really wanted to be any time he thought about the journey he'd taken.  

Crushing a few sheets in his hands, he tossed them into the garbage.

“Ed?”

The call of his name bounced off the brick walls and he craned his head up to the second floor window.

Sheska leaned out, “What are you doing?”

Tossing a few more crumpled sheets into the garbage, Ed looked into the bin full of paper.  It didn’t matter that he was the only one who could read it, he would be the last person on either side of the Gate to know the scale of it.  He reached into the pocket of his slacks, pulled out a matchbook he’d taken from Sheska’s kitchen, and flipped it open. 

“Anything you want to cook?” 

“What?” Sheska tipped her head.

Ed laughed at himself, struck a match, and tossed it into the bin, “Nevermind.” 

“Don’t burn the garbage!” Sheska squawked and vanished from the window.  A few moments later she was clamouring down the fire escape stairs, “Garbage collection is in the morning, what are you doing?”

Picking up a few final sheets from the alley, Ed crumpled them and tossed them to the fire as Sheska scrambled down the bottom rungs of the ladder, “Saving some waste from filling the dump.”

Dropping down into the alley, Sheska gawked at the man who’d started the fire and watched him casually shrug his actions off.  Cautiously peering into the glow growing in the belly of a tin garbage can in a dark Central City alley, the firelight began dancing around in the reflection of her glasses, “Hold on, is this all the work from the living room?”

“Yup,” Ed nodded.

Sheska spun around abruptly, “Why are you burning it!?”

He wasn’t going to argue that burning it was a shame, but, “Nobody can read it anyways and I don’t need it written down anymore.”

“You wrote it in a code language,” Sheska argued, peeking back into the busy fire, “who the heck was going to read it!?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ed grinned - it was nice to have someone seem so offended over his work going up in flames.  Maybe he would have read it again for fun every couple of years, but there were a few formulas mixed in there that he wasn’t interested in anybody imagining a context for.  Turning his attention down the alley, Ed started to walk away, “but I’m not running the risk of finding out.  At the end of the day, the safest place for the information is in my head.”

Sheska watched as Ed picked up the lid to the trash can from the ground, “What sort of information?”

Spinning the lid in his hands, Ed flashed a wide grin, “Alchemy stuff.”

Her head drooped, “I hate that answer.”

Ed chuckled and walked back up to his burning garbage bin of work, “Everything I know needs to stay in my head.  It’s too complicated and too dangerous to have out there for anyone to try and interpret.  If someone wants to know what I know, they’ll have no other option but to go through me for it.”

Strumming her fingernails on the edge of the warming can, Sheska’s brows slowly lowered until they flattened atop her eyes.  She pinched her expression, “Ed, I ran from a liquid creature inside the electrical conduits of Central Headquarters that Winry told me had the face of your deceased mother…”

Oh there was a memory he’d tried to bury under a million other memories he didn’t want either.  Ed sighed and felt his shoulders grow heavy.

“... who was the Fuhrer’s secretary and whose alias could be linked back to Mr. Hughes’ murder.  Go ahead and make things dangerously complicated for me.”

Ed ran his hand over his chin.

Sheska glared at him warningly for it.

Lifting his hand off his face, Ed looked at the orange glow dancing in the silver metal can, “I’m going to head out tomorrow morning.”

“W-wait, hold on,” Sheska sputtered, “that’s not the complicated I was going for.  I’m not going to kick you out for burning the garbage either.”

Spinning the lid in his hands once more, Ed’s focus lingered on the warm, burning light, “I have those leads to follow up on and the radio this afternoon said that the prime minister and his entourage were on a train back to Central.  There’s something I want to be prepared to take care of before things get out of hand again.”

Tightening her lips, Sheska couldn't stop the concern from filling her expression, “Are you sure you want to head out tomorrow?  The city’s a rioting mess.  If you’re ducking the folks at Mustang’s operation, this is at least somewhere safe to sleep.  I have a second set of keys you can borrow.”

Ed smiled, the offer letting him feel a little lighter, “No, thanks though.  I’ll be alright.  And thanks for letting me stay in your living room as long as I did.”

Shezka’s brow twisted in the middle, “Did you ever sleep?”

“I tried,” he shrugged.

“Well, try harder to get some tonight.”

“I’ll try.”

Sighing, Sheska shifted her attention hesitantly between the growing fire and the man who started it, “before you go, can you at least tell me how you’re twenty-two now?”

“Nope.”

Ed grinned watching Sheska puff up next to him as he continued to leave her in the dark on everything.  Someday later he’ll explain himself, but not right now.  There was too much going on and knowledge of what it was had become the most dangerous element.

“Did you finish it?”

Ed came out of his thoughts and looked at her, “Finish what?”

“What you were working on,” Sheska gestured into the burning garbage can, “the bonfire work.”

Picking up his brow, Ed tipped his head and gazed into the bountiful pit of curled papers feeding a caged, hungry fire happily devouring the stress relief he had kept himself occupied with.  The flames warmed the metallic container, coating the internal greys in lively orange hues, and lighting the brick walls containing the two standing in the alley, throwing the dark shadows of the fire escape skywards along the wall.  Allowing the scene to polish the shine of his eyes, relaxing in the glow, a magnificent Elric grin curled through him proudly and Edward finally gave Sheska an answer.

“Yeah, I think I did.”

 


To Be Continued...


 

Notes:

Maybe this is more of a note to myself, but Ed had always done something unspoken at the Gate to get home. He was vague with both Winry there and then Al later. It wasn't something I came up with when I revisited the story. What that was and how it plays out is what I've been able to explore this year though :) I was kind enough to leave myself a vague open plot point when I left the story years ago haha

My day-job is wrapping up a project through the end of November, so it's going to be all kinds of hectic on my end (me trying to use NaNoWriMo to get ahead on fic blew up in my face LOL), but I have a few weeks off in December to balance it out :). I'll put the next chapter on Dec 12 just in case (4 weeks instead of 3). It's started at least, I did manage to use the first few days of NaNo productively!

Chapter 56: Worn Fragments

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Doing up the buttons of his shirt cuffs and giving them a tug for length, Ed adjusted his tie, fixed his collar, and looked at himself in the window’s reflection.  He looked sharp and looked more or less professional - he looked like he was going to work.

Except he would have been fired if he’d shown up unshaven like this.  

Ed’s eyes widened as he dissected his presentation.  He hadn’t even tried to grow any facial hair in a year and a half, what the heck did it actually look like now?  Did that matter?  Nah.  He didn’t have time to deal with it and it wasn’t that noticeable with his bangs in his face anyways.  Nobody here was going to care, why did he?  

Why did he care?

Ed’s hands flew into his hair furiously, inexplicably beside himself - he wanted to shave the care away more than the hair on his face.  

The damned Europeans had won!  

He really didn’t want to walk into the building without a clean face.  It did matter!  It felt egregiously unprofessional.  He felt uncomfortable putting on this act and looking unprofessional doing it.  How the hell had he ended up like this!?  A slave to social normalcies. 

Defeated at the hands of another world’s grooming habits, Ed dumped his head back and exaggerated his lament with one last immature groan.  At his next firm breath, the elder Elric brother stuck his business face on, pulled himself away from the window, and marched up to the front doors of The Amestris High College of Scientific Studies.  

Research and scientific endeavours continued on despite the government’s continued collapse.  

Letting himself through a grand set of double doors, Ed made his way into an older, elaborate building that had been given new life when the college took over.  Door frames, pillars, handrails, and all of the accents were carved to match - a hold over from craftsmen centuries passed.  Where candles had once been mounted, modern lighting fixtures had been installed to replace them.  Furniture and tapestry had been updated, but the marble floor hadn’t been touched and Ed’s shoes echoed mercilessly with each step.  

It was interesting, he thought, how in some ways there were elements of European aesthetic woven into their culture.  He hadn’t taken the time to look for any similarities when he’d been on the other side, he was content to assume and believe they were entirely different but, as Ed walked the halls, his observations begged to ask the question of what he’d willfully chosen to overlook in his time away.  Despite not knowing what Europe of the last five hundred years had to offer, elements of architecture still managed to develop in Amestris on their own.

Turning down a hall that led him into the western side of the building, a sign hung above the department doors welcoming all visitors who chose to enter.  Adjusting his gloves, Ed let himself into the faculty office without a sound.  

Shutting the door quietly in his wake, Ed gave a nod to the secretary seated at the administration desk watching him intrude before the noonhour, “Good morning, Ma’am.”

“Good morning, Sir,” it was a greeting spoken like a question.

Straightening his vest, Ed stepped up to her desk, “I’m here to see Professor Anthony Green.  I understand he’s in his office this morning.”

Nosing around with the students the day before had provided Ed with enough information that he was able to put the man’s schedule together before showing up.

“Student consultation hours are available later in–”

“I’m a colleague,” Ed stopped her, “I’m not a student.”

The woman adjusted the glasses pinched low on her nose, gave him a doubtful eyeing, but picked up the telephone receiver on her desk, “Your name, Sir?”

What the woman couldn’t see, what Ed couldn’t show on his face, was how much of a monumental battle he was waging to not only force his lips to come apart, but to drag the words out of his mouth that were needed to answer the question.  

Ed's cheek twitched as his voice choked out, “Hohenheim Elric.”

The secretary’s finger spun through the dial of the phone and Ed tucked his hands away behind his back as he waited, managing to not visually cringe when the woman introduced him with his father’s name.

Standing up as the receiver landed in its cradle, the secretary swept out an arm and gestured for him to follow, “This way, Mr. Elric.”

“Thank you.”

Ed followed behind as they wove through the administration desks, soon stepping into a modest hall lined with closed doors, all adorned with simple name plates.  Without a day of formal education under his belt, Ed couldn’t say he was familiar with the Amestris education systems, but he couldn’t help but feel that it was a damned shame that the science professors of this college didn’t have offices with more finesse - it was one of the highest ranked scientific institutions not just nationally, but internationally.  His dad’s office, heck any given wing of Munich's university, put this division of the school to shame.  

A door a fair ways down the hall popped open and a white-haired man, almost as round as he was tall, popped out.

The woman stopped abruptly and stepped back to introduce their guest, “Professor, Mr. Elric.”

The old man lifted the glasses hanging by a chain against his chest up to the centre of his eyes and squinted.

Watching the secretary excuse herself, Ed stepped up and extended his right hand to the older man who had every reason to look as confused as he did, “Good afternoon, Professor Green.  My name is Edward Elric, I understand you were once an associate of my father, Hohenheim.”

The professor let his glasses drop to the tip of his nose, “My goodness, has it been that long?”

Ed blinked, “Huh?”

The old man gave a hearty laugh and firmly shook the hand offered to him, “I’d heard that Hohenheim had fallen off the map because he’d settled down, I just hadn’t realized it was that long ago.  Look at you, of course you’re his son!  Come in and sit down, young man.”

“Thanks,” Ed forced a smile and followed the teacher into his office.  

Slipping into the compact room, Ed's gaze travelled the walls chaotically decorated with charts, graphs, a few foreign posters, and a vibrant periodic table that was actually richer than the one he'd gotten familiar with over the last several years.  Inspecting the wooden guest chair offered to him next to the desk buried in papers, Ed chose to stand.  Ideally this encounter would be brief.

“I’m hoping I won’t take up too much of your time.  My dad gave me your name if I needed to seek out any resources in Central City and, considering all that’s been going on, I’m not familiar enough with Central right now to find what I need.”

“Yes, things have gone to the dogs lately,” Professor Green heaved himself into his desk chair, “but I’m glad your father remembered me, hell, thought well enough of me to pass on my name to you!” he sat forwards with a jolly laugh, “How has your father been getting on?  I haven’t heard from him in decades.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind Ed had told himself to be prepared for that question, though he held onto hope that it wouldn’t come up.  Rolling his jaw, he gave a pre-planned response, “Recently he’s been travelling out of the country.”

“Of course he has been!  Off on some foolhardy adventure I hope,” the old man beamed, “Son, some of the stories your father could tell!  Why twenty years ago we found ourselves in such--”

One attempt, and then a second, was made to interject on the professor, but ultimately Ed realized he was going to have to just let the man ramble on.  He’d worked with enough personable men over sixty to know how this was going to go.  Really, it was wishful thinking to believe he could have just waltzed in, dropped his dad’s name, asked for information, and left.  Maybe if he’d put some more effort into his conversation skills he’d have been able to talk his way through this, but the thought of holding meaningless conversations with people for the hell of it didn’t appeal to him.  Ed honestly couldn’t figure out how people managed to ramble on about some inconsequential things.  Both Al and Winry were really good at that somehow.  Shit, so was Mustang for that matter.  That was probably half the reason–

“HAH!”

The sharp laugh yanked Ed back into the one-sided conversation.

“But, that was a whole other lifetime ago, when the body was spry and the world felt young.  What can I do for you today, Son?”

Hanging onto his sigh of relief, Ed cleared his throat, “I need to acquire some raw materials.”

Professor Green’s white brows danced above his eyes with intrigue, “What sorts?”

“I need to find a location where I can get powdered aluminum, carbon, sulphur, potassium nitrate, and potassium perchlorate,” Ed answered.

Whistling at the list, the professor strummed his fingers on the desk, “What are you transmuting?”

“I’m still in the process of establishing my hypothesis, so what I’m working on is only part of a trial phase at the moment,” assertive with his voice, Ed dodged the question, “but once I’m confident I can get a working theory going, I’ll certainly contact you with the transmutation’s details if you’re interested in consulting.”

The nothing response brought out a raucous laugh from the elder man that left the Elric wondering if he was supposed to say something in response.  

Fishing around in his desk drawer, Professor Green pulled out a business card and handed it to Ed, “I’d love to consult.  Contact me whenever you need me.  Tell your father to ring me as well when he’s back next, I haven’t heard from him in ages.”

“Of course,” Ed tucked it away in his vest pocket.

Flipping open a notebook, the professor scribbled out a few details on the top three lines, tore the page out, and handed that over to his visitor, “Show my card to the folks there, tell’em I referred you - no, tell’em you’re one of my students and I sent you,” the man grinned like he was scheming, “they’ll give you a discount on whatever you need.”

“I appreciate that,” Ed bowed his head a bit, “thank you, Sir.”

Linking his fingers together, the professor bounced his hands off of his belly as he nestled comfortably back in his chair, “Think nothing of it!” 

 


 

Winry began wishing she had actually gone north like everybody had wanted.  

“I signed off on Lieutenant Havoc’s arrest,” his words as hot as his face, Hakuro stood in Winry’s doorway, “I reviewed all the evidence prior to his detention.”

She didn’t want to be up north, but the thought of the mountains and wide stretches of uninhabited greenery dusted in snow had suddenly become tantalizing and alluring.  It would have been like a secret escape - just her, Ed, Al, and Izumi too.  

“I oversaw the panel that interrogated him about your disappearance .”

They could have snowball fights and neither she nor Ed would have to worry about how his AutoMail would make him prone to both hypothermia and frostbite.  They could be out all day and then come back at night and hang out around the fireplace until bedtime.  Heck, they could just sleep by the fireplace.  It was a storybook style dream in her mind that seemed like a lot of carefree fun - a lovely, irrelevant adventure.

“WHERE IN THE ABSOLUTE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!?” 

Winry looked past the body of boiling rage to Armstrong and Breda.  Why were they standing in her doorway and not doing anything about this angry man yelling in her room?

Everyone flinched when the base of Hakuro’s fist slammed into the wall.

Folding her arms defiantly in the face of the raging man ready to tear his hair out at the sight of her, Winry tossed her head over her shoulder and said nothing to him.  

“I’ve run out of patience for this.” 

Like an ornery bull had been unleashed, Hakuro thundered into the heart of the room.  Without a tether or lasso to restrain him, Winry saw him charge and quickly untangled her arms.  Wrapping her fingers around the cold, hard body of the wrench tucked away in the sheets at her side, when his hand reached in to grab her, Winry’s eyes lit and her arm flew out.  He’d run out of patience!?  She’d just about had enough of these kinds of boorish, aggressive men for one lifetime.

“SIR!” a chorus of voices filled the room.

Hakuro snared Winry at her wrists so tightly she gasped.  The pressure of his grip forced her to release the weapon in her hand.  The startling imposition of a man who’d risen in the ranks for his skill in combat suddenly had both of Winry’s wrists captured before she’d known what to do.  Panic swelling uncontrollably in every vein that pumped blood through her body, Winry tried to dig her feet into the bed to tear herself away.

“LET GO OF ME!”

“General, please calm down!”

“LET GO!”

“SIR!”

“How long have you been playing a part in Mustang’s ruse?” tightening the hold he held on her wrists, Hakuro yanked her towards him, “I had resources dedicated to you for a month and a half.  I fully expected to find you face down in a ditch, but instead I find you lollygagging around here in the middle of this colossal shitstorm.”

“Why aren’t you glad to see that I’m not dead!?” Winry yelled back, “LET GO.”

General ,” Armstrong implored, asserting his presence behind the most senior man in the room, “if you would please take a moment--”

Winry suddenly flopped onto her back when Hakuro released her and spun on Armstrong.

“How long has she been part of this farce?  What role has she actually been playing in all this?”

Skirting across the top of the bed and scrambling off the far side, Winry balanced herself on one and a half legs and kept the entire bed width between herself and whatever the hell this asshole thought he was doing.  Her eyes narrowing fiercely, Winry replayed the last few moments in her head - Armstrong called this jerk ‘ General’?

Attempting to keep his voice calm, clear, and unwavering, Armstrong again tried to settle the room, “There is a complicated explanation, however I believe all of us should at least be thankful that Miss. Rockbell is--”

“No,” silencing the officer addressing him, the corner of Hakuro’s lip curled and he scoffed, “if I’d have found her anywhere else but here, maybe I’d entertain the bullshit cover story.”

Quietly, Breda waved away the last of the concerned officers gathering to inspect the commotion, closing the door without allowing the latch to interrupt anyone.

Like the sealed room gave him permission to throw his voice, Hakuro’s authority boomed, “Someone in here is going to tell me where this girl has been!”

Her heart and mind racing with confusion, a frustrated scowl crawled into Winry’s face.  Neither one of the officers standing in the room were volunteering information, so Winry decided keeping her mouth shut would be her gameplan too.

Hakuro’s presence exceeded Armstrong’s, despite being physically dwarfed by him, and with a rumble in his voice that nearly shook the floor, the general made sure his position was clear.

“I was in possession of credible, investigated, and validated information that Lieutenant Jean Havoc kidnapped this young woman.  The initial investigation was opened by Mustang, for what I concluded was an attempt on his part to direct the investigation away from identifying the lieutenant as the culprit.  Yet, for no fathomable reason, now she is here and in relatively good health.  So, I am telling you, Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong, that it is in your best interest to start telling me what the hell is going on.”

Armstrong cleared his throat and abided by the request, “The information given to you by the municipal police regarding Miss. Rockbell was falsified in order to deflect away from the actual perpetrator and impede the brigadier general’s ongoing activities.”

“What?” Hakuro barked, “by whom!?”

“The office of the prime minister,” Armstrong answered absolutely, “the chief of police is well acquainted with the prime minister and it is our belief that, through the association, they were able to successfully corrupt the office and establish a corroborated fabrication of events.”

“Corrupt the office,” bitterly laughing as he echoed the words, Hakuro swelled his chest with air and countered, “no, I partook in the fact finding.  I confirmed the evidence.”

“You are the sort of person they needed to convince, Sir, first and foremost,” Armstrong offered humbly, continuing to hold his words firm and unwavering, “because your opinion of the brigadier general is well known.  You lobbied against the court’s dismissal of charges against him after the disappearance of Fuhrer Bradley.  If someone such as yourself were convinced, then so would your alliances, and you would be encouraged to do as you pleased, because all of your actions would work in their favour.”

Pinching the pads of his fingers into the corners of his eyes, Hakuro dug his hand into his face and stepped away.  Struggling to even acknowledge that he may indeed have unknowingly been part of something, the man slowly paced the short width of the room.

“You were pushed into occupying the brigadier general’s office, were you not?” Armstrong asked, his voice low, “you, the highest ranking officer remaining after reorganization of the Amestris military forces.  The military’s consultant and advisor to the new government.  You were removed from an environment where you might have uncovered other truths and physically placed in a position where you would be constantly reminded of someone they wanted you to focus on.”

Hakuro’s hands slid off his face and folded his arms tightly across his chest.  He turned and continued his slow pace back through the room.

“They wanted you to be frustrated and they wanted you to direct that frustration at the brigadier general, because your tenacity and strength of conviction is reliable.”

Drawing to a stop, Hakuro locked his focus on the wall ahead of him, ignoring the two officers to his left and the girl on his right.  Tensing his face, tightening his shoulders, and firming his posture, his thoughts clearly churned in his head as he tried to reframe everything he’d come to know over the last few months.  Carving an unreadable, hardened expression into his presentation - the one he wore when he had hundreds of men spread out in the commons before him and ready to follow his every order - Hakuro addressed Winry.

“The office of the Prime Minister has an issue with you?” his words trembled the air that gave them life, “Was it the government you pissed off, or Dante?”

Her expression flying wide, Winry frantically looked past Hakuro to Armstrong and Breda, desperate to get some kind of prompt from either of them on how to respond to Dante’s name inexplicably being brought up.  Dante wasn’t public knowledge, or even common knowledge, how did he know?  He didn’t seem like someone who should know.  

To her dismay, neither officer she trusted in the room ever gave her more than the solemn expressions they held.

By the time Winry looked at Hakuro again his face was laden with frustration, fury stirring in his eyes.

“Get her out of here,” Hakuro ordered, “the news coming out of the east gets worse every time someone gets a phone line to work.  Mitchell and his party are on a train back here and we’re going to have to deal with that madness soon, I don’t want to have her coming to light for any reason.”

Armstrong’s chest swelled, “We’d made arrangements with my sister--”

Hakuro barked his laugh, “Ah well, with all that’s going on, yes, let’s bring that woman into everything,” he immediately dismissed Armstrong’s intentions, “No, we don’t have resources to send anyone up there.  Find somewhere in Central City to hide her and find it by sundown,” looking pointedly at the towering officer, making sure the larger man didn’t think of contesting his decision, Hakuro added, “Or I will.”

 


 

The most normal thing Brigitte could say she’d done since her adventure began was the babysitting job she’d been tasked with throughout the afternoon.  

It wasn’t exactly hard, he was a very pleasant and happy baby.  He had a couple of teeth that made him look like a bit of a chipmunk.  He could wobble around on two legs if she held his hands.  He wasn’t coordinated enough yet to walk, but he scampered around on all fours quite well.  Brigitte wanted to ask for his name again, because she suspected someone had given it to her and she’d missed it amongst too many other English words.  

The baby’s mother - whose name she was confident was Rose - had been in and out before noon, after which she remained out.  The two magical boys had been there in the morning, but vanished after the lunch hour as well, along with the blonde woman who was very skilled with a gun.  Her name was either Lisa or Ritza.  Brigitte would have to listen a bit closer to figure out which.

Of all the names that came her way, the one universal name that everyone seemed to understand was Edward Elric.  There was a light that went on in people’s eyes when she spoke his name, a little ironic for a somewhat surly man, but everyone clearly knew who Brigitte was talking about.  The communication barrier left her unable to ask if she could speak to Edward again and Brigitte had to wonder if anyone honestly understood what her telephone charades were getting at.  If Al were indeed related to him, like their games once implied, then as long as she stood by all these associated people, someday she would have to get back to him.  

… Right?

Brigitte decided to bury her collection of worries under the quilt spread out on the floor.  

The quiet afternoon spent rolling around with the baby on the quilt was possibly the most carefree thing she’d done in months.  Brigitte had enjoyed it.  It was simple.  And the two men outside in the hall guarding them added some unspoken security.  There was an obvious concern for everyone’s safety - all the adults were armed and, by this point, Brigitte was okay with that.  Authority seemed to have fallen on the Lisa-woman’s shoulders, because it had become clear everyone was answering to her.

So, when the suite door cracked open, Brigitte was a little surprised to see the woman organizing everything enter by herself.  

Riza came in with a warm smile for the young occupants and a bundle of fabric in her arms.  Kneeling down, she laid the contents in her arms out on the floor in front of the teenager.

“Can you get changed for me, Brigitte?”

All Brigitte got out of the request was her name; puzzled, she curiously eyed the offering spread out on the floor.  It was an assortment of clothes: trousers, a buttoned shirt, a vest, suspenders, socks, loafers, and a cap.  She looked up at Riza confused. 

Ma’am, these are boys’ clothes?”

Riza stared at the clothes and tried to think of how to best bridge the communication gap with their foreign guest.  Picking up the shirt, she wove her fingers through the line of buttons and opened it up.  Flaring it out, she swung the shirt around Brigitte’s shoulders and let the fabric settle over her back.

“Can you get changed for me?”

Brigitte blinked, trying to think, “Do you want me to put the boys’ clothes on?”

Riza did the top button up beneath the girl’s chin.

Wait, she really did!?  

What a preposterous and exciting concept.  Brigitte didn’t have any brothers and she would have been paddled if she’d tried on any of her cousins’ clothes.  She was already tempting her mother’s fury, she hadn’t put on a pair of stockings in well over a month and now this woman actually wanted her to dress like a boy?  Well.

Well…

It wasn’t as though anyone here was measuring her skirt or condoning her bare legs… or anyone else’s for that matter.  Her parents or aunties weren’t around to do anything about this.  

A flurry of energy threw Brigitte to her feet.  She snagged the baby under his arms, gave him to Riza to watch, collected the outfit from the floor, and vanished into the bedroom.  

Out of her clothes faster than she’d known she could discard them, Brigitte had to put the plain brown trousers on twice once she realized she had them on backwards the first time.  Made of some kind of stiff fabric - heavy cotton or maybe wool - the trousers were a little big and felt like they were going to slide right off of her, how in the world were they going to stay up if she didn’t keep yanking on them?  She knocked her knees together and pinned them between her thighs.  The white shirt was buttoned up to the top button but, when she went to tuck the shirt in, Brigitte was reminded that her bottoms were desperately trying to fall off.  She looked around the remaining wardrobe and picked up the solution to her problem: the suspenders.  

No, this wasn’t a solution at all.  

Brigitte examined all three loop ends and felt a little foolish.  How was she supposed to attach them?  Weren’t they just garters for boys?  Where were the clasps?  Which way was front?  Was she supposed to be able to do this on her own?  How did this become complicated?

Poking her head out of the bedroom, Brigitte emerged with one hand holding her trousers up and the other gripping the suspenders, “Um… Lisa?  Help, please.”

Riza looked over to the forlorn plea of Brigitte’s learned vocabulary and tried not to laugh.  

Shuffling through the room when the woman waved her over, Brigitte handed the suspenders to her and was turned around.  Slowly, a few lights began to go on in her head when she felt the suspender loops get snagged on the buttons at the back of the waistband.  The epiphany grew brighter when the shoulder bands were strung over her shoulders and dangled down her chest.  Oh.   

Riza did one side, Brigitte finished the other and she flew back into the room.  

Vest, socks, loafers, and a paper boy’s woolen cap were simple finishing touches to the ensemble.  Hastily looking for a mirror, all Brigitte had was the one atop the tall dresser and that only let her see everything above her shoulders.

Rushing out of the room, she excitedly ran past Riza, grabbed a wooden chair from the kitchen table, and eagerly hauled it into the room.  Up on the seat with her hands proudly on her hips, Brigitte was nearly in stitches laughing at the sight of herself by the time Riza walked in.

“I look like an absolute travesty,” she danced herself around on tiptoes to admire all angles of this escapade, “and a little darling somehow, too.”

Doing her best to not catch the contagious infection of laughter, Riza secured Rose’s son on her hip and stepped into Brigitte’s adventures with the mirror, “Don’t you look cute like that.”

The German girl was utterly delighted to see the bemused look Riza wore as she peeked into the mirror alongside her.

“This’ll do for today,” she nodded, “come on, we need to go.”

Brigitte’s puzzled expression returned.

“Go,” Riza nodded and tipped her head towards the bedroom door, “Let’s go.”

“Go?” Brigitte hopped off the kitchen chair, a little concerned, “ I’ve been dressed up to go somewhere?  I have to show myself in public like this?”

“Come on,” Riza began to back out of the room, “let’s go.”

It felt a little questionable that she had to be dressed up like this to leave the suite.  She honestly felt a little hesitant about leaving for any reason.  Brigitte hadn’t even looked out the window since she’d arrived, in fact it had been discouraged with all the curtains closed.  Now this woman, with Rose’s baby nestled in her side, was standing by the front door trying to encourage her to leave.

If she needed to go somewhere, then this boyish getup would certainly be a disguise.  But, where were they going?  Why were they leaving this safe, guarded location?  Brigitte had no one she could ask her questions to and reluctantly accepted it would just be easier to behave and follow along.  

Picking up the clothes she’d carelessly left on the floor and folding them, Brigitte gathered them in her arms and made her way to Riza patiently waiting for her at the front door.  Taken by the hand, Brigitte was led past her guards and into the hall, quietly down the stairs, then out of the building.

Barely with enough time to look around and take in the daytime surroundings, the short trek in the fresh air ended at a parked car.  Riza’s opened the passenger side door, took the change of clothes out of Brigitte’s arms, and ushered her into the vehicle.  

Sliding into the front passenger's seat, Brigitte’s eyes wandered the car’s fascinating foreign interior, even after Riza had settled Rose’s baby in the girl’s lap.  Wrapping her arms around the squirming infant, and flinching when the car door closed, Brigitte peered out the window, giving herself permission to curiously investigate the city sights as Riza settled into the driver’s seat and brought the vehicle to life.

 


 

“Missus kicked you out?”

Ed's eyes peeked out from behind his loose curtain of hair and looked at the haggard, dishevelled, sweat-soaked drunkard he’d been able to smell coming his way. 

“Nope.”

The tart answer did not discourage his visitor.

“Whatcha got in the bag?”

His eyes never disengaging, Ed dug his heel into the stone steps and kept his leg firmly in front of the duffle bag tucked behind his calves, “My things.”

“So, the missus did kick you out,” the man’s voice roared with laughter and he waggled the end of the half emptied bottle locked in his hand at the Elric, “you’d think she’d have picked a better time than when all this hell is going on.”

Well, at least he’d been given some sort of peace through the dinner hour.  The book in Ed’s hand was snapped shut and tucked back into the side pocket of the bag.  Secluded away in the evening shadows of the buildings around him, Ed rose to his feet, tossing the bag over his shoulder.   

Standing tall on a step above the inebriated man in his way, Ed glanced down at his brown slacks dusted grey by the crumbling stoop he’d been sitting on and chose to ignore the state they were in.  His white shirt hung untucked, half buttoned, and rolled up past his elbows in the early August heat.  Long, blonde hair stretched down his back, falling over his shoulders and tangling with his bangs to frame the light golden shadow showing on the face.  From beyond the shield of his bangs, Ed’s pupils shone in the evening, accentuated by the tired, darkened beds of his eyes.  

Other than his clothes being decently stitched, he looked a bit like the rest of the riffraff that called the district of Old Central ‘home’.  

If only they’d just ignore him for a few more hours.

Shaking his hair off his shoulders, Ed scowled down at the wobbly interruption, “Nobody kicked me out.  I’m just wandering around until I get where I need to be.”

“Wheres’at?” the drunkard mused.

“Elsewhere,” Ed marched past him, listening to the man squawk when he tried to turn and follow him, but only managed to topple over, landing in a noisy heap on the ground when he couldn’t get one leg around the other.

Everyone was everywhere this evening and Old Central was no different.  

The destitute, ignored, and forgotten lives that filled Old Central had been welcomed with open arms by the protesting hoards who had shut the city down by early-evening.  Every person with two good legs, and even some with less, rose to join in the disruptive activities, many not even knowing what for or why, but he draw of boisterous and vocal crowds continued to suck people in.  

Lingering in the shade of overhangs and building shadows, Ed watched the citizens casually come and go, reluctantly accepting he was going to have to wait for nightfall before he made an attempt at going down to Dante’s underground city.  He didn’t want any of these people poking their noses into his business, let alone giving a passing thought to a passageway into the earth.  Ed didn’t doubt that Mustang had done something to seal the entrance after he’d gotten them out and he was going to have to find his way through it.

In the meantime, Edward wandered.

Despite the significance it held, Ed had never really spent much time in Old Central City - the city that eventually flourished above the forsaken one.  Over the last two hundred years ‘Central City’ grew old, withered, and became a skeleton of its former grandeur, outshone by the lights, growth, and wealth of the new Central City that absorbed the name.  Old Central became a desolate space where people who didn’t or couldn’t fit into the life of the big city would go.

Ed wasn’t sure he would describe this as a slum, but it certainly was tired, worn, and seemingly forgotten.

Finding a spot in the shade of a building that didn’t smell entirely foul, Ed took a seat on a rise of brick steps.  Putting the bag down behind his calves again, Ed fished through the side pocket containing the book he’d slipped off a library cart on his way out of the college and what he’d spent the last of his money on at a thrift store: a pocket knife and wristwatch.

The wristwatch was never going on his wrist - Ed had put it on earlier and didn’t like it.  It would stay in his pocket like a discount pocket watch.  And the hands of time, if they were accurate, told him it was quarter past seven; another hour or so until sundown.  

Ed put the book down on his thigh, placed the watch down on top of it, and flipped the closed knife over in his left hand.  

Why now, of all times, did he clearly remember how he’d easily quelled his nerves before he’d sunk the blade into the bed of his finger.  He’d been so confident.  So ignorant.

He’d been eleven-years-old, half his life ago now.

Components for the soul .  

For his soul, yes.  But for his mother, it was the impression of her soul - the memory of it, the ghost of it - it was the biological blood link parents have with their children.  But his blood, their blood, couldn’t reach their mother’s soul.  

The soul went somewhere else, he knew that now.  No matter how much he’d wanted or how hard he’d tried, they would never have gotten his mother’s soul back.  A homunculus was always what they would have created that day.  Even with the Philosopher’s Stone, reclaiming their mother’s soul was futile - the soul only remained available for a short period until it was gone - lost to whatever world theirs fed into, Ed could only assume.  It was why Al had been successful; he’d executed the transmutation quickly after Ed had died, before the soul was sent away for use.  

Souls went on to become part of whatever larger circle of life that flowed beyond them.  They were an even smaller part of a whole than they realized.  All is One, as they’d learnt it, only represented what this world and this lifecycle offered them.  But, there was a much bigger ‘All’ that they were a part of too.  A complex ‘All’ that was best left unquestioned, unhindered, and unknown.

How long did it take, though?

Ed extended his right index finger and stared at it.  In the natural, uninterrupted order, how long did it take to get to reach the Gate?  What was the window after death?

Components for the soul .  

The blade in his hand snapped open.  

Ed was curious.  Was that window something he could approximate?

The unknown - the possibility of solving the unknown - was delicious and enticing.  To be the first one to discover something, to learn something, to know something… even the prospect of it gave him an excited rush.  For so many years Edward had known nothing but the frustration that centred on his inability to get home.  Fleeting moments of beautiful epiphanies and enlightenments filled his mind while he meandered Europe between London and Munich, looking for bigger, deeper clues in the other world’s alchemy, and all of them muted by the ineffective nature of the science.  His singular objective led him to dead end after dead end after useless solution after worthless alchemy.  

So, the chance to honestly test something made the scientist in him excited.  It made his blood pump.  It was making his heart race. 

The other world had sayings for people who were overly curious, something along the lines of how curiosity killed a cat, and idle boredom would be the curse that allowed the claws of curiosity to scratch him.  

This time the sharpened blade, not meant for nor purchased to cut his flesh, sunk into the pad of his right index finger. 

This poor right hand, Ed chuckled, disappointed with himself, it had no feeling and he just kept abusing it.  After the blade came out and he pinched his finger, Ed instructed himself to actually start taking better care of Al’s gift.

Three drops of blood from his finger were quickly absorbed into the dry, dusty ground between his feet.  Ed marked the time and he watched the parched earth suck the moisture away, the sediment tainted between his feet, eventually settling to a dry, brown stain.  Studiously, Ed watched a single minute elapse.  Then the second.  And a third.  

Even a sixth minute passed and that felt a little long.

Maybe everything was a bit more complicated than he realized.  Maybe it was a good thing Edward Elric wasn’t a cat.

An eighth minute passed.

Both relieved and disappointed at the sight of nothing, the book on Ed’s thigh slipped when he sat back.  Catching it before it fell away, the library card escaped the back pages instead.  Ed snatched up the stamped slip from the ground and turned it around in his hand.

Occasionally at the university he’d wondered what it would look like to see any kind of alchemical texts coexist respectfully with the other three sciences.  On his way out of the college, he actually saw it - the library cart stuffed with physics, biology, chemistry, and alchemy literature.  All four sciences together.  All four belonged.  It was a surprising, welcomed reminder of home.  

Then, like a sly pick-pocket, Ed helped himself to one of the books and left.  He’d return it later, he told himself.

Edward now knew more than any book in Amestris could possibly tell him and he still wanted the comfort of reading something he already knew.  The familiar content of an educated, articulated alchemy book was like a cozy blanket to wrap his mind in.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d read a coherent alchemy text.  Something not written in code, or in secret, or by his own hand - something he didn’t have to hide - alchemy written in plain English for any grade school student to understand, with a cover and an author proudly claiming the work.

Ed flipped the book open and let the pages of a worn, well read book flutter by, until only the inside of the back cover remained with the empty pocket for the library card.  Half way into tucking the card away, Ed stopped and eyed the ink-stamped dates decorating each line.  

Odd, the book hadn’t been checked out since July of… 

Oh, right.  

Ed shook his head at the disorienting feeling - it was 1916.  His head was still in 1921; hell it was 1922 when he’d left.  In a month and a half he’d be back at the date he’d woken up at beyond the Gate.  He was on the verge of doing days… entire years over again.  How the heck was he supposed to feel about that?

Ed tucked the card back into the pocket and shut the book.  He wasn’t ready to think about that and, like he was trying to set his thoughts aside, Ed reached down for the bag to put the book away.

The blood droplets between his feet were gone.

His eyes flying wide, Ed quickly thrust his legs farther apart and leaned down.  The three stains on the earth had vanished.  Nothing but pale dust and gravel remained between his feet.  Ed swept his fingers through the sediment, never finding any hints of his blood’s stain underneath.

Now his heart was racing for all the wrong reasons.  Or the right reasons, depending on how he framed things.  Either way, he was uncomfortable confirming the result he’d been expecting.

Drawing an uneasy breath in through his nose, Ed checked the watch.  Nearly twelve minutes since he’d first marked the time.  Should he try again?  No, he didn’t really want to.  It was probably just like a pot that only boiled when the cook wasn’t watching anyways.   

Comforting himself with that idea, Ed hastily rose to his feet and snatched up the bag again - he didn't want to loiter here any longer.  He was going to find somewhere else to sit and read to occupy his mind until nightfall.

 


 

Well past sundown Winry had found herself outside in the streets, hidden in a long black trench coat with her hair bundled away in a bowler hat, stubbornly standing without the hindrance of her crutches.  Hardly waiting even a minute, Winry looked up and down the street decorated by aged Amestris architecture, accented with familiar lamps, cars, street signs, fire hydrants, and even trash bins.  

It was the first time she’d really seen it since she’d returned - the sights and sounds of Central City.  This street looked like home.   

And then it hit her, like the truck that would be coming to collect the garbage from the curb in the morning: exhaustion ploughed her over.

The moment Winry stepped through the front door of the old house, all her energy drained away.  Someone or something took the plug clean away and there was nothing she could do to stop the flow of energy leaking out of every pore.  Her calf wasn’t too pleased with the stairs she had to climb, but the complaint in her leg was nothing compared to the message of exhaustion her body was pumping through her veins by the time she’d gotten to the top.

At the top of the creaky old stairs, Winry stood in Sheska’s doorway watching the woman’s hands flutter around her head like she didn’t know what she wanted to do.

Peeping and squeaking and dancing herself around in uncertain directions inside her suite, Sheska finally found the one switch that sent her flying into the hall.  Wrapping her arms around her, Winry could hear every struggling choke and swallow Sheska made to keep herself from filling the stairwell with her unimaginably high pitched squeal at that time of night.  Somewhere deep down, Winry wanted to scream with joy right alongside her, but there wasn’t enough energy to draw it out.

Winry only found enough to hang on.

At Fuery’s urging, the girls entered the apartment.

Nearly ragdolled through the door, Winry staggered around, trying to reach a solid wall to balance with.  Somewhere in the middle of Sheska’s chaotic, muffled squeals and frantic inspection to make sure she was entirely real, Winry watched her military escort set her crutches and belongings down on the floor.

“I can’t stay parked outside,” Fuery reached for the door, “I’ll come by in the morning to make sure nothing came up overnight.”

Winry smiled meekly, “Thank you.”

His departure was overshadowed by Sheska popping Winry’s hat off her head and the high pitched gasp the woman let out when her hair tumbled out.

“WINRY,” she squealed, “your hair is so long !”

“Is it?” in a suite lit by a couple of dimmed lamps, Winry’s eyes wandered the towers of books filling the apartment, “I haven’t cut it in a while.”

Still dancing around in some chaotic stew of emotions, Sheska flailed her arms at the coat rack, “Take your coat off!  I found some big shirts you can lounge around in if you want something to change into.”

Winry looked at the coat rack, her attention carrying on past it down an aisle of literature, eyeing the side of her front room window.  The suite was warm; soaked in the smell of books, candles, fresh laundry, and oven-cooked chicken.  The hotel had been so sterile; it was a hotel and a makeshift military location.  Sheska offered a home.   Winry’s fingers began working their way down the buttons of the borrowed black coat.  

“Did you want something to eat?  I cooked dinner and got some munchies the other day before all the stores turned into nightmares.  Or something to drink?  I don’t have much, just water and tea.  I can make you tea?” Sheska yammered on, “tea is relaxing, did you want some tea and something to eat?  Are you hungry or thirsty?”

Hanging her coat off a hook on the rack, Winry turned back to face Sheska, forcing a smile.  “Maybe just some water right now.”

“Sure,” the melancholy response tempered Sheska’s excitement.  Slowly sitting back on her heels, she tightened her lips and tangled her fingers at her chest, “Are you okay?  Did you want to lay down?  Is your leg doing okay?  Are you tired?”

Winry took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling.  Up until the point she’d walked through the door, she’d felt fine.  She had been excited when she’d been told she was going to stay with Sheska - she hadn’t realized how badly she longed for someone or something that felt more like home and Sheska offered both.  In the car, a thousand different conversations had been whimsically crafted in her head.  Did she have to keep the adventure secret from Sheska?  No, she’d find out eventually, and the realization Winry could talk to her about everything and anything felt like a weight she’d been carrying around had been lifted off of her.  

But once she walked through the entry door, it all came to a crashing back down.  Winry felt like she could just curl up on the floor right where she stood and go to sleep.  She could have done it in the stairwell too.  

Winry tried again to smile for the woman doing her best to make her feel comfortable, “I’m sorry, Sheska.  I’m just really tired all of a sudden.”

Throwing her arms around her, Sheska squeezed her and Winry found some energy to hug her back, “No, I’m sorry.  You’ve been kidnapped and shot and everything, you have to be completely exhausted.”

Winry rested her chin on Sheska’s shoulder and let a bit of the tension in her shoulders go, “I’m really tired.”

How did the boys keep going like they did?  Where did the energy come from to keep going on like that day after day, for months and years on end.  In the grand scheme of things, Winry figured she actually hadn’t done a whole lot, but she felt like she had.  The adventure was tiring and she was exhausted from it.  She wished she could just reach out and haul everyone back to Resembool without another thought.  She still didn’t know if the boys were even okay… 

“I nearly fainted when they asked me if I’d be willing to hide someone in my apartment, but then when they said it was you, I just… ” unwrapping her arms, Sheska stepped back and adjusted her glasses so she could look her lost companion over from head to toe.  Chewing on her words, trying to mold her feelings into a coherent voice, Sheska looked at the hand Winry had put on her shoulder to steady her balance, “I’m so glad you’re okay.  I couldn’t find any information and I was starting to worry that you were dead.”

“There were…” the last thing Winry wanted to do right now was cry; she’d just gotten into this tiny, pleasant home and was honestly too tired for it.  Bowing her head, she pulled a deep breath and tried to keep herself steady, “There were a couple of times I was really afraid I was going to die.”

Sheska threw her arms back around her shoulders and squeezed her tight.

The weary look Winry had been wearing on her face softened and she hugged her once more, “I’m glad I’m here, though.  It feels like there’s some kind of normal being here, with you, and wondering if all these books are going to cause the building to collapse.”

Sheska gripped Winry firmly by her shoulders and leaned back, “You mean that’s not an irrational fear I’ve been having?”

Winry wrinkled her nose, “I hope for both our sakes it's completely irrational.”

“Me too.”

“Mm-hm.”

Both young women nodded.

“Come on,” tossing her arms out and gesturing to the front room, Sheska ushered Winry out of the hall, “I had time to get the blankets all washed at the laundromat and the sofa’s made up for you.  Do you need a hand?”

“No, I’ll manage.”

Shuffling down the hall, Winry quickly realized that there would be no way she could use her crutches anywhere in Sheska’s clutter.  Time to seriously start working on rehabbing this leg, she figured.  

Coming around a makeshift, paperback wall, Winry looked towards the front window on her left before Sheska pulled the curtains.  She eyed the table under the window decorated with plants and a radio playing a tune at the end.  The tiny living room opened up on her right; a brick fireplace, that was no longer a fireplace, had been filled in and was now just a decorative mantle for a selection of books worthy of being propped up between two bookends.  An old armchair was buried in a hodgepodge of things that had probably been picked up from the floor, and the blanket covered sofa flanked a coffee table with a half dozen books neatly stacked on it, plus a few coasters.  The quaint little setup took up what little floor space there was left.

“You can lay down and rest.  We can chat for a while or talk all night.  You can tell me everything that happened and… and let me get you your water and something to eat!”

Winry was in the middle of easing herself into the sofa when Sheska vanished.  Sinking into plush cushions of a second-hand sofa, the blankets thrown over it puffed out the welcoming scent of the laundered perfume.  What the heck was this detergent called?  Granny bought it sometimes, but Winry couldn’t remember.  It smelt like home though and she wanted to bury herself in nothing but sheets.

The sound of Sheska fumbling with her glassware filtered out into the main room, “I have so much I need to tell you too!”

Winry pulled her feet up onto the sofa when the faucet turned on and the rush of water drowned Sheska’s words out.  Pushing her hands through the blanket laid over the seat cushions, Winry stretched out on her stomach along the length of what would be her new bed, smothering her face in the fabric until she’d spread out enough that her head was buried in the loaned pillow.  Taking a long, deep breath to inhale what it felt like to be home, Winry heard a knife land on a cutting board and she lost the will to get up. 

Sheska went on about something while Winry’s arm flopped around against the back of the sofa, searching for the blankets folded over the back with the last of the energy she had left.  Yanking the bundle down, she pulled the heap of freshly washed, nicely folded bedding down on top of her and surrendered.

“I mean, has anyone had a chance to tell you,” eventually scampering around her makeshift walls, two glasses of water precariously balanced in one hand and a plate of warm dinner in the other, Sheska swept back into her living room, “that someone was able to…”

Brought to a halt by the state of things in the heart of her home, Sheska’s voice trailed off.   Her energy began diffusing as she took in the sight of her new houseguest face down in her sofa, buried in a heap of fresh blankets from the waist up, sound asleep. 

“... get Ed back,” she mumbled, eyeing the wrapped left leg she’d been told about.

Setting the plate silently down onto the table, the two glasses of water found coasters, and Sheska sat down on the floor.  Collecting the top book from the stack on the coffee table and helping herself to a second serving of dinner, Sheska put her back against the front of the sofa Winry slept on and settled into a cozy spot on the floor.  

 


 

After a sombre evening spent with the familiar dark-haired man who’d literally picked her up off her feet in the terrifying ordeal days ago, and Izumi who still seemed somewhat unwell, Brigitte was back in the car with the baby in her lap and Riza was treating her to the fascinating nighttime scenes of the inner city lights beyond the car windows.  No one in her family had a car, they couldn't afford one, so it was an absolute treat to be driven around as much as she had been by everyone here.  Rural driving was one thing, but within the city, on paved roads, the vehicle must have reached 30km/h at one point and the experience was thrilling.  

The entertainment faded after the car was parked and Brigitte was out in the late-night air of a drab, uninviting neighbourhood.  Hand in hand with her escort, Riza kept the baby in one arm and Brigitte in the other as they walked quietly through the night on an unkept stone path.  Traversing the walkways between dull, grey, multi-storey buildings, Brigitte looked up in awe at the front faces of dwellings that had nothing unique to differentiate between any of them.  Even the porch lights all shared the same weak glow.  She wasn’t sure if it was meant to be impressive or frightening.

But, then there was the curious sight of the one unit that had been brave enough to not look like all the others by placing a plant in the window.  What daring soul lived there?

Turning up a stepstone path at the side of a building, Riza led Brigitte not to a front door, but to an unmarked side door.  Her hand was released so Riza could unlock it and, when the door swung open, a narrow stretch of bowed stairs offered entry to the upper floors.  Peering in cautiously, Brigitte got a light pat on her back to encourage her inside.

Riza tried her best not to let the door shut too heavily, but the whomp still startled Brigitte enough that she took a white knuckle grip on the handrail.

The stairwell was stuffy, smelled like damp old shoes, and looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a century.  Narrow steps rose sharply upwards, past the second floor, and didn’t offer an exit until reaching the third.  Brigitte made the climb and waited at the top while Riza carefully ascended the creaky steps with the infant in her arms.  Testing to see if the only door available was open, it swung free and Brigitte held it wide for Riza once the woman had reached the top.  Shutting it quietly behind them, she followed cautiously as they walked down an eerily silent, stagnant hall.  

Passing doors with nothing more on them other than a knob, a lock, and a number to mark them, a few paces before the hallway ended, Riza stopped and rattled a distinct pattern off a door with her knuckles.

Brigitte quietly tucked herself behind the woman’s gun-toting hip as the sound of chain locks being unlatched became clear.

The door cracked open, “You finally made it.”

Brigitte perked up - wait a minute.

“Sorry about that.  I had some things I needed to discuss with the brigadier general.”

Brigitte popped out from behind Riza.

Russell looked around Riza as the officer made her way into the suite and nearly cracked his laugh when he caught sight of Brigitte in her outfit.  Ushering her in so he could shut the door, he re-hooked the locks and chains and promptly snatched the hat off Brigitte’s head with a laugh.

Reaching for her stolen cap, Russell dropped it on her face as Fletcher came scurrying to the door.

“Brigitte!” 

She was surprised by a hug before she’d managed to resettle the hat; the boys here were unusually affectionate. 

Fletcher bounced back and laughed as he looked at what she’d gotten into, “You look kind of cute in that!”

Russell slid up next to his brother, a thoughtful hand under his chin, and he examined their guest, “You think she’s cute?”

“You don’t think she looks cute in it?” Fletcher looked up at his brother innocently.

The corners of Russell’s mischievous grin curled, “You think she looks cute?”

“Ye-- NO,” with a sudden explosion of flying arms, Fletcher turned red, “that’s not what I meant at all!  I was just compleme--”

“AH-HAH,” Russell cackled, “I’m finally getting a picture on what kinds of girls my baby brother likes.”

“BROTHER, NO.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Russell waved his hand and took his malicious cackles deeper into the suite when his little brother took a swing at him.

Completely bewildered, Brigitte took the cap off her head and slowly stepped out of her shoes.

Despite the exterior, the interior of this suite was rather pleasant.  There was life inside that wasn’t visible from the outside.  The left-over scent of dinner mingled with an odour that reminded her of her grandfather’s house - that smell furniture ended up emanating after decades of use, but mixed with pipe smoke and the same cologne that every old man seemed to use.

Slowly wandering into a bubbling suite, Brigitte wrung her hat in her hands, thinking she might not mind it if they all had to stay here now.

Riza startled her when she put a hand on her back.  

Looking up, Brigitte watched the woman smile warmly, say nothing, but offer a hand to guide her across the room.  Fiddling with the hat in her hand, the short walk took her to a closed door at the opposite corner in the suite where together they stopped.  Curiously, Brigitte watched Riza’s knuckles tap twice before she stepped back.

“Are you dressed?”

“I am.”

Brigitte froze.

Her eyes locked on the doorknob that turned, her heart leapt into her throat when the wood popped free from the hatch, and her wide blue eyes looked up before her thoughts could collect themselves to help her.

Maria smiled at her, “Brigitte!”

Brigitte stared up at Maria Ross and didn’t react.  Her thoughts abandoned her, her wits betrayed her, and she was left alone with an empty head to try and understand what she was witnessing.  

Maria hadn’t even been able to focus her eyes the last time she’d seen her and Brigitte didn’t know what she was supposed to do with her standing in front of her like nothing had happened.  She looked so vibrant - so alive.  

How was this possible?   

A flood of reactions left her wanting to gasp, needing to scream, feeling dizzy, desperate to run out the door for some reason, frantic to hug her, and feeling torn in a thousand different directions by a litany of responses.  Brigitte wanted to move her legs, but they wouldn’t take her anywhere.  She wanted to throw her arms, but all she could do was strangle her hat.  She wanted to scream in relief and joy, but her lungs couldn’t find the air.  Caught in an overwhelming waterfall of every action and reaction, at a loss for how to handle herself in that moment, Brigitte crumbled into tears.

Maria always seemed to be there.  Brigitte hadn’t realized it at the time, but Maria had been the one to rescue her from the household of the witch shortly after everything had started - had she always known?  It was her car they drove away in.  It was her cottage they stayed in.  Her lake she swam in.  Some of the clothes Brigitte had dressed in came from her.  Maria was the first one who’d started to figure out how to understand her.  She was the one Brigitte went to when she wanted a normal adult to rely on.  And she was the one who’d introduced her to nearly everyone in this room.  But, when the curse of the witch’s red magic had left Maria as a shadow of herself, there was nothing Brigitte could offer to help her in return.  The extent of her helplessness became terrifyingly apparent.  

And then, after she’d been separated from Maria, the situation around her crumbled daily until it reached a frantic catastrophe.  She was so indescribably happy to see Maria, but there wasn’t enough room left in her to express it.

Brigitte didn’t realize until it was happening how much she wanted to just cling to someone and cry until she was well into it.  Maria was beyond a welcomed presence, but she also wanted her mother more than ever.  Brigitte missed her sister and she longed for home.  She was growing sick from the need to be able to talk coherently to anyone and she still didn’t know where she was or why she had to be here.  She was tired - exhausted from the adventure, Brigitte didn’t want to cooperate with it anymore.  She wanted to go home.  She wanted to feel safe.

But, for no reason anyone could explain to her yet, Brigitte wasn’t allowed those luxuries.  The only solace she was able to find was the safety and relief that came as all her tears flooded out.  When she curled up in some foreign chair in this unknown home with Maria, in the arms of the most trustworthy person she’d come to know, and fell asleep there.

 


To Be Continued...


 

Notes:

Thank you for the 100 kudos ;A; they mean a lot and they’re always a delight to wake up to (my kudos email comes in at around 4am haha). I hope everyone continues to enjoy this enormous headcanon I’m still trying to mush into words :>

Ed is out there giving himself an existential crisis while Winry and Brigitte are just noping out for the day lol.

Many many chapters ago, Mustang told Hakuro about Dante. Clearly and factually - so factually that although Hakuro struggled to accept what he’d been told, he didn’t dismiss it. He’s still struggling to accept someone like ‘Dante’ actually exists, but Winry adds another layer to validate Mustang’s claims.

Me: Crying over the 30km/h speed limit my local road was reduced to last month.
Brigitte: THAT WAS A THRILLING RIDE, CAN WE GO AGAIN?
Historical perspective :’)

Every Christmas break I'm like "yeah I should have lots of time to do X, Y, and Z" and every year that never happens LOL. I'll give myself a holiday buffer and put the next chapter for Jan 9!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS 🎉 AND HAPPY NEW YEAR 🎉

Chapter 57: Fractures

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It left something to wonder what kind of fortitude, no, what kind of numbness Dante had to have grown accustomed to that allowed her to find comfort in a disgusting place like this.  

Ed questioned the empty city again.

The hollowed earth continually swallowed up all signs of life in this glorified catacomb.

There’d been a draft screaming at him, warning of the haunts in the city as he came down.  He already knew.  Standing above the ruins of a five-hundred-year-old crime, the wind threw his hair around like a child’s tantrum in protest of his return.  

In the skeleton of the city, that wind was both absent and silent.  

Ed stood in the grandeur of Dante’s ballroom and eventually lifted his arms to tie his hair.  

He stood in the centre of that room for what felt like ages, going over moments in his mind that he’d replayed a thousand times beyond the Gate.  He could place it all in the room like he was nothing more than a spectator of his own life.  The strange dance with Rose when he didn’t realize what was going on.  The lecture Dante had given him about his willful ignorance.  Rose’s baby.  The other fight with Envy he’d also badly lost.

The emptiness in the hall once the madness settled.  

Rose was there in that emptiness, but his world was a void. 

Al was gone.

Ed couldn’t accept that. 

He’d lost everything.

And then he spent the next five and a half years learning what it felt like to actually lose everything.

Eventually, Ed walked around the generous spill of dried blood left behind when the Gate had sent Al back.  The chaotic slick spread along the floor, vanishing into a hall beyond, was entirely his and Winry’s doing.  

Ed couldn’t remember those moments anymore; the disjointed memories he had of what went on while he suffered from alchemical shock down here were gone.  He’d remembered them vaguely for a few days after, like a few incoherent recollections of a dream that tugged at him, but he’d lost them now.  

Even his memories at the back side of the Gate with Winry were getting foggy.  Couldn’t his brain pick other memories to fade away?  He had a few suggestions.

Loitering in his own nightmares wasn’t why he’d come down here.

Edward left Dante’s castle and wandered the streets of her dollhouse.

Silence welcomed him everywhere, but harshly scolded him every time he disturbed anything.  Door hinges, frozen by centuries of preservation, complained when he opened them.  Dry, brittle floorboards protested with the strain his weight placed on them.  

Edward walked the empty, underground city, struggling to be one of the ghosts.

There was no life anywhere.  

It wasn’t just human life that was gone from the city, it was all things that qualified as ‘life’.

No weeds, no cobwebs, no insects, no mold, and no water or food; every inch of Dante’s most glorified atrocity was old, dry, brittle, fragile, and immaculately preserved.  

But every house showed signs of life once lived.  

Edward walked into stunning historical views - with context removed, this place was an archeologist's dream.  Homes built with the glorious flaws of mankind attempting to perfect the wooden craft in its infancy.  Windows sealed with imperfect, foggy glass made before manufacture was refined.  Exquisite handmade furniture now lost to the onset of modern production.  Fabrics painstakingly woven by hand garnishing the décor.  Beautiful paintings decorating mantles where photographs would now be.

It was a perfect snapshot of civilization hundreds of years ago.

Despite the awe the graveyard offered, the most terrifying reminder of what had happened - of what Dante had done - were all of the clothes left in heaps where a life had been taken inside the homes.  On more than one occasion Ed had to leave the building he’d entered, either feeling sick from his inability to detach himself from what he was seeing or simply remembering the sight of Al’s clothing left at the edge of their transmutation circle so long ago.

After a night spent carving a mental map of the city, Edward wandered into the scant home two blocks inside the underground parameter.  Not wanting to risk Dante turning up out of the blue, because that would be just his kind of luck lately, on the floor of a home with a few less unsettling mementos, at a spot where no windows offered light, he tried to get some rest.

He tried. 

Private encounters with his own ghosts continued to cripple his sleep, leaving his head pounding, his body weary, but his mind running at a frenzied pace. 

The bag on the floor next to him begged for Ed’s attention like a pulsing beacon.  It was full of things for him to do.  He refused to frame it as excitement, but maybe anticipation.  Three bags and two paper-wrapped samples of elemental powders, a portable scale, a stone mortar and pestle, a generous length of rope, and a number of empty containers all called to him.  

Ed found the energy to fold himself upright and drag his body over to the bag.  Maybe there was a cellar he could test things in and give his mind something to wind down with.

The back door of the house cried when Ed cracked it open for the first time in hundreds of years.  A tiny yard contained by a crude, brittle fence, was nothing but dust and dirt beyond the door.  Soil stripped of its nutrients, the landscaping showed the hollow molds and contours where grass, food, and possibly a large tree had once grown.

Tucked away near the corner of the building was what he was looking for.

A wooden hatch lay level with the barren earth, sealed for who knows how many centuries.  Edward wrapped his hands around the fat length of rope tied to an iron ring and pulled.  

The sealed hatch won immediately.  It hardly budged.

It made sense that, for the time period, the door would be weighted underneath, but just how much weight used was the question.

The longer Ed fought his losing battle with the hatch, the more his resolve grew to exponentially increase his training with Sensei and Al when all this shit was done.  Because Izumi was right, he’d been nothing but a damned office assistant with one arm and one leg - he was a tall waif compared to his condition before he’d left.  No matter which way he yanked, no matter what was used for leverage, no matter how hard he tried, Ed didn’t have the strength to–

The hatch finally began to open and the Elric forcing it to comply began turning red, every muscle in his body straining through the battle.  

Once past vertical, the hatch finished opening on its own and Ed was left on all fours to catch his breath.

Eventually collecting himself, Ed went back inside.  The two paper-wrapped powders were tucked away in opposite pockets, as well as a matching white glove to accompany each.  The pocket knife plus the book of matches he’d taken from Sheska’s went into his vest pocket, and one free hand picked up a lifeless candle from a mantle on the way out.  

The knife was used to cut the tethers of two bagged weights from the inside of the thick hatch and Ed listened to their deep, hollowed thuds in the dry room below.  Lighting the candle, the ladder was tested, felt sturdy, and begrudgingly permitted Ed to climb down safely.  

Descending into the earth, Edward swung the candle out to examine the tiny cavern with empty shelves carved into the dirt.  A rickety wooden table sat in the centre of the room, dressed with nothing but a single candle holder and a candlestick half expired.  Ed shared the light he brought with the partially melted candle in the earthly room.  He licked his fingers and pinched the one in his bare hand out.

As the light shifted in the room, Ed caught sight of the ground beyond the table.  His breathing hitched, his body locked, and Ed’s heart flew into a thunderous frenzy.

There was a lost pile of clothes in the dirt beyond the far side of the table.

Dammit, this was someone’s tomb.  

This whole underground nightmare was a tomb, but someone was in this cellar when everything came to pass.

Unsettled golden eyes carried the glow of candlelight as he recollected his wits.  Lurching through his next breaths, Ed marched around the table and scooped up the clothes.  Throwing a pair of ancient, draw-string pants over his arm, Ed picked up the buttoned shirt with generous sleeves and snapped it in the cellar’s stale air.  The shirt was folded atop the table, followed by the pants, and the hand-stitched, animal hide shoes left behind were dusted off on Ed’s slacks.  He placed them atop the bundle.

“Sorry, but I need to borrow your cellar for a bit.” 

In the dead, dusty earth, Ed apologized to the ghosts Dante left behind.

 


 

Winry stood with her face in the storming showerhead, letting the water flow as hot as she could take it.  She was probably going to steam up the whole building, but the shower felt so relieving it was a little hard to care.

She hadn’t tried standing under a shower since she’d gotten back.  She missed it.  Things could be forgotten for a little while under the shower, in the comforting tone of rushing water, even if she wasn’t exactly balanced on both feet.  

It was fantastically blissful, until she realized she’d used up all the hot water.

Turning the taps off, Winry wrung out her hair and bumbled her way out of the tub.

Wrapped in a towel, she sat down on top of a blanketed stool Sheska had put in the room for her, took a heavy breath in the warm air, and rolled her left knee inwards.  She peeked down at the damage on the outside of her leg.

She’d hardly looked at it.  It was on the outside and a little behind, so it was a bit awkward to get a good look at.  It might actually be forgettable if it would start letting her hold her bodyweight.  The gunshot wounds were almost always wrapped, but she hadn’t wanted to have another shower with her leg sticking out of the tub.  The wrap came off before she’d gotten in. 

What it looked like now was two reddened, ugly craters in her leg that had filled back in with deep, dark scabs.  She’d seen a patient once who’d recently had one of his AutoMail anchor points removed and it kind of looked like that, but more crude, like a back alley doctor had done it.   

Winry’s fingers traced the circular edges of the bullet holes, her heart anxiously rocketting along as she felt the uneven contours of the damaged tissue.

She remembered a lot of moments, but couldn’t quite remember the moment this happened anymore.  What was left was kind of a blank, replaced with loud static and a lot of indistinguishable noise.  She knew Ed was there, but she couldn’t quite place anything going on around her, it was drowned out by the unstoppable surge that twisted her whole body down to the ground.  At the mercy of a feeling that ‘pain’ didn’t adequately describe, she’d made a desperate attempt to force her voice to communicate how her entire body screamed.  The chaos in her head didn’t clear until something about the world around her made her very, very aware someone was standing over her…

“Sheska!?” Winry gasped in the thick air, “do you have any big socks?”

“Like stockings?” Sheska called through the wall.

“No, like knee-highs,” she didn’t want to look at it.

“I got winter ones?”

“That’ll do,” she didn’t want to think about it either.

Winry gave herself something else to focus on: had Sergeant Fuery been by yet?  Was there any update from Xenotime?  Any news on the boys?  How was there still nothing to tell her?  Why was she constantly fated to sit around and worry?

Toweling herself off, Winry shook out the plaid nightshirt Sheska had dug out and threw it around her shoulders.

“I have breakfast almost ready!” Sheska sang when she tossed her long winter socks into the room.

Wrapping her hair in a flowery towel, Winry dressed her legs, did up the shirt, collected herself, and waddled into the kitchen.

“Where’d you get this monstrous thing?”

Setting two steaming cups of coffee down on her kitchen table, Sheska laughed at the enormous, button-down shirt hanging off Winry past her knees, “I found it at a thrift store.  It looked big and comfy for a lazy Sunday or a long book.”

Winry held out her arms and showed off how the thing hung off her body, “I think we could both fit in this.”

Giggling, Sheska sauntered back to the frying pan on her stovetop, “Shower help at all?” 

Winry shrugged, dropping her arms to her sides and losing her hands to the length of the sleeves.  She limped across the kitchen and plunked herself into the kitchen chair, “Sort of.  I still have a bit of a headache.  I probably shouldn’t have overslept like that.”

“Some days we all need a good ten hour nap!”

Bowing her head over her coffee to breathe it in, Winry tangled her fingers through the handle and lifted the mug up to her lips.  Sitting back before the towel on her head succumbed to gravity, Winry quietly sipped her coffee and eyed the books, mail, fliers, and newspapers occupying Sheska’s kitchen table. 

She dug out a half-folded newspaper from the mess of things, “Has Sergeant Fuery been by yet?”

“Nope,” Sheska glanced over her shoulder, “oh, that’s a few days old.”

“That’s okay,” Winry didn’t really care, her days were all blurred together by this point, “I haven’t been able to read a newspaper in months.”

The frying pan in Sheska’s hand landed heavily on the stovetop and she flew into the chair across the table from Winry, “So, your kidnappers kept you locked away then?” her fingers tinkered around her waiting coffee, “they didn’t let you know anything about what was going on in the outside world?”

Winry laughed awkwardly.  It was such fun in her head last night, practically juvenile and childish, but now every way she thought of trying to start a conversation to explain what had happened sounded clunky.  Shifting in the chair, Winry tried to find a simple way to frame a response.  

“It’s… complicated.  But, I actually couldn’t read the newspaper, it was in a foreign language.”

Sheska’s voice pitched, “You left the country!?”

“Yeah, I sure did.” 

“AH.  That must have been terrifying,” Sheska squealed, rocking in her chair, completely forgetting about the breakfast she’d left cooling on the stove, “did you know where you were?  Were you able to communicate with anyone?  Did they keep you locked up all the time?  Were you a slave?  Did you have to do labour?”

“No no no, nothing like that,” Winry waved the worries away, “it wasn't like that.  I got to see things.  I spent most of my time in a city called Munich and they spoke German there.”

Geeerrrrrmin?” Sheska’s glasses slid down her nose, her mouth twisting to the side, “What is that?  Is it a dialect?”

“It’s a language.  It’s written like English, but with some extra characters that make it completely…”

Winry’s words stalled and the air slowly left her lungs, sucked away by the dumbfounded, gaping expression devouring Sheska’s face.

“... different,” she narrowed her eyes abruptly, “what?”

Placing her hands firmly on the table, rising out of her seat, Sheska leaned towards Winry, “Written like English, you say?”

“... Uh-huh.”

Sheska matched Winry’s gaze with inquisitive slits, “What extra characters does it use?”

“Some vowels with extra dots up top and a curly looking B that isn’t a B at all,” Winry answered.

Slowly tilting her head up to the ceiling, her shrinking pupils dancing around excitedly in her eyes, Sheska’s jaw creaked open a little wider, “It’s a proper language called ‘Germin’?”

For the life of her, Winry couldn’t make heads nor tails of this absolutely bizarre reaction she was getting, “German, because the country it’s spoken in is called Germany.”

“GerMAN...ee?” pushing off her arms and standing where she should have been sitting, Sheska dug through every map, atlas, and history book stored in her head, “there’s no country called German-ee anywhere.”

“That’s because it’s not on any map here.”

Winry watched her words put all the gears in Sheska’s head into motion.  One after another, each turned, gained momentum, spinning harder, faster, and more wild, and—

A knock on the door startled both girls, freeing Sheska to come completely unscrewed.  With a frivolous amount of glee, she bounced on her feet and began backing out of her kitchen.

“Hold that thought!”

“Sheska!” Winry squawked, rising from her chair, “I wasn’t abducted by aliens!”

“Keep thinking about Germin!” Sheska raced out of her kitchen, “don’t forget about it!”

Half standing in her seat, the hand Winry had reached out for the woman who’d soared away fell limp at her side as the front door was excitedly thrown open.

“I couldn’t if I tried.”

Winry looked at the cooling breakfast on the stove and debated helping herself to it.  Ultimately, she sat down again.  Sheska’s questions were going to come a mile a minute and she was going to have millions of them with how quickly she would be able to put details together, either correctly or incorrectly.  And then she was going to have to mix it in with whatever the news update was from the military, if there even was—

“Winry?”

Her head swung on a pedestal, moved by a voice she hadn’t expected to hear.  Wide-eyed, Winry turned to see a single young Elric cross the kitchen entry. 

 


 

Breda had needed a notepad on occasion before, but now he needed to carry around the damn thing all the time.  The last thing he needed to do was mis-step on something Hakuro had said.  The guy was a nightmare.  

The hotel’s main floor had stopped pretending it wasn’t filled with government resistance that morning and everyone was required to be back in uniform.  Hakuro had set up shop in one of the conference rooms downstairs and was organizing people in the lobby.  It wasn’t like the man needed to be secretive like the brigadier general did, but Breda had a lot of sympathy he felt like he needed to extend to the owners.  Those poor folks hadn’t signed up for this.

At least Hakuro didn’t seem like he intended to stay long.  He seemed hell bent on moving in on and staking claim to half a dozen government institutions and he’d spent every daylight hour bringing in people to help orchestrate that.  He was infuriating as hell, but he was astoundingly swift, concise, and organized about it.  

The man was, unfortunately, good at what he did.

Leaning into a door, Breda let himself into the second floor room that Lt. Colonel Armstrong still occupied, with far fewer visitors, and looked at the man occupying the woeful desk.  Stalling in his stride, he watched his superior officer lift his heavy head up and out of his hands, allowing his arms to fall away and fold atop the desk.  Breda lightly rattled his fingers off the door, sheepishly making amends for his unannounced intrusion.

“Sorry, Sir.”

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” Armstrong asked, sounding groggy.

Breda reached back and quietly re-seal the beleaguered aura in the room, “Permission to speak, Sir?”

Taking a slow, composed breath, Armstrong nodded and sat back in the chair, “Of course.”

Not entirely sure what he wanted to get across, but realizing he had the urge to say something, Breda started with the one question that needed asking that he didn’t want to know, so he could at least get the elephant out of the room.

“We’re not getting rid of Hakuro, are we?”

The aura radiating off the wilting tower of Armstrong answered the question before the man shook his head, “No, Lieutenant, I believe we are stuck with him.”

“For what it’s worth,” Breda didn’t want to leave that sentiment hanging, “I don’t think you made the wrong call.”

A weak chuckle reverberated out of the man who’d made an excruciating choice, delivering his words like he couldn’t accept them, “I appreciate the sentiment, Lieutenant.” 

“I mean, really, what were you supposed to do?  When did Aisa ever act on her own before?  There was no precedent for that,” Breda bounced his shoulders effortlessly, trying to buoy some sense of life back into his superior, “we gambled and the dice didn’t roll our way.”

Pulling the wooden chair away from the front of the desk, the officer spun it around on a single leg, and sat it down on all fours again backwards.  Straddling the seat and sitting down, Breda folded his arms over the back of the chair.

“And it was the people Hakuro gave us who got uppity.  Things went to hell and they wanted the brigadier general to show his face and reign in the situation.  There’s only so far you could take the cover story and that’s not your fault.”

Armstrong’s gaze filtered through what remained of paperwork on his desk, the meaningless remnants Hakuro had left for him to sort through, “I can’t help but think there was another way, Lieutenant.”

“Nah,” he wrinkled his nose, “those guys weren’t going to answer to you in all that - they wanted ‘our leader’.  If you hadn’t called Hakuro in to be a totalitarian asshole, thump his chest, and woo the masses, we’d have lost the bigger picture,” shaking his head lightly, Breda tipped his head up to the ceiling, “Dante and the government would have remained in power.  Hakuro gave us the leverage we needed to give folks a fighting chance in Xenotime.”

Nodding slowly, though not making it clear if it were for acknowledgement or acceptance, Armstrong hunched forwards.  Clasping his hands, he placed them on the centre of the table, “Have you heard anything more out of Xenotime?”

Breda tisked, “Not really.  The prime minister’s delirious, his ‘family’ is missing, we have government officials missing, we got people confirmed dead, a mountain is burnt to a crisp, there’s top quality alchemist activity reported, Xenotime is in an uproar, and apparently the townsfolk chased everyone from East City out with flaming torches.  Not a peep from anyone in our party, though.”

Breda finished his summary of things and had to admit that it sounded incredibly bleak.

“Very well,” popping his hand apart, Armstrong strummed his fingers atop his papers, trying to put his thoughts together, “the news should be changing shortly, would you do your best to keep a lower profile when rumour begins to spread about the brigadier general’s assassination attempt.”

“Excuse me?” Breda’s brow lurched skywards, “Hakuro’s got the key to the city, we gave it to him.  Is he actually that petty?”

“It is not coming from him,” shaking his head, Armstrong began to resign himself to the inevitable, “scuttlebutt from the government convoy has begun filtering into our channels, identifying ‘Roy Mustang’ by name, and calling for his arrest.  We should be vigilant.  General Hakuro has always been vocal about his displeasure that the brigadier general was exonerated for his actions at Fuhrer Bradley’s residence.  I’m certain he will gladly use this to his strategic advantage.”

That news made a bad situation even worse.  Breda couldn’t imagine a scenario where they could convince Hakuro to not get behind a story like that.  The man would not only use it as a strategic advantage, he’d be the one pouring the gasoline.  

“Take one thing to heart, Lieutenant.”

Breda eyed the lumbering man as his chest began to swell.

“We can find confidence in the reaction that the brigadier general had some significant measure of success on his mission and is alive enough to elicit this level of outrage,” Armstrong’s mustache curled, masking his grin, “the ‘family’ is missing, after all.”

“Yeah, ‘missing’,” Breda’s grin emerged as he rolled his eyes.

“While they remain missing, we will remain vigilant," Armstrong firmed up his words, "just because they cannot identify her, does not mean Dante is not on that train, inciting outrage.”

Nodding and rocking in his chair, there was one more question Breda had been avoiding.  Hooking his thumbs around the top knobs on the chair’s backing, the officer chewed on his words for a moment before he got them out, “How long’s Hakuro known about Dante?”

Armstrong’s response was far more clear and direct than he’d been expecting, “I was advised that Hakuro was informed shortly before he chose to step aside.  I understand he was given enough details to draw his own conclusions on several matters.”

Breda gave a light laugh at the state that put things in, “He might be a disgusting piece of opportunistic shit, but he’s human.  At least he looks at some of the people in this country like their lives have value.  And we know he’s got no affiliation with Dante.”

“And we must keep ourselves intertwined with him to make sure he remains that way,” the senior officer in the room firmly laid the groundwork for their immediate future, though he followed it up with a disappointed shake of his head, “we strive to have a decent man guide the country and are forced to settle for someone far less.  It’s a sad moment for mankind that we should be thankful he will one day die of old age.”

“Baby steps, Boss,” swaying out of his chair, Breda rose to his feet.  Rotating his chair around on the single leg, he tucked it away at the front of Armstrong’s obsolete desk, “Progress is slow.”

Armstrong practically shook the walls with a huff of disappointed laughter.

Breda flared out his hands as he backed up to the door, “I got a cousin who’s a history teacher, every family dinner gets to hear it from him when politics comes—”

The door popped open, bumping the lieutenant in the back. 

Spinning around, Breda gawked at the wide eyed gaze Havoc gave him when his head popped in.

“Hey guys.”

“Lieutenant!” his beady eyes widening as far as his solid face would allow, Armstrong rose from his seat.

“Dammit man, don’t you knock!?” Breda sputtered.

“Nice to see you too,” slipping into the room, Havoc’s brow wove and he chomped down on his cigarette, “Hakuro’s down there like a goddamn dictator and I nearly got shot for breathing at the door.  What the heck happened?”

 


 

Alphonse leaned away uneasily.

Sheska leaned in a little more curiously.

And Winry poked her in the arm once more, “They’re not going to change colour the closer you get.”

Sheska shot upright, “Yeah, but how’d they turn gold!?”

Al’s shoulders sagged, “I have no idea.”

“But there has to be a scentif–”

Winry and Alphonse quieted Sheska with identical pleading gazes.

Her retreat sent Winry back into a frenzy, “If Ed wasn’t with you, then you were by yourself with Dante!?” this was in no way how any scenario played out in her head, “and she didn’t hurt you, she didn’t melt your brain into alchemy goo, she just talked about Ed and the Gate?”

“Yeah,” Al confirmed, “Aisa threw him out of the van before we left Central, Dante didn’t get him out of the city.  It was just me.”

“And you’re okay?”

“I’m alright, but—”

“Hold on, what about Ed and a gate?” shuffling on her toes up to the kitchen table, Sheska grew a little frazzled, “Who are Dante and Aisa?”

Winry waved her hands, “It’s complicated, just hang on.”

“But, Ed is back,” Sheska ignored the request, “and you both know Ed is back?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.  Okay.  So, then can one of you tell me—”

“Sheska, please…” Winry reached out and tugged on her sleeve, “we can explain Ed and everything else in a few minutes.”

Flaring her nostrils in frustration and pinching lips, Sheska begrudgingly held onto her words.

Winry quickly felt every fiber in her body swell with enough power to go storming into the darkest corners of Central City to find their wayward Elric and drag him back kicking and screaming by his ponytail.

“Why the hell didn’t he come back and see us at the hotel!?” her words snapped, “what does Ed think he’s doing?”

“I don’t know,” Al was starting to sound like a broken record, “I have no idea.  Nobody’s seen him.  I don’t know what he’s thinking, what he’s doing, or where he is.”

“If he doesn’t turn up in a hospital, I’m going to kill him,” Winry’s gaze zipped down to slits, “that death he keeps dodging, I’ll give it to him.”

“Guys, I uh… actually—

Sheska again collected two pleading gazes and swallowed her words once more.

“Before you kill my brother,” Al swung the conversation back to his objectives, “I need to know if you can remember what happened when you were with him at the Gate.  Were you awake for that?”

“I sure was!” 

“Good!” practically bouncing on his backside, Al eagerly dug into Winry’s memory, “The Gate was blocking him from getting home, so he would have needed to do some kind of transmutation while you were there.  Do you remember what he did?”

“Yeah, he—” 

There were a lot of memories she would like to forget and just as many she wished she would stop having nightmares about, but her time with Ed at the Gate that had grown the most hazy.  Not like it was being forgotten or that it was fading like a dream, but that it was starting to get lost in a fog.  It was still there and it was clear if she thought hard enough and swept the clouds away.  Somehow, the entire event felt distinct from all the other memories, like it had been stored somewhere else and didn’t quite connect to the events around it.  

Winry cleared the fog and paled at her memories, remembering how she’d grabbed Ed to try and stop him from doing something.   

She just didn’t know what that something was.

“He said he needed to make the doors appear.  They weren’t there.  It was just us and thousands of purple eyes,” Winry put a hand on her chest and her fingers gathered the fabric until she filled her hand with the oversized shirt.  She winced, “I asked Ed what we were going to do.  He thought about it for a bit, then he got that look in his eye he gets when he has an idea, and he unbuttoned his shirt…”

Winry’s eyes swept away, pulled from the walk-through when Al’s small hands reached across the table and clasped around her wrists.  Eyeing the yellowed discoloration of bruises littering both his wrists, her lips tightened.  Picking her head up, Winry stared at the strong, brilliant golden eyes of the younger brother trying to shoulder a siege of concerns all on his own.

“He put a transmutation circle on himself?” Al asked like he already knew the answer.

“He did," she answered softly.

Sitting back, Al withheld whatever sentiments he had wanted to use to describe how he felt about that and soldiered on with his questions, “Do you remember what the transmutation circle looked like?”

Winry nodded, “It was easy, actually.  It was a star - the five point star that kids draw in the sand.  He put a circle around it and positioned it so it was a single point going down.  He said that it would go against the natural flow and connect the ‘there to here’ and ‘here to there’.”

Alphonse took a moment to assess his brother’s tactics, “Yup, more or less that’s exactly what it’ll do, but it’s not enough,” he returned his focus to Winry, “there was a condition he had to meet with the Gate in order to get home, did he say anything that might have dealt with that?”

“No,” Winry continued to confirm things Al hadn’t wanted to hear, “he did do something, I know that, but he wouldn’t tell me what.”

“Winry,” the tone of Al’s voice was a muddied mixture of frustration and concern, “whatever he’s done has given him some kind of link back to the Gate.  I don’t know what it is, he hasn’t told any of us, and it looks like he’s been deliberately trying to keep us from finding out.  I don’t know what his relationship with the Gate implies.  What does it mean for his life and his future?  Why did he keep it from us?  What else is he hiding from us?  I put you guys there and I…”  

Al’s head shook lightly, like he was trying to sift out something from the mess in his head to reveal any kind of answer. 

“I don’t know if he came home okay.”

At any other moment, with any other context, given that it was Ed and he continued to do absolutely stupid things with alchemy, Winry would have shared the despair in Al’s voice.  But, she actually thought some of the worries flooding him weren’t entirely warranted.  She had to question why, because Ed didn’t exactly leave himself any room to trust in what he was doing, and she found herself combing through his words to her at the Gate.  

“‘I know what I can do to get us home’,” Winry breathed life into a statement, reviving Edward’s words for his younger brother to hear, “‘Whatever you’re afraid of isn’t going to happen’.  That’s what he said before I let him do whatever he did to take us home.”

In the middle of all the other unanswerable questions the older brother had left out for them to chase around, while there was every reason to doubt his current actions, Winry had faith in Ed’s actions at the Gate.  And she realized she’d been told why.

“Ed wanted to come home.  He wanted to be with you and he wanted to take me home.  And he wanted to…” Winry paused, standing in her memory at the Gate and listened to his words again, “Ed wanted to get on with his life.  He wanted to try and live - he wasn’t doing that there.  When we were at the Gate, when I stopped him, he talked like he’d actually thought about his own future.  Not mine, not yours, his.  There was something more he wanted out of his life.”

Ed rarely talked about his own future.  He talked about objectives and goals.  Research and get Al’s body back.  Research and build a rocket.  Research and get home.  He never talked about what he wanted to do after.   Winry didn’t know if it was because he was afraid to want something more and risk losing it or if he honestly didn’t know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.  What she heard at the Gate though, was Ed putting his voice into at least wanting something more - something beyond everything that was trapping him.

“I don’t understand what’s going on with him now or why he’s ducking us, but what he did at the Gate was something to get him home, so he could be here for you and start living.”

Easing out of the anxious tension that was trying to lock him up, Al wrung his hands together, tying his fingers into knots while he organized and digested Winry’s words, “I wish I knew where he was.”

“I know where he is!”

The conversation between Al and Winry tripped and together they came to a crashing halt.  Their heads snapped to the woman standing at the front of the room. 

Sheska’s hands danced around her stomach nervously, like she wasn’t sure where to begin answering the interrogative gazes of the two people who were finally listening to her.

“Well, not anymore, he left a couple days ago.”

The expressions on the Resembool pair seated in the room flashed away, leaving blank slates.  In a suite stuffed so full it carried no echo, Alphonse and Winry’s voices echoed each other. 

“Left!?”

Sheska put her hands firmly on her hips, “Can one of you tell me how he’s twenty-two?”

 


 

The rhythmic tap, tap, tap, of the pen dangling in Hakuro’s clasped hands overpowered the march of time ticking from the wall clock.  He commanded time with the same authority he used to command his troops: firmly, obediently, and without hesitation.  Under perfect control.  

Hakuro treated his seat at the fold-out table near the curtain-sealed window like he was already in control of the desk in Fuhrer's office.  The elder man drilled his steeled gaze into Havoc sitting alone on a chair in the middle of the floor, locked in the small meeting room.  He commanded a response.

“At the time I left,” Havoc continued to hold his ground against the man's accosting presence, “Brigadier General Mustang was incapacitated due to red water poisoning.  Major Hawkeye has been overseeing affairs in East City.”

Tap, tap, tap.  His head held high, posture firm, Hakuro’s sentiments buzzed like warning shots, “Red water poisoning is known to be quite lethal.”

“Fortunately,” Havoc steered Hakuro’s thoughts down another track, refusing to let him relish in the thought of Mustang’s incapacitation, “the toxins were airborne, rather than in liquid form, so there has been time to address treatment in East City.”

A hum vibrating in Hakuro’s chest rumbled in the air.  Tap, tap, tap, “Even so, without the speed of rail transport, that’s a lengthy drive to leave a man to suffer through.”

Havoc debated if the man was in any way considering Mustang’s plight or actually enjoying the idea of him suffering, “Remaining in Xenotime for any reason wasn’t an option.”

Unexpectedly nodding like he agreed, Hakuro let up on his merciless pen tapping and looked around the room almost playfully.  His nod continued, like it advanced his thoughts, until he finally resumed his visual stranglehold of one of Mustang’s most trusted subordinates.  

“Then, you didn’t get her?”

Havoc’s jaw creaked, “No.”

Parting his hands, the pen Hakuro held clattered onto the tabletop.  Firmly gripping the arms of his seat, the chair legs scratched along the floor like nails clawing through wood, and he rose to his feet.  The heels of his boots landing with dull thuds on the floor, Hakuro circled his desk and approached his guest.

“So, I am here managing not only this aggressive take-over of the controlling facilities in Central City AND made to deal with the return and suppression of the incumbent government, while Mustang couldn’t even do everyone the courtesy of ridding us all of the fairytale goblin lurking in our midst?”

“Sir,” Havoc responded firmly, “the intention in Xenotime was never to engage Dante, it was to retrieve an innocent third party.”

Hakuro stopped his approach when the tips of his boots tapped Havoc’s feet.  He towered over the seated officer, “Someone who found themselves in a similar position to Miss Rockbell, then?”

Havoc refused to flinch, “The threat Dante posed to the victim’s wellbeing had the potential to exceed Miss Rockbell’s circumstances.”

“I see,” the light nod of his head resumed, slowly fading.  Folding his arms, Hakuro lifted his chin high, and looked down the length of his nose at the officer beneath him, "The prime minister has been reported to be in some kind of deteriorating psychological state and his daughters and family aide are presumed dead - though I’m confident there is an off-the-record account of their wellbeing.  When what’s left of a functional government and their convoy’s locomotive rolls in later this evening, their arrival will throw everything here into further unrest, because then, I assume, they will have access to their own podium to proclaim that Brigadier General Mustang is the terrorist leader behind the assassination attempt and subsequent events in Xenotime.”

Stiffening beneath his interrogator, Havoc glared up at the man lording his presence over him, “I assure you, Sir, it is a false accusation.”

“False or not, I can’t defend him,” Hakuro tipped his head, thrust his arms behind his back, and barked, “there’s an entourage of people now under my command who had no idea he’d left them.  Loyal people who had no clue what their situation was until he was needed as a voice they could rally behind, only to discover he was nowhere to be found when your security failed.”

Havoc’s voice began to rise, “There was no precedent for us to suspect Dante had assets in Central available to come at us from within.  Entertaining these accusations will be enabling her—”

“She’s already enabled!  The damage is done!” the senior officer’s words thundered in the room, “and Mustang is still not here.  Quite frankly, it’s too late for him to show up.  So, enabled is our enemy to divide what we are, and those who remain standing will answer to me.”  The corner of his mouth flinched, tweaking to nearly reveal a smirk, before Hakuro turned on his toes and began to pace his chamber once more, “If your objective is to topple the goblin’s government, then Mustang has relinquished his command in favour of whatever bullshit transpired out east.  No one will rally behind a perceived terrorist who is believed to have attempted to violently depose the incumbant, Lieutenant Havoc.”

“And you, Sir, are aware that’s not what happened,” desperately fighting to maintain his composure against a man he’d have to answer to one day, Havoc looked around at his options and acknowledged he was out of usable leverage, “you have the power to set the records straight.”

Hakuro turned his nose up at the plea, “I am aware of yours and Lt. Colonel Armstrong's accounts, but the account we should be endearing ourselves to is the story we’ve all begun hearing through the grapevine, and that grapevine is poised to feed the public en masse.  The papers.  The radios.  On what grounds do I have to counter these mouthpieces?  The words of two men?”  

The footfalls of the general’s boots found the rhythm of the seconds marching from the clock.  

Hakuro threw his arms out to his sides, “What cover story do I offer our brave Brigadier General?  That he got sick and went to East City for treatment he couldn’t receive in Central?  Or do you have an appropriate way of disseminating Dante for the public to digest to win favour?  I struggle to quantify this story of Dante.  I can’t imagine how you would begin to convince a layman about the tale,” a dismissive laugh bounced through his chest as his arms locked behind his back again, “standing by Mustang runs the risk that I will be construed as a supporter of anarchy.  Considering the exhaustion, pressure, and strain the people of the country have been under the last year, no one will get behind that,” raising his hands, Hakuro firmly slapped the back of a stiff hand into his opened palm, “people want order, stability, and safety right now, condemnation of rueful actions are what they want to hear, and I will happily sing that lullaby to them like I would my own children.”

Havoc’s hands gripped his knees like claws as he endured what could only be a rehearsal of speeches to come.

Hakuro firmly slapped his hand into his palm once more, then threw his hands away, swinging his arms behind his back.  His nostril’s flaring with a deep breath, the elder man’s chest swelled, “If the ultimate goal of this disaster is to strip this ‘corrupt government’ of its power, I can do that, but not by defending a violent terrorist.  I need the people of this country to believe, undoubtedly, that I am here for them.”

There was nothing Havoc could offer the situation that didn’t require mountains of exposition and explanation - things the officer himself wasn’t certain he fully understood, but he trusted his companions and stood by them.  It wasn’t like Hakuro was wrong in a few instances either, it was simply unfortunate circumstances they could do nothing about.

“On behalf of this insurgent military faction, I will issue a condemnation to the press later tonight for release with the paper tomorrow morning, denouncing the actions in Xenotime and shed affiliations with those involved,” Hakuro’s tone dipped, falling low, but remaining above a whisper, “if you have any way of reaching your compatriots in East City, Mr. Havoc, tell them to prepare to stay out of sight for the next while, there will be a bounty involved.”

Havoc shot up from his chair and stepped forwards, “You don’t have the authority to issue a bounty!”

“I certainly can’t issue an arrest warrant, yet.  Actions will speak louder than hollow words, so I’ll put my money where my mouth is,” deciding to take no issue with Havoc’s outburst, Hakuro let a grin full of wicked satisfaction curl into the corners of his mouth in response, “Mustang sat on his hands while loitering on the doorstep of Central, now he can sit in a kennel of his choosing until I decide to let him out.”

Literally having to bite his lower lip to keep from spouting off a series of choice words for the smug reaction, Havoc decided he would rather let himself out of the room than engage with Hakuro any further. 

“I offer you this piece of advice, Mr. Havoc,” Hakuro bellowed as his guest turned to leave, “have yourself a seat on the next available train that manages to go east, your affiliations will no longer gain you favour with anyone here.”

Taking the cigarette out of his mouth, Havoc flicked it high in the air above his head, and slammed the door before it landed on the floor.

 


 

“This list doesn’t make sense.”

The single loose sheet Alphonse held out in front of his nose teased him - it challenged him - to this ‘alchemy puzzle’ his brother had diligently worked on solving.  Names of alchemists, some long deceased, might contain the key that revealed Ed’s decisions to wait out the events in Xenotime and avoid making contact with anyone in Central.  It was the only clue left behind that he couldn’t burn - because Sheska had it in her head.

“They’re all academic alchemists, except my brother didn’t seem to know the details on who any of them actually were,” tucked away in the living room, Al slumped into the seat cushions next to Winry.  Flicking the page in his hand, his eyes traced through the lines down to the last name, “And a business owner, who has nothing to do with alchemy, but Sheska says she’d seen this man’s name in military payment records.” 

The volume of information Sheska had provided through the day came just shy of overwhelming.  His nerves threatened to fray if he spent too long looking at the enormity of it, so he had to break it down into smaller bits to navigate.  But, the mountain of questions Al was accumulating continued to grow far faster than any answers came.  

Released from his grip, the sheet of paper swept down to his lap and he dropped his head back into the seat cushions, “How do these people relate to that pile of ‘alchemy stuff’?”

“At least we know he only wanted folks in Central City,” it was the only consolation Winry could find, “that should mean he’s not screwing around out of town.”

Al stared at the ceiling, slouching in his seat, and voiced a sentiment he already knew the response to, “I need to go out and find these people.”

“Not tonight you’re not,” Winry spoke like she had the power to stop him, “the streets are already a mess and that government train isn't even here yet.  It’s better to wait for the morning.”

Testing how deeply he could sink into Sheska’s sofa, Al clenched his eyes and stretched his legs out.  Tracing the tips of his toes through the grooves of the hardwood floor he breathed in the aroma of dinner Sheska had started preparing, “Dante set up Central City to boil over when she gave up control – this whole mess, every bit of it, she’s responsible for.  We try to get ahead and still end up playing catch-up with her.”

“Worrying about that isn’t going to help us right now,” Winry voiced a sentiment easier said than done, before perking up with an idea, “maybe we need to take a page out of Ed’s book.  Write everything down.  Get a notepad from Sheska and start compiling everything, maybe you’ll see something in the words.”  

“Maybe…” Al mumbled.

The suggestion just wasn’t enough to quell the hungry beast of frustration eating away at him from within.  Stretching his arms out in front of his body, Al tensed and turned his stiff hands inwards, settling his gaze in his palms.  His lowered voice went hoarse as he tried to keep his words from leaving the room.

“Winry, he clapped his hands and touched Sheska, that’s dangerous.   How much control does he have if he’s confident he’s not going to hurt her,” the younger Elric couldn’t get past how absolutely baffling his older brother’s actions were every time Sheska revealed something more, “why did he let Wrath see the Gate and then used Sheska like he was trying to make sure she wouldn’t?  What trade did he make with the Gate that allows this?”

Winry’s brow stitched together, “Al.”  

“What’s he capable of?  Why’s he doing this on his own?  Is he going to hurt himself?  What happens if Dante gets a hold of him?”  

“Al stop.” 

“What if he can damage the flow of both worlds?  Why’s he--”

Shoving an arm into the cushions to reach across Al’s back and take a firm grip on his shoulder, Winry gave him a shake to snap him out of the onslaught of concerns.  

“Stop.”

Alphonse’s vocabulary crumbled away, uncertain how to put together the smorgasbord of worries and laments that had been brewing inside of him into a coherent sentiment.  Worrying about what Dante was up to was one thing, but worrying about his brother was a whole other beast.  

“Do you believe your brother has lied to you about the Gate?” 

Yes.  Yes, he did believe his brother had lied about the Gate and he didn’t know why.  It was an awful, lonely feeling that left Al with unfocussed anger and frustration the more time he was given to think about it and the more information he learned.  He wanted to believe there was a good reason, he wanted to trust there was something more going on, but he still couldn’t see what his brother’s actions were leading towards. 

Fighting to ease the tension tying him up in knots, Al put his head down on Winry’s shoulder and felt her hand tighten around on his arm.

“I wish we could go home," he pouted.

Winry nearly laughed at a sentiment that rang all too true for her.  Bringing her socked feet up, Winry caught her heels on the edge of the coffee table and nestled into the sofa with Al, “And I wish my leg was better so I could help more.  I hate feeling this useless.”

Al had two perfectly good legs and still felt useless.

He used to be so familiar with what was going on inside his brother’s head and, even when he was unsure, there was some kind of gut feeling to go on.  He felt a tingle of pride every time he’d call his brother out on his behaviour even before he did anything.  He knew; Ed was his big brother and Al knew him.   Every way he was turning lately he struggled to find that person he knew and Al couldn’t digest how alienated he felt. 

“What do you honestly know about his journey over these past few years?”

Dante’s words were meant to torment his youthful self.  They were meant to pick away at the invisible scabs growing on him in her misunderstanding of reality.  But it wasn’t Al’s memory that had become her weapon.  

“What has he told you, what has anyone told you, that gives you confidence to judge his character so innocently, when you’re completely unable to relate to what he’s experienced?”

Well?  What did he know about his grown-up brother roaming Central?  

He’d lived beyond the Gate.  He lived in a world without family, friends, or the comfort of alchemy.  They’d talked about some things and it sounded like his brother had really struggled with adapting to a normal kind of life.  He was forced to learn how to wake up every morning without his younger brother.  He’d had no choice but to come to terms with the state of his body.  He lived most of his everydays surrounded by strangers who only knew the stories he’d made up, but nothing about who he really was.

Ed had lived in large cities, he travelled to other countries, he’d made enough peace with their dad that he lived with him, he ate up the other world’s defunct alchemy, he also studied the other sciences to try and find a way home.  

He was blending in.  He worked an ordinary job and dressed the part, living a basic life he didn’t want.  Even if Ed was unhappy beyond the Gate, objectively his circumstances seemed straightforward, even after Winry showed up.  The only significant events Al could think of that stood out was their dad’s death and… an asterisk.

“Winry, can I ask a question?”

“Mmhm?”

Al lifted his eyes to stare at Winry’s feet perched on the edge of the coffee table, listening to the memory of laughter after his brother’s stitches had been removed, knowing that under the cover of borrowed socks was the reason she still struggled to get from one place to another. 

“What happened before you came home?”

The tension Winry emitted at the question tried to tangle the air around them into knots right along with her.  

It was odd that neither one of them had ever brought it up, it was hardly even acknowledged.  His brother just picked Winry up, carried her around, and seemed genuinely concerned about her, but never brought up why the situation existed in the first place.  Maybe Alphonse could write off an event on Ed’s tendency to bottle up things that bothered him, but Winry doing that too didn’t seem right.

“We’ve never talked about it.  I don’t know why my brother was banged up and I don’t know who shot you.”

“Oh…” 

There was a very uncomfortable emptiness in that monotone sound that made Al anxious about having asked. 

“It was this guy named Rudolf.” 

The detached, matter-of-fact way the information was delivered was overshadowed by the déjà vu that visited Al.  His brows landed firmly atop his eyes; he’d heard that odd name before.  He’d heard her statement before.  There was a memory of the name and it came in Winry’s voice.  Al wracked his brain, where had he heard—

“Hess,” his eyes cleared.

“Yeah, him.”

It was a tiny story amongst all the others that sounded like such fun when Winry had begun the tale.  Now, Al sat on the memory of her hotel bed and replayed the story of a nice evening for his brother's birthday that fell to pieces in her eyes for no reason he’d understood at the time. 

He peeked in at her to see if he could find Winry’s expression behind the hair that fell past her face.

“Why?”

Feeling her arm slip out from behind his back, Al followed her hands up to her ears.  Her shoulders shook with a deep breath and Winry’s fingers swept the long stretches of hair at her cheeks behind her ears.  She turned to Al, releasing his heart to the pit of his stomach at the forced smile she offered, burdened by more damage than her leg.  Alphonse collected her hand and held it tight with both of his, hoping for her to squeeze back.  Eventually, she did.  Patiently waiting, he watched Winry collect enough of herself to string words together, and Al held on as she began to spin the room with a terrible tale he’d asked her to share with him that night.

 


To Be Continued...


 

Notes:

Poor Al getting a massive info dump. I tried to structure it in a way that it wasn't just a recap of information.

I didn’t write the orchestra birthday with any intention of using it for trauma later, it was just supposed to be a cute adventure (then again, I didn’t plan on waiting so long to finish the story LOL). The outing was deliberately set up by Envy!Hess to get them out of the house, but the fact it was enjoyable was entirely their own doing. Ed was a miserable bugger beyond the Gate and this was one of the few times he put effort into maintaining a good mood and being good company. If they reminisce, the memory is a positive one. It’s one of the few misadventures Ed won’t write off as otherworld things he’d rather forget. But, it's entirely ruined the moment they put it into context :( (which hurts me, I enjoyed that bit).

Speaking of Ed and Winry’s European misadventures, I found some ancient art on an old external which had the concept art for their costume outfits for Patricia’s grandfather’s party. I gave the London adventure some art life during my Christmas break, and posted the images here!

Next chapter is Feb 6. Stuff starts to happen!

Chapter 58: The Trail of Breadcrumbs

Summary:

Al uses the clues his brother left behind with Sheska to retrace his steps.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Easing herself back into bed, Izumi was thankful that her slow walks up and down the hall were finally starting to feel like less of an excruciating chore.  Catching the edge of her curtains with a finger, she moved the fabric aside and peered out into another clear, bright morning.  Some rain would do the ground a world of good.  

How was Sig?  Trapped in a foreign bed, Izumi’s mind wandered home to a cozier mattress with better company.  She hadn’t spoken to her husband in what felt like ages.  He rarely expressed his concerns outwardly, but she always knew he was worried whenever she left his side for any length of time.  After several days of nothing but doctor and military company, her husband’s presence was dearly desired.  Izumi wondered if anyone would let her make a phone call.  Did the phones even work?

The knock on her door that afternoon was clearly not Sig – the hand didn’t have enough weight to it. 

“Come in.”

Mustang let himself into the room, “Good afternoon.”

Izumi’s brow harshly flattened out, as did her tone, “Take that stupid thing off, everyone in the building knows and you look ridiculous.”

The harsh order she had the audacity to command left Mustang shaking his head.  Untying the strings of his eyepatch, he slipped the cover off his face.

Izumi rolled her eyes.

Lifting his brows high to stretch his face, Mustang used both eyes to study the cranky woman, “You don’t approve?”

“I have no idea what I approve of right now,” Izumi grumbled, honestly not sure what her opinion was for the circumstance, “but you’re damn lucky Al turned that thing over to you.  I don’t know how you survived that car ride.”

“Unfortunately for many people, I still managed to make it all the way here and got refurbished,” with the dip of his head, Mustang promptly countered, “you weren’t exactly well for the journey either.  You still aren’t.  Why are you still refusing to let the doctors properly conduct their exams?”

For reasons that were beyond what he understood, and far beyond what she was willing to tell him, Izumi had no intention of letting a doctor from East City treat her for anything, “I have my own private doctor in Dublith who sees me.”

“Yes, I’m told that’s your argument,” Mustang’s expression narrowed suspiciously, “but we’re in no position to bring in a physician from Dublith.  A few basic exams by our staff would confirm you have no internal injuries and would most likely be able to offer you better care than what they’re currently able to give you.  They are trying to help.”

She understood that.  Izumi tried to make it clear she understood they had her best interests at heart even with her refusal.  She tried, desperately tried, to remain cordial in the face of innocent ignorance she forced on them.  Biting anyone’s head off for their persistence did nothing but poorly reflect on her.

What was truly wrong with her couldn’t be fixed.  It could hardly be treated.

“I appreciate that.  But, I am improving, and as long as they continue with what they’ve been giving me, I’ll be fine,” and then she made sure that he didn’t consider bringing something else up, “and the Philosopher’s Stone is better used on others.  Don’t ask me again.”

While he could control the shake of his head, Mustang could not control the look of frustration in his eyes.  But, he’d spent enough time around her in the last few months to know pressing the matter would go nowhere.  If anything, he’d wind up with a larger headache, “You’ll be happy to know the stone has been used up. The last of it was used overnight.  It seems when it isn’t being used for grand ventures, as a medicinal product it can be stretched out quite generously.”

Izumi momentarily entertained the idea of the Philosopher’s Stone being downgraded into nothing more than a magical black market cure, “That makes sense; it’s not a substance that’s ever been created or meant for pedestrian use.”

“I suppose the Philosopher’s Stone might actually qualify as an illicit drug,” Mustang mused.

“Anything with substantial power is a drug,” Izumi qualified as she shifted the conversation to something more concerning, “speaking of, I’ve heard whispers that your political endeavours have lost a significant amount of traction.  Everyone has stopped talking about returning to Central City.”

Her words chilled the temperature of her room.  Izumi didn’t consider her statement all that harsh, but Mustang’s visual displeasure with the topic left her wondering if there wasn’t a smoother way she could have addressed the situation.  While his health ultimately stood to gain the most out of their Xenotime debacle, everything else around the man was falling apart.

“Myself and my associates are not going to be welcomed into Central City in the immediate future,” the officer announced bluntly, like he’d punched it through his lungs.  He fought off an urge that would have curled his lips with a snarl or sarcastic sneer, “it bodes well that I was at least given the courtesy of forewarning on the matter, but as much as I’m here to ask you to let the doctors to do their jobs, I’m also here to tell you that no one will be leaving this East City security net any time soon.”

Grinding her jaw in frustration of words she’d hoped not to hear, Izumi’s expression hardened, “So, Al’s on his own looking for Ed?”

“He has Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong and Lieutenant Havoc to rely on.”

Mustang may as well have said ‘Yes’.  Izumi wasn’t so far out of the loop that she couldn’t put together the conditions in Central City and there would be only so far Armstrong could extend himself.  Havoc was also bound by the chain of command.  Allowing Al to venture on his own was a double edged sword that Izumi had wanted to avoid.  Without knowing what had become of Dante, she desperately did not want him flying solo.  But, at the same time, at least she knew that Al was looking for Ed.

“Dammit,” she cursed the situation anyways.

“Armstrong has chosen to remain in Central to keep his eyes and ears on Hakuro’s joyous romp, to coordinate with whatever Hakuro thinks he’s doing, to use what little resources he has available while he keeps an eye open for Dante, and to keep us advised,” the anger and frustration in his voice let Mustang’s displeasure with the situation ring loud and clear.  Then he forcefully pushed it aside and clawed out a lighter tone, “That aside, once you’re feeling up to it, I can have you moved to stay with Lieutenant Ross and help mind Brigitte and the remainder of the crowd you’re more familiar with, rather than remain here.”

Izumi would be the first to admit she was in dire need of a scenery change, “I’m ready to go whenever someone’s available for it.”

“Very good.”

Without another word to events, Mustang turned and took a firm grip on the door knob.  When the latch wasn’t turned, Izumi returned her attention to him and watched the officer debate what he wanted his next action to be.

Mustang let the door go and he turned back into the room, “Can Ed actually summon the Gate?”

Izumi had been avoiding thinking about it, “I have no idea what’s going on with that.”

She had a feeling.  She’d have a very poignant feeling that if she tried to dissect the actions of their returned Elric she’d find answers, but she didn’t want to.  Izumi didn’t want to be that mad Ed.  This was, by her own admission, willful ignorance, and at some point she was going to have to address it.  But, for the moment, she was too disappointed with enough things already to willingly make herself that upset while she was still trapped in bed.  

“If Ed has been withholding information, he’s put everyone’s safety in jeopardy,” Mustang voiced a frustration that existed outside of everything else grinding at him.

“I know,” even if she wasn’t looking, “and he knows.  The only one who’ll be able to answer anything at this point is Ed, so we’re going to have to cross our fingers that Al can hog-tie him and drag his ass back here before Dante finds him.”

“He better have a damned good explanation for himself,” Mustang growled.

“Explanation or not, I’ll deal with him.”

Both his brows shimmying up high, Mustang had a suggestion, “You should get medical clearance from the doctors before you do anything.”

“Get out,” Izumi barked, throwing her hands wide, “or I’ll toss you out.”

Mustang fought to hold down a laugh at the expected verbal lashing.  He grinned, reached back for the door, and pulled it open to let himself out of the room.

“Mr. Mustang.”

Izumi drew him back into the room instead.

The teacher held him in her narrowed gaze, forcing him to stand waiting while she debated if she wanted to put her voice to something, or simply move away from it all.  It was a harmless sentiment though.  An honest one.  She was happy for him.  Maybe even a little jealous in some way, even if she’d never admit that to herself.  

“I hope you thanked her.”

Curiously, Mustang’s left brow arched a little higher.

Izumi tapped the corner of her left eye.

The officer steeled his expression for a scripted reply, “She’s been spoken to about that decision.”

“And I hope you thanked her,” Izumi tempered a smile.

Standing at the door, looking back into the room, the steel guards came down for just a moment and the most humanized look Izumi could say she’d seen him wear warmed his expression, “Major Hawkeye is aware of my gratitude.”

She nodded at the satisfactory response, “Good.”

 


 

In the corner where Sheska’s suite met the stairwell wall, Alphonse sat on the floor.  The telephone receiver pressed to his ear for far too long, he continued to relay everything he’d learnt the prior day back to Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong.

“So, I think he’s still here in Central City somewhere.  Once Sheska comes back with the car, we’ll start tracking down these leads.”

The officer’s rumbling voice crackled through the phone line, “I do appreciate being kept apprised, Alphonse. Thank you.”

“Of course,” he shrugged his shoulders for no one to see.  Dante’s ever-present weapon was ignorance and the best way to combat that was to keep everyone informed.  Al still couldn’t find a reason why his brother was turning a blind eye to the importance of that…

“You have my sincerest apologies that I’m not in a position to offer aid at the moment.”

“It’s okay, I understand.”

“I would request that you remain cautious throughout the day today and check in again prior to sundown,” though he may have preferred to direct it as an order, Armstrong kept his tone light, “the government’s return last night may have brought more trouble than what we see in the streets.”

There was that dread again.  That threat of a much larger problem than just his brother scheming in Central City.  Al wasn’t going to let himself sit around and ignore what Armstrong implied, “You’re worried Dante was on board?”

“I am.”

Alphonse wanted to not be worried about her. 

He wanted Dante to be stuck in Xenotime licking her wounds.  But, that didn’t fit her profile and it certainly didn’t explain who fueled the headlines splashed across the morning paper.  There was no reason for the government to even suspect Brigadier General Mustang was in Xenotime, let alone involved.  No one had identified him or Major Hawkeye, yet the rumours had begun springing up in the cities the government rail convoy had passed through.  The phone lines to Xenotime were still a disaster and no one could actually contact the source to get accurate information.  So, the only plausible explanation rested solely with Dante, the one person who knew enough to draw the educated conclusion that he’d been involved and attempt to bury him with it.  Even if she’d thrown her darts blindly, with Hakuro asserting dominance in Central City she would have hit some kind of target one way or another.

“I’ll be careful,” Al reassured him.

“Take care today, Alphonse Elric.”

“I will.  Same to you.”

When Armstrong’s voice gave way to the crass noise of the dial tone, Al got back to his feet and returned the receiver to its cradle.  He wandered back into the kitchen where Winry sat with a pencil in hand and her nose in her writing.

“All caught up?” she asked like she couldn’t clearly hear Al’s end of the conversation.

“Yup,” sliding into the seat across from her at the table, he eyed the tiny notepad she was filling, “what’s that?”

With a triumphant grin, she held it up, “For you.  All the important bits Sheska told us yesterday and then some.”

Al smiled at the attempt she was making, “I don’t think the information is going to fall out of my head, Winry.”

The eraser end of the pencil was firmly pointed at him, “There’s a lot going on in your head.  Better safe than sorry.”

The young Elric locked her in a suspicious eye.

Winry’s lips pursed, “And it doubles as the list of your brother’s crimes that we’re going to talk to him about later.”

Al’s brows quickly peaked, “Talk?”

Winry’s face tightened sternly, “Talk.”

Al laughed and let her have her way.  Despite all the concerns he still carried into the morning, he was relieved that she’d woken up in much better spirits than she’d fallen asleep in, “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“I’m fine,” her reply came out a little too sharply.  Winry quickly followed up with a bright smile, “Don’t worry about me.  You need to focus on tracking down your dumbass brother so I can wring his ne—talk.”

Al rolled his eyes playfully, “Oh see I knew—”

“TALK,” Winry barked above Al’s giggles, “so we can talk to him.”

First, Al had to find him. 

If he were being perfectly honest, Al wanted to stay at Sheska’s all day.  After what was discussed through yesterday and into the night, today was probably supposed to be the day he should stay home and keep Winry company.  That option just wasn’t available to him.  At least with the things he’d learnt some of his brother’s words, motivation, and behaviour after coming home made more sense.  If he’d known any of it though, Ed wouldn’t have had any part in discussing a rescue plan for Brigitte or done any alchemy work – Al would have been the one to tie and gag his brother and punt him into the first transport heading north.  His older brother’s heart may have been in the right place wanting to help, but Al was just a little more worried about his head than usual, considering the situation they were in now.

Now, Al had to chase the thinly laid trail of breadcrumbs his brother couldn’t burn out of Sheska’s mind before they could even get to talking. 

He had to admit, sometimes the ‘conversations’ in his head looked more like inquisitions.  Everything his brother had done after Al plucked them off the Thule Hall floor was in question.  What had he done to get home?  How dangerous was he as an alchemist?  How much of what he said was the truth?  Why didn’t he go back to Armstrong after Dante failed to capture him?  What was he doing now?  How was he able to show Wrath the G—

“Are you sure Ed showed Wrath the Gate?”

Al glanced up to Winry, hearing her words ring in his head in place of his own thoughts.  He watched her fold the notepad shut and tuck the stout pencil into its coils, then leave it all in the centre of the table for him.  Nearly letting himself laugh at how Winry had found his own train of thought, Al reached out and collected the notepad.

“It lines up.  I just don’t know how it works or why.  And I don’t know why it had to be a secret.”

Even the dialogue surrounding the situation felt hushed in secrecy – wrapped in lengthy moments of silence whenever it was addressed.  Winry would occasionally try to chase away the uncomfortable silence; a sigh here or there, the click of her tongue, the light pat of her hands, or the slowly strumming her fingers atop the morning breakfast table, like she was doing now. 

She cast her gaze to the ceiling, “Ed let Izumi send Wrath out the door to Dante with that secret.”

That was a decision his brother was going to have to answer to their teacher for and Al could only imagine how well that would go for him, “I know.”

Winry’s sigh stretched long through morning air, “As if there wasn’t a big enough target on him in the first place.”

“Did he do that to you over there?” Al wondered his thoughts aloud for Winry, “just keep you away, or leave you out, and do everything on his own?”

Sinking in her chair, Winry left her eyes to wander through the overhead beams, “Yeah and I yelled at him for it.  He’s still pretty bad about that sometimes.  He always insisted that he was trying to protect me.  Or he didn’t want the world to ‘get to me’.  Or just let him worry about it.  Blah blah blah.  But, I thought I’d gotten through to him a bit lately…” her disappointed words trailed off, allowing a simple desire to come up behind it, “I wish I could just stick him back in his office job and make him stay there.”

Folding his arms atop the table, Al put his head down and tucked his chin away, “How come?”

“Your brother was the least frustrating when he had structure in his life,” Winry answered like she’d spent a good amount of time thinking over the answer, “he had a routine and he stuck to it and everything seemed a bit less scary when I knew what to expect from him.”

Al had to admit that he didn’t know if they'd ever been required to adhere to a strict daily routine.  It wasn't like their mom making sure they ate their meals and went to bed on time and got up in the morning exactly qualified.  He had no idea how he would handle a structured lifestyle, “That’s not exactly something we’ve ever had a lot of here.”

“No, it’s not,” Winry brought her gaze down to the other golden-eyed Elric sitting across from her, “you boys grew up as free-range Elrics.”

Alphonse laughed at the mental image of him and his brother out in a Resembool field roaming like cattle, “Well, when I get him back here, you should talk to him about getting some stability back in his life.”

Winry frowned at the suggestion, “I’m not sure he’s going to want to hear that from me.”

“I think he’ll listen,” tightening his arms, snuggling his shoulders up to his ears, Al nestled his chin deep in his folded arms atop the table, “he cares about what you think.”

“I suppose I could try and convince Ed to get a job.  He's going to need one eventually,” the bridge of her nose creased as she tried to imagine just how that conversation would go, “I think it’ll go better if we tag team him, though.”

“He’ll listen to you better than you think,” tightening the seam of his lips, Alphonse's smile slowly grew a mousy, playful curl, “Win.

Winry’s brow crashed down, eyes narrowed to slits, and her lips pinched as her entire expression shrivelled up at the strange sound of her very short nickname, “Ew.”

Sitting up sharply, Al chomped down on his lower lip, trying to keep from laughing, “That sounded weird.”

“Why did you say that so weirdly!?” she squawked.

“It sounds weird in my head when I think about it!” flailing his arms, Al tried in vain to excuse his awkward delivery, “I don’t know how my brother says it just fine.”

“Ed doesn’t make stupid faces when he does, for starters,” Winry made a half-hearted attempt to reach across the table and swat Al for his antics, “and you aren’t allowed to use it.”

The horn from Sheska’s car pulling up outside the building saved Al from his gaff.  Rocking out of the chair, he escaped the table, “Time to go!”

“Al!”

Dancing himself back around near the kitchen entry, Al fumbled with the notepad Winry tossed to him.  Settling it in his hands, he tucked it away in his backside pocket, “I’ll be back in the evening.”

Winry pointed a finger at him, “Don’t get mixed up in all the city mess.”

“I won’t!”

“And don’t get into anything over your head!”

“I won’t!”

“And get Armstrong’s help if you need it!”

“I will!”

“And—”

Alphonse ran back into the kitchen to hug Winry, “I will.”

“Find your brother,” she squeezed him tightly, “and please come back.”

“I will.”

 


 

Being small and feeling small were two different things.  

Alphonse had to wonder if this was what it was like to feel small.  Granny Pinako had told him long before he’d left Resembool with his teacher that he was already taller than his teenage-sized brother had ever been, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t how Ed normally felt.

Standing in the middle of a clothing store that Al didn’t think he’d ever have enough money to buy something from, his eyes bounced between the three extremely well-to-do men towering over him.

“He’s about this tall.  His hair’s a bit blonder than mine and it’s tied back in a long ponytail.  His bangs are kinda long and hang in his face and there’s this one strand that just stands up in the middle.  He has the same colour eyes as me and he would have come by maybe 3 or 4 days ago asking for this person.  I think he’s the store owner?” Al held up his notepad with a man’s name on it.

None of the store clerks took the notepad from the plain-clothed urchin in their pristine space, but they did give a rousing chorus of Ohhh’s when they saw the name.

“Yes, that is our owner,” one clean-cut gentlemen confirmed.

“And he’s a very busy man, he rarely comes out to entertain a walk-in client however,” his companion added.

Al frowned at the cold shoulder he was getting, “I don’t know if he wanted to talk to him, but did a man fitting that description come in for anything in the last few days?”

Like polished choreography, the trio of men shook their heads in tandem.

Al’s frown grew deeper.  Even if they did know, Al needed some time to plan a way to get that information out of them, “Okay, thank you for your time.”

“Terribly sorry about that.”

“I hope you find him.”

“Have a lovely afternoon, young man.”

Smiling an uncomfortable, toothy grin, Al awkwardly stumbled out the door.

With door chimes dancing behind him, the soles of Al’s shoes clapped off the three cement steps leading up to the store’s entryway and he took another four strides before he stopped on the sidewalk.  He looked up at the carved and polished sign for the fancy men’s shop, leaving his increasingly frantic thoughts to simmer in a bewildering stew.  

This didn’t make any sense.  Not that a whole lot of things were making sense at all.

Al shook his head to clear the mental mess.  

Sending his gaze up and down the afternoon street, Al examined a posh, pristine niche of Central City he’d never come close to entering before.  Unscathed by the furor that disrupted the rest of the city, the pocket of shops operated like wealth had built an invisible barrier for the rich to exist blissfully ignorant of everyone else’s plight.

Why in the world had his brother’s trail led them here?

Al got his legs going and made his way back to Sheska waiting on a decorative white bench.

“So?” she lifted her eyes from her book.

“They said my brother was never in the store,” Al shrugged and sat down.

Sheska’s brow tangled and she closed the book, “I don’t mean to be a pessimist, but considering how Ed has been acting, do you believe that?”

“I don’t know,” Al frowned, “but I also really don’t know what my brother would be doing going into a store like that or where he’d get the money to afford anything,” there was nothing in the growing puzzle that explained what the owner of this high-end store in an upscale district of Central City was doing on his brother’s list of names.  “Are you sure it was this place?”

“Yup.  He’d written it down last and even noted him separately,” Sheska’s response bubbled with confidence, “I told your brother I’d seen this guy’s name on a record of lump-sum payments when I was trying to figure out what happened with Mr. Hughes.  Ed asked how much the payment was and if the payee address had been recorded, and I told him, and here we are.”

Digging the notepad out from his back pocket, Al flipped open the coiled book and stared at the page he’d written out with all the names of people his brother had wanted information on, “The professor and this store’s owner were the only two people from this list who were available in Central, right?”

“Yup,” Sheska answered again, watching the stumped young Elric try to tear apart the page with his eyes, “Ed was specific.  He only wanted the details of people alive in Central City.”

It was a few little white lies Al had strung together successfully to track down the elder professor in the school.  His visual age certainly helped with his plight - everyone was very helpful for a cute, innocent young man with grand alchemy aspirations.  The professor was extremely chatty when he gave the older man his full name and Al was absolutely delighted to hear stories about their dad’s escapades before he’d met and married their mom.  It was a shame that he had to cut the conversation short, but Al couldn’t shake how it felt like there was a bomb waiting at the end of his brother’s trail and he needed to keep up.

Flipping through the notepad, Al settled on the page of information he’d gathered from the professor.  Ed had told the man he was working on a transmutation hypothesis!?  That was a full load of bullshit coming from his brother.

“What the heck…” Al breathed his words, “…is he going to transmute that needs powdered aluminum, carbon, sulphur, potassium nitrate, and potassium perchlorate.  And in what quantities?  And why!?”

“There’s plenty of gas in the car,” Sheska offered, “we can go back and see if the dealer is open?”

“The windows were boarded up,” Al looked up at her disparagingly, “I think they’re only going to show up to make sure no one broke in.”

Sheska wiggled her eyebrows playfully, “We could break in?”

Al’s chest bounced with his short laugh.

A few cars in the street began honking and the unlikely duo seated on the fancy painted bench looked out to see what the rich people of Central might be in a tizzy over.  From a vehicle stopped in the road, a man emerged from the passenger’s side door, gave a casual wave to the disruption being caused, and walked out of traffic as his ride sped away.

Straightening up in her seat, Sheska adjusted her glasses, “Lieutenant Havoc?”

Al was quickly up on his feet on the bench, “Lieutenant!”

“Lieutenant Havoc!”

Stepping onto the sidewalk, the casually dressed officer caught the formal call of his name and scanned the sidewalk, “Well, shit,” he flicked his cigarette to the corner of his mouth, watching Alphonse and Sheska make their way towards him, “that’s one less trip to make.”

“How come you’re here?” Al asked trotting up.

Havoc thumbed over his shoulder, “Picking up a few things for the boss before I get the hell out of Central.”

“You’re leaving!?” Al squawked, “we just got here.  You had all that stuff to do that you talked about on the ride.”

“Yeah, well, that was before that assclown Hakuro decided to let the boss cook in the heat coming out of all the shit that happened in Xenotime,” Havoc scoffed like he wanted to spit his cigarette to the sidewalk, “Everyone’s telling me to head back to East City before someone asks for my hide.  You two should keep a low profile too.”

Sheska’s shoulders sagged, “The newspapers didn’t do anyone any favours this morning.”

“That’s an understatement,” Havoc quipped bitterly, like he had a lot more to say on the matter, but he decided to refocus instead, “I got things to do before I vamoose.  Mind telling me how you two ended up in this swanky end of town?”

Al piped up with a question of his own first, “Did Lt. Colonel Armstrong tell you we were following some leads my brother had left with Sheska?”

“Yeah… yeah, he filled me in,” Havoc took his cigarettes into his hand and rolled it through his fingers while he mulled over his next words, “kiddo, I’m going to have to tattle on your brother and the guy I answer to is probably going to kill him.”

Al groaned, “He’ll have to negotiate that with Sensei and Winry first.”

Havoc laughed, playfully ruffling his head of hair, “Okay shortstuff, what are you doing here with those leads?”

Al pointed to the clothing store a few strides up the sidewalk, “My brother had a couple of people he was tracking down and the owner of that store was one of them.”

Havoc did a double take to confirm where Al was pointing, “That store?”

“Yeah, the fancy clothing store.”

The officer gawked at the destination choice, “What the hell’s he want from there?”

“The place is actually pretty suspicious,” Sheska’s brow furrowed and she folded her arms, adding her two-cens worth, “the owner got a lump-sum payment from the military once, Ed seemed interested in what that was.”

“Yeah, he still gets that,” Havoc turned back around and flipped on a light for his desperate company, “it’s his commission for making the boss’ gloves.”

A bulb in the dim mystery gained life and lit the gold in Alphonse’s eyes.

“C’mon,” snapping his fingers, Havoc led the two sleuths back towards the building, “let’s go talk to’em.”

 


 

A half-dozen blocks outside the city’s wealthiest pocket, a restaurant swelled at dinner hour.  The majority of customers had spent their day vocalizing their discontent over one thing or another, and sometimes everything in between.  From infants to grandmothers, people had been out in droves, and on their way home to entertain another dreary evening many had stopped at what businesses remained open along the way to feed their exhaustion. 

The constant rumble of discontent was the perfect atmosphere to hide the burdens of an entirely different matter.

“Ed’s going to get himself thrown in jail,” Sheska bemoaned below the restaurant’s noise.

Popping the top off a beer that had arrived ahead of their meals, Havoc took the bottle by its stem and rocked it around, “It’s been a while since I’ve looked into it, so I’ll take the staff’s word for it that the going payout on a military uniform is more than enough to cover what he paid them.”

“I swear I never saw him in a military uniform,” her elbows digging into the table top, Sheska’s face swam through her hands, “He was just dressed normally when I met him.  Kinda nice, actually.  I didn’t have a reason to ask where he got money for groceries.”

Havoc couldn’t hold back his light laugh, “Don’t stress over your groceries, Shez.”

“Am I an accessory to a crime, though?  A felon!?  Did I harbour a criminal?” Sheska began melting out of her chair, “are my cupboards full of contraband?  Evidence?  Can they be seized?”

Reaching across the table, Havoc put the beer bottle down in front of Sheska, “Just eat them.”

Sheska stared longingly at the very tempting beverage offered to her.

Quietly in his own world, Al turned Mustang’s right hand ignition glove over in his hand.  He ran his bare fingers over the fabric, clearly feeling the static cling in the fibres.  His eyes traced the brilliant red embroidered lines of the brigadier general’s transmutation circle.  Al could envision Mustang’s flair with just the thought of the gloves.  He showboated often with it, but that style he displayed was a luxury he’d earned, because he’d already mastered control over his trade.  Al had enough recollections, new and old, that he knew what it looked like when Mustang was in serious control of the snap of his fingers.  

It was a little hard to transplant that charismatic poise onto his brother.  Calling the two of them ‘different’ didn’t feel like it did either of them justice.  It was almost comical trying to imagine his brother, who tended to loathe most of Mustang’s pretentious antics, attempt to mimic him.  Though, Al had to wonder if his brother was even aware how much showmanship he put into his own transmutations sometimes.

The younger Elric’s brow grew heavy and weighed down over his eyes, darkening his gaze.  The brigadier general’s glove was neatly folded and Al tucked it back in the wooden case the tailor had provided.  He put it down on the table. 

Somewhere out there Ed had an unmarked set of these; an unidentifiable pair of plain white ignition gloves.

Al dug out the coiled notepad from the back pocket of his trousers and flipped to the page of names.  He revised his deductions: it wasn’t the people from his brother’s list who were important, but rather what they could provide him access to…

“Sheska, what kind of details can you remember about what my brother was working on?” Al flipped to the next page with the list of raw materials his brother had gone looking for, “even something small?”

Her upper lip nearly shoved to her nose, still longingly debating the beer, Sheska sat back from the liquid temptation, “He didn’t discuss what he was working on with me, even when I pestered him.”

“I know you've said that, but maybe there's a clue from something he didn't outright say.  Was there anything you noticed about what he was doing that stood out?  Something he did?”

Bouncing the tips of her fingers off the table, Sheska shoved her eyes skyward, trying to dig out any memory that might help while a trio of pasta dinners arrived at their table.  Havoc reclaimed his beer as plates were laid out, but Al ignored the food put in front of him in favour of Sheska’s pondering.

“Well,” her eyes lit brightly as their waitress wandered away, “it was confident work.”

Not exactly sure what to do with that, Al sat higher on the edge of his chair, hoping for an elaboration.

Sheska folded her arms, firming her words, “It was visually confident work.”

“What do you mean?” Havoc asked the question before Al could.

“I peeked at the contents sometimes and, even though I couldn’t read it, what was written down never looked like a rough copy of something.  Plus, Ed got it all done pretty fast and never tossed any pages away,” she tapped her head knowingly, “that’s how I work when I’m familiar with what I’m writing.”

The tension in Al’s face loosened – his brother was familiar with what he was working on?  But, “Didn’t you say he was trying to figure out an alchemy puzzle?” 

“He said he was finishing a puzzle, and that implies he already knew some of it,” Sheska wiggled her brows as she dug out Ed’s words.

“But he never elaborated on any of it?”

“No, the puzzle was always just ‘alchemy stuff’,” pausing while she investigated something in her memory, Sheska added, “but one time he told me I could call it a formula for inequivalent exchange.”

Like gravity had latched claws into his cheeks, Al’s face sagged, “He called it what?”

“A formula for inequivalent exchange,” she repeated and dangled her fingers through the air to quote him, deepening her voice, “‘its stuff you’re better off not knowing about’.”

Havoc gave a short laugh and took a sip of his beer, “That’s not fair, he clogged your house up with it.”

Sheska’s hands slapped the table, “Right!?”

The claws hanging onto Al sank deeper.  ‘Inequivalent exchange’ was a cryptic way for an alchemist to label their work, regardless of how inequivalent alchemy truly was.  But Sheska was right, the fact he was ‘finishing’ it implied that Ed knew some of the contents already, possibly a significant amount given the volume of paperwork he compiled so quickly.  Al’s heartbeat picked up its pace and his eyes trailed back to the page of raw materials written on the notepad.

Sheska picked up her fork and waggled around in her hand as she spoke, “When you guys told me yesterday what he did at the university I was like, why the heck didn’t he put some of that office knowhow to use in my living room.  If I’d realized he was supposed to have organizational skills, I would have bugged him about it.”

“He must have been bored out of his mind in that job,” Havoc snickered.  Taking in a helping of dinner, he asked, “What department did he work in?”

“He worked in sciences with Dad,” Al answered, his eyes still lingering on his written words.

Sheska’s fork spun through her food, “At least he wouldn’t be too bored there.  I mean, they did have the other three sciences, right?”

“They did,” not able to convince himself that he was hungry, Al pushed his untouched plate to the centre of the table and put the notepad down in its place, “my brother studied chemistry pretty extensively and then got into physics later on.  He was studying methods of propulsion to find a way to get as high into the sky as possible and he said the job at the school gave him the best access to academic resources in the country.”

“That sly bugger,” swallowing, Havoc cocked an eyebrow, “What the heck did he want from the sky?”  

“When my brother, our dad, and Winry each arrived beyond the Gate, they all had the same memory: that they’d fallen from the sky before waking up,” Al explained, “my brother theorized that, if you went up high enough into the stratosphere, it might be possible to reach the Gate.  So, when he wasn’t working, he was studying methods of propulsion trying to—”

The next thoughtful tick of his golden eyes confiscated his voice. 

Wait a minute.

“Al?”

“Hold on a second.”

Like a cat snaring a mouse, the younger Elric quickly trapped a precious domino named 'propulsion' and he leaned into the written list of raw materials his older brother had left behind.  His mind’s eye highlighted three items.

Alchemy was the science of understanding the composition of matter, knowing how to break it down, and knowing how to reconstruct it again.  Chemistry was an adjacent science; it studied how the elements of matter acted and reacted with each other.  A chemist didn’t need to understand alchemy for their science, but an alchemist needed a basic understanding of chemistry for their transmutations.

Was Al looking at his brother’s list of things in the right context?

From the history books of both chemistry and alchemy, the ingredients for one of the most influential chemical discoveries ever made were included in his brother’s list: carbon, sulfur, and potassium nitrate.  Gunpowder.  The first chemical propellant discovered.  

The carbon would have to be in the form of charcoal, but that was just as easy to find as elemental carbon.  What about the other two that were left: aluminum powder and potassium perchlorate?  Off the top of his head, the combination didn’t ring a bell, but Al knew enough to be cautious of perchlorates.  They were oxidizing salts that caused combustion.

Golden eyes locked onto the rich veneer of the wooden case of Mustang’s ignition gloves.  The tiny hairs on the back of Alphonse’s neck stood on end, his shoulders tensing as they rose.  Each subsequent breath he took grew heavier.  Al couldn’t look at this list and figure out what his brother might create with alchemy, but the list definitely had materials that would destroy something with chemistry.

“Sheska!” his head snapped up to her, “we need to go back to that materials dealer.”

She quickly swallowed her mouthful, “The boarded up one?” 

“Yes,” Al answered firmly, then turned to Havoc, “can I ask a favour?”

The officer put his fork down, “Yeah.”

“Lt. Colonel Armstrong wanted me to check in by sundown, I might miss that.  Can you relay some information for me before you head out?”

Cautiously nodding in acceptance, Havoc asked, “What’s going on?”

His thoughts drawn back to the table, Al anxiously eyed the list of raw materials, clenching his teeth.  Swiftly shutting the notepad, he shoved it back into his pocket, “I think my brother might be trying to blow something up.”

 


 

Rich, black shadows were the gifts the brilliant orange sun gave Alphonse in the evening.  Sneaking through them with Sheska, like a pair of stealthy cat burglars, they finally dipped into the darkness shrouding the back of the building and Al clapped his hands to gain entry.

Weaving through boxes, delivery crates, and inventory of the storage room they’d invaded, the duo quietly made their way to the heart of the store with the guidance of Sheska’s flashlight.  The evening light burned in through the seams of hastily mounted boards shielding the storefront window, creating brilliant slices of sunset glowing in the dusty air.  Al walked into the sales floor drenched in the orange hues and silently scanned the room until he found his target.

“Sheska,” he called in a hoarse whisper, scampering behind a long sales counter, “bring the light over here.” 

Rushing in behind him, Sheska knelt down and swept the row of cabinets beneath the counter with her light, “One of these probably has it.”

Al’s palms met and he popped the locked cabinet doors.  Transforming into burrowing badgers, he and Sheska began digging out cabinet contents hand over fist, clearing shelf after shelf out into heaps on the floor.  Inside the fourth cabinet he clawed through, Al found what he’d come looking for: the hefty sales log.

Hauling the weighted book out, Al opened it in his lap.  Sheska held the flashlight above the ledger while Al flipped through page after page of records, scouring for the last entries.  Three quarters of the way through, he found it.  In the middle of the final day’s log the sale for his brother’s list of materials was recorded, including the charcoal substitution.  Al fished the notepad out from his pocket and popped the stout pencil out from the coils.  He copied the purchase record into his notes.  

The sales ledger was left to the floor with everything else and Al slid away, leaning against the wall to study the list.  

“Is he making gunpowder?” Sheska hesitantly asked as she settled beside him.

“It looks like it.”

The comparative weights logged in the purchase indicated as much, but what Al couldn’t wrap his head around was that Ed hadn’t actually purchased all that much of it – at least, not to an amount that justified Al’s initial fears.  The other two powders were recorded at practically inconsequential weights.  Something more thoughtful than outright destruction had been purchased.  Everything still remained volatile, explosive, and dangerous regardless of volume, but answers Al thought he’d found only led to more question once again.

Al reassured his confidence with one thing: whatever this was for probably had no direct relation to the ‘alchemy stuff’.  The materials purchased didn’t justify the volume of work his brother had amassed. 

The stacks of ‘alchemy stuff’ had another motive.  Something his brother needed to be certain on before calling it complete.  What would give his brother the confidence he needed to clap his hands and touch a living, breathing human being – use the life of a friend – just to confirm she couldn’t see the Gate like Wrath could?  Alphonse looked at his own hands.  Despite his insistence that clapping his hands around anyone was incredibly dangerous, so dangerous he was refusing to do it until they were far out of the city, the evidence showed it wasn’t.  Even Wrath seeing the Gate created no immediate danger for anyone around him.

“Sheska,” Al stepped out of his mental stew, “when my brother was testing his alchemy around you, how did he phrase his response when you asked about the side effects?”

She paused to recall, “He said he wouldn’t have done it if he thought something would have happened and that the side effects were theoretical.”

Al scrunched his face, “He was confident in his conclusions that he expected nothing would happen when he went ahead with his trial.”

“Yeah, he said he was just doing it to make 100% sure.”

If the circumstances around Sheska met his expectations, then that implied Wrath’s experience was an exception.

Al tapped his pencil on his chin.  

If Wrath seeing the Gate was an exception, was it safe to assume the exception related all the way back to the creature’s weird behaviour?  It only began after his brother had gotten back and it was safe to eliminate Ed’s life beyond the Gate as a cause, because Wrath had met Brigitte without any adverse reaction.  Al had puzzled over this once before, but knowing now that his brother had the ability to show Wrath the Gate, it wasn’t a stretch to think that it all related back to what his brother had done to get home.

Wrath was the homunculus who’d been raised by the Gate.  There was no other creature in existence that could say it related the Gate quite like Wrath did.  But, from the onset, the behaviour frustrated his brother, like he honestly didn’t know what was causing it.  It wasn’t until right before Ed was in danger of losing Wrath’s mystery that he acted. 

Alphonse flipped his notebook to a fresh page. 

Peering in at his shoulder Sheska held the flashlight high while her eyes followed Al’s pencil, “‘Ed can show Wrath the Gate when he claps his hands’,” her enunciation was slow, following the pace of his written words, “‘Wrath is drawn to Ed because he’s sensing the Gate somehow’,” she paused when Alphonse stalled to debate what he would put on the next line, “‘No one else can sense or see it’.”

Al turned to the woman cataloguing his printed words, “I’m confident in those three.”

“Does it tell you why Wrath could see that Gate, but I couldn’t?” she asked.

Al’s bangs swept over her brow while he shook his head, “No, these are just the end results.”

“What’s supposed to happen normally when you clap your hands?”

Alphonse lay the notepad down on the floor and held out his hands.  Tracing his eyes through the lines in his palms, he tried to think: how did his own relationship with the Gate work?

Pressing his hands together, Al took a deep breath and he let himself relax on the exhale. 

Now that he knew what to look for Al could sense it – that draw of power.  A hum so faint he couldn’t say he felt it, but he could sense it well enough that he almost could.  It was a comfortable sensation that flowed through him naturally.  It was the feeling of ‘alchemy’ that every alchemist felt while they conducted a transmutation, even if they didn’t realize what it was.  But, once he’d instigated the transmutation, Al couldn’t stop the power from entering his body.  The power draw from the Gate was a natural, harmless occurrence in their world, so long as the person had an aptitude for alchemy and did it properly.  It would happen regardless if the transmutation were internally generated by the handclap or an externally written transmutation circle.  He could only direct it and harness it.  If the transmutation was flawed, the energy became fuel for the rebound instead. 

“When my hands come together, I complete the transmutation circle within my body and the strength of the connection between my mind, body, and soul draws power from the Gate.  From there, I can transmute any item into another item of equal mass.”

Sheska cautiously interjected, “Ed wasn’t doing a transmutation though.”

Al tripped over her words and snapped his pupils to the corners of his eyes, “But he clapped his hands to test you for symptoms.”

“He did!” she emphatically confirmed, “but, I asked him if it was human transmutation if he touched me and he said no.  Ed specifically said he wasn’t executing a transmutation.  He was only clapping his hands to test for symptoms, but not transmuting me in the process.  Ergo, not human transmutation, right?”

“Right…” 

Except, that wasn’t how the process worked.

Al peeled his eyes off Sheska as his mental train spiralled off track.  His brother wasn’t controlling any transmutation in order to test for the Gate?  How was that possible?  How could his brother clap his hands to initiate the internalized alchemy process, in order to test for Sheska’s inability to see the Gate, and not do what was needed to actually access the Gate?

Alphonse’s eyes dashed around with his thoughts, his mind running a mile a minute.  

That changed the context of the experiment.  

Regardless if Al understood how it worked, if Ed had already eliminated potential or accidental transmutation, then that was why he was confident enough to use Sheska.  A controlled variable in his experiment was the lack of transmutation all together.  The fact it was a controlled variable meant it had to be shared between both Sheska and Wrath for the experiments to be equal.

With Sheska’s light held high, Al flipped to a new page in his notepad.  Leaning over the page on the ground, he wrote out his next line.

‘Ed is able to eliminate the transmutation process when he claps his hands,’ Al’s hand raced through his written words, ‘but he is still able to access the Gate, which only Wrath can see,’ he rattled his pencil off the floor as he tried to think.  Hastily tying together the teasing tendrils of his half formed thoughts, Alphonse flipped back to the prior page detailing his summation of Wrath’s reactions, and gave himself a thought to chew on: ‘Wrath can sense the deal Ed made with the Gate to get home.’

“That’s not something that’s easy to do?” without knowing alchemy herself, Sheska had no frame of reference, “to clap your hands like you boys do and not transmute something?”

It was an innocent question that put a bit of a smile back on Al’s face, “The first time my brother did it, none of us even knew what had happened – it just happened naturally.  When my armour was the Philosopher's Stone, he couldn't even touch me.  But it’s not limited to just us clapping our hands and instigating a transmutation, the process is the same if it’s drawn, the circle has just moved within our body.  Regardless if I clap my hands, or if my brother does, of if we draw circles instead, we tap into the Gate for the power.  As long as the bonds are strong enough, we’ll get some kind of power.  The stronger the bond, the better the flow, but asking it not to happen is like asking the sun not to rise.  It’s part of the fabric of the world and we don’t have control over it.”

For a moment, a solution seemed obvious to Sheska, “If he can’t stop the power, why not turn off the connection?  Just disconnect the bonds and not get power.”

“Doesn’t work like that,” Al corrected her, “if his bonds are ‘disconnected’, then he goes beyond the Gate.  And if his bonds are weak or poorly formed, then he can’t access the Gate at all.”

Sheska sagged a little, not savvy enough with the science to know where else to take her questions, “So, it’s something else.”

“Yeah, something else, but…” tension knotting up through his body, Al flexed his hands, trying to think, “I don’t know how my brother would go about eliminating the transmutation process and still be able to connect with the Gate,” frustration welling in his voice, his thoughts picked up their pace, “it makes more sense if I just say he can’t do it at all, but that doesn’t explain Wrath, unless my brother has another way to access the Gate.” 

Alphonse lost himself in the echo of his own voice.  Dipping into silence, he stared up at the stretches of evening light shining in between the window boards, his wide eyes overrun with the reflection, capturing the rays glisten brilliantly with every fleck of elemental dust floating in the air.  He listened to his words one more time, feeling his empty stomach turn uncomfortably.

Sheska gently nudged him back, “We still need to find him.”

Al’s shoulders sagged and his posture waned.  Clenching his eyes shut, he had no choice but to acknowledge something and sighed in resignation, “I know where he is.”

Sheska bounced, “You do!?”

Al knew.  Ed was his brother, after all.  Even if he didn’t want to entertain the thought once he'd realized his brother was freely wandering Central City, the moment explosive materials were involved, Al was confident he knew where his brother had gone.  Regardless if it wasn’t as much as he’d feared, his brother had still had a pair of ignition gloves and potentially two different types of explosive materials in his possession.  Al just didn’t want to accept he’d have to go down there and stop his older brother from doing something that had all the earmarking of being ridiculously ill conceived.  

“I need to at least try to do something, Al, but the less you or I do, the more Dante will.”

For Al, it wasn’t that long ago he’d sat in the back of a truck with two Ishballan boys and listened to his brother’s morals whittle away under the weight of a cruel, grey world.  What had five years alone in a place he didn’t want to be done to further mold that frame of mind?  Despite whatever his predicament was, Ed had stubbornly tried to involve himself in solutions.  He didn’t share everyone’s concern for his safety.  And then, the moment he had a window for it, he took off, started scheming, clearly intent on doing ‘something’.

“The underground city.”

Sheska’s glasses slid down her nose, “The what?”

Al needed to find him before he found Dante. 

Flipping to a clean page in the notebook, Al’s pencil dug in and he quickly carved out the last of his conclusions.  The notepad was swiftly folded, the pencil tucked away in the coils, and then the bundle was handed off to Sheska, “After you drop me off, can you pass on some information to Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong for me?  I might need his help.  And give this back to Winry, I don’t want to take it down there.”

“No no no nonono, back up,” Sheska swung her fingers around in the air, “The underground city?  You mean like the sewers systems refugees camp in sometimes?”

“No, I mean the city under the ground," the shining particles in the orange beams of setting sun swirled excitedly when Al stood up.  They swept around his shoulders and danced through his hair as he took a few steps along the length of the counter, "The city where Dante lives deep in the earth.”

The lenses of Sheska’s glasses flashed the evening reflection back at him when she joined him on her feet, “…The what?”

“I’ll explain more in the car.”

Al clapped his hands and slapped his left palm down on the counter firmly.  Engulfed in a magnificent flash of transmutation light, he swept the mess they’d created back into the cabinets, more-or-less the way they’d found it, and relocked the doors. 

“Let’s go.”


 

To Be Continued...

 


 

Notes:

Once upon a 2000s I promised myself to get rid of Roy's eyepatch if I ever had the opportunity and here we are :) Riza had a lot of regrets about what happened at the Bradley residence, but she has no regrets about this.

Izumi: Use your head, not your fists.
Ed: Fine.
Al: NO, NOT LIKE THAT.

I'll schedule the next chapter for March 6 :) Edit - :( so I lost a bunch of work a couple weeks back and I thought I'd be able to claw it back for March 6, but it doesn't look like I can. So, I grant myself a 2 week extension :''') March 20.

Chapter 59: Inequivalent Exchange - Part 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

A single entity persevered to link the sins of the past to the present.  A single monument retained the proof.  The stories that would otherwise be hearsay were actualized with damning evidence.  

On a day like all the others that had come before, every man, woman, and child that walked beneath the sun and the moon in a single city inexplicably vanished.  They had no forewarning.  No one sounded a call to war.  Bells never tolled for an approaching enemy.  There was nothing to let them know that this day would be their last.  Silently, without the outside world’s knowledge, Central City of old became the first obscene crime committed to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone.  In a flash, humanity became indiscriminately entangled with every other biological creation that boasted life and were consumed to conquer the pinnacle of alchemical science as their world understood it.

It wasn’t until Al stood above the underground city and gazed in from the rim that he’d finally seen the aftermath for the first time.  He’d looked at it when he’d followed Wrath down with Izumi, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to understand the magnitude of it all at the time.

Despite being contained within the warped circumference of rock walls, the enormity of Dante’s crime felt like it stretched on forever.  The underground city wasn’t sparsely populated; no, it was packed with buildings and roads and homes and everything that you’d find in a robust city.

A sinking feeling began to creep up – Al had no idea where to start searching for his brother in all this.  

The city itself morphed into an opponent he had to take on.

At street level it was unsettlingly clear that more infrastructure once existed beyond what was encapsulated, but whatever that had been was either fused into the rock or had found another fate.  A handful of buildings clung to the sloping rock face – they reached out unnaturally in mockery of gravity and issued a foreboding warning.  A stone steeple loomed precariously off balance, pointing to the deceased heart of the city.  The streets all sloped eagerly into the belly of the dormant beast and Al dared to follow their lead.  The impure glass in windows, coupled with the cavern’s inexplicable light source, flashed Al’s movements back at him in distorted fashion as he progressed, never allowing him to shake the feeling of being watched by his own reflection.  

Dante’s dark fantasy taunted him with fragments of the past at every other step he took, so Al started peering into windows, hoping to dispel the curse.

Some homes he saw were decorated with rambunctious life.  Others got along with the few precious things they possessed.  So many shops were immaculate and charming.  But there were others where he honestly couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.  In so many buildings lives had clearly been in the middle of something when it all came to an end, though quite a few appeared busy just doing nothing at all. 

Every single structure contained afterimages left untouched and locked in time, completely undisturbed in their last moments.

The gears in Al’s head turned over and suddenly his heart plunged into the pit of his stomach.  He stopped in the middle of a street and threw his eyes around the building encircling him, hastily dissecting details of the abandoned street.  Al studied the walls, examined the roofs, watched the murky windows, investigated the underground city’s entire visage, and acknowledged the phenomenal weight imposed on him by the remains. 

The ‘ruins’ of this once great city were not ruined at all. 

Not a single window was broken anywhere around him. 

Not a single door had been left ajar.  

Not a single panel of wood had snapped.

Not a single stone had crumbled away.

The contents of every building had been preserved just as they had been at the moment everyone perished.  The entire city had been brought down that way, and nothing was displaced as it fell.

The knot in his chest tightening, Al tried to swallow and found his mouth had gone dry.  Paled by the enormity of what had been done, the young Elric traversed the underground city trying to convince himself not to feel intimidated by the unimaginable extent of what Dante had accomplished.

For as long as Al continued on alone in his daunting quest, the underground city never surrendered any secrets.  The everpresent light illuminated everything equally, offering no guidance.  Al didn’t know where the ballroom was.  He didn’t know where Dante might live.  He didn’t know where his brother would have gone.  He didn’t know where anything was in the city and continued to silently traverse streets that never seemed to end.

Every once in a while an elaborately designed church sprang up.  Religion did have its place in Amestris, but the modern version of Central City didn’t cater to a God like the older version of it seemed to.  In a way, it felt a bit like Lior with how a central church was established for parishioners, except Central of old was larger and denser than Lior, so more locations were needed.  Some of them were beautifully grand, others were quaint and local, and some seemed to be entire compounds – like they were schools or dormitories or something.

The churches stood out from their surroundings.  The buildings in the underground city were testaments to the birth of a new industrial age, but older structures, such as churches, favoured stone for their walls.  The roofs were wooden like most everything else, but the windows were all astoundingly coloured with rich, arching, decorative stained glass for every pane.  Steeples with crosses or bell towers clearly marked all of them, stretching high into the air like beacons.  Al wondered what it might have looked like as people arrived, drawn in by a ritual chime.  He tried to imagine what kind of sound must have filled the air if the inviting bells of the city ever rang in unison.

Al’s imagination attempted to put a sound together, but his ears picked up something else entirely.

Something had fallen. 

Something dull clattered, echoing low in the streets some distance from him.

The noise faded quickly, but Al couldn’t dismiss the only disturbance he hadn’t caused.

Drawn into motion before all his thoughts got around to encouraging him, Al ducked into a narrowed gap between two buildings and raced out of sight.  Weaving his way through one of the many alleys the underground city had to offer, he emerged several blocks away.  Al peeked around to survey the scene – the source of the noise felt like it had come from somewhere nearby.  But, like every inch of the city around it, not a thing was out of place.

Wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers, Al puffed out his chest and began investigating a mercantile street.  Storefronts presented their names and window wares like it was only an hour before their ghosts were set to open again.  He hugged their stoops and porches like they offered some kind of protection while he skulked through the street.  His ears interrogated the silence for footsteps, never picking up the grinding of dirt, the faint sound of a door’s cry, or a floorboard’s groan.  Al searched the shadows around ancient shop fronts, frowning at the window panes that teased him with his own distorted reflection, growing anxious for the haunts of the underground city to reveal themselves.

In a poorly lit stretch of dirt, between one building and the next, a noise rattled out again, locking Al in mid-stride.  His heart leaped into his throat and pounded away furiously, nearly causing his voice to tremble.

“Brother?”

The noise had sounded like a wooden clatter and things didn’t just fall in this procured city… 

The young Elric crept up to the buildings’ gap and peered in. 

His golden gaze flashed around, scanning the dusty path, dancing over the walls, tip-toeing into the darkest crevices in one of the few dim corners of Dante’s impossibly lit underground.  A number of wooden planks seemed to have fallen, producing a thin cloud of tell-tale dust.  Al looked to the end of the alley, opening brightly into the adjacent street up ahead.  Slipping into a path only as wide as his shoulders, Al inched his way in and approached the source of his mystery.

The fallen boards exploded to life before he arrived, clattering wildly off the tight walls confining them, and sending Alphonse scrambling back.  It took every ounce of restraint he had not to scream at the startle, but then he had to find far more restraint to keep from screaming in pain.  

A rat latched onto Al’s left forearm.

He smashed his arm into the wall, jarring the creature loose, but the wild thing regained its footing and charged again with fangs bared.  With the swift clap of Al’s hands, the creature was caged before it could take another bite.

Leaning against a cool brick wall and letting out a stressful sigh, Al gawked at the bloody gouges in his arm.  His focus quickly took a stranglehold on the miserable creature he’d captured.  Ed had concealed the entrance in the ruined church in Old Central, but hadn’t completely sealed it, so the rat must have followed him in.  Without a single source of food in this nightmare, Al was the first meal this rodent had encountered in days.

Despite that, Al’s brow crashed down disapprovingly, “You better not have rabies.”

The frantic creature thrashed about in its cage.

“Yeah, I know you’re hungry but, if I let you go, you’re never going to leave me alone,” Al held out his bleeding arm and let himself pout, “I mean, look at what you did.  I didn’t even come down here with water or a bandage and now I have to worry about rabies on top of everything else.” 

Despite what it had done, Al didn’t want to leave it trapped – he couldn’t guarantee he’d be in a position to come back and rescue the feral thing.  It should at least have a chance to save itself, but preferably not with Al’s arm as its meal.  An amicable solution came from the structures around him and a small entry into the adjacent building was transmuted, then the cage was re-transmuted to guide the rat into more spacious confines.  Hopefully it could claw its way out from there, and then… well… Al wanted to worry about that, but he couldn’t afford to.

Al’s pout returned and he stared at his bleeding arm.  There was nothing in his pockets he could use to treat the wound and there was no source of water anywhere.  He grumped his way out of the alley.

Eyeballing the shop signs in the desolate street, Al wondered if one of the stores had something he could use to wrap his arm – even if it was covered in dust, he could shake it out.  Not like there were germs down here.  Not like there was mold or rot or anything resembling biological life, except for Alphonse Elric and a hungry rat.

 


 

Al had tried to transmute water out of the dead soil, but to say it had been wrung dry was an understatement.  After some effort he managed to get a measly puddle to awkwardly try and wash his arm with.  A white rag had been wrapped haphazardly around the wounds.  It hadn’t been the easiest thing to tie around his own arm, but at least getting it done kept his mind occupied.  If he focussed on his arm, it felt like he was making progress with something, because Al had absolutely no idea where he’d gotten to.

After a while the buildings had started to look the same, the streets felt like they were leading him astray, and the centre of the city didn’t seem to be getting any closer.  It had looked daunting from the entry high above, but now that he was inside the maze he felt like he’d shrunk to a speck of dust.  

The endless walking, without a soul around to distract him, gave Al’s mind far too much time to think, worry, and despair.

His mind played the weeks since his brother’s return on repeat – mercilessly cycling over and over.  The memory of the table everyone gathered around to discuss what course of action to take now that Dante knew his brother was home.  The arguments they had over the idea of him being bait to lure Dante into a trap.  The arguments they kept having over and over again about him possibly getting in harm’s way.  The intrigue and frustration he showed in Wrath’s strange behaviour.  How he never let anyone know he’d gone back down into the basement and experimented with Wrath.  How he’d never given any sign that he’d sent a gift to Dante.  Ed had gone on the next day like nothing had happened, the only hint that something had happened came from Izumi.  If she hadn’t mentioned Wrath’s behaviour, or if someone else had been put in charge of sending Wrath out, Al wouldn’t have believed Dante.  He’d still be in East City without any clue.  Everyone would have lost track of his brother and Dante, who had received an enticing invitation from him, would be the first one to find him again down here.

What for?  It was a rhetorical question; Al didn’t think he really wanted the exact answer, he was just mad that the question existed to begin with.  

The best moment of his life was the hug he’d gotten after his brother had woken up.  Everything at that moment felt perfect, like all the hardship had actually been worth it.  But why didn’t his brother trust him enough to tell him what was going on?  After all he’d been through, how thankful he said he was, why had Al been left out of this?  It wasn’t just that Ed had finally come home after a long journey: in the last year Al had gotten his body back, dealt with losing five years of his memories, had a journey of his own, got his memories back, and now he had his family back too!  It was his own whirlwind and this family that he’d wanted so badly had come back together more disjointed than he wanted to admit.

There was a disconnect between the brothers that had never existed before and Al didn’t know how to mend it.  What was he supposed to do?

Unthankfully, the underground city didn’t give him time to work that out.

Something clanked.  Al wasn’t entirely sure what his ears picked up, but it sounded faintly like a metallic clank, and it happened more than once in succession.  He stopped to try and place the origin of the sound, and the outburst of canisters toppling over made the task easy – the clatter wasn't too far behind him.  Standing perfectly still, Al quieted his footfalls and waited to see what, if anything, emerged in the silence.

Another rat dashed across the street, vanishing under a porch, followed by a cousin, and then another cousin.  

Al cringed and recoiled, how many of those hungry little buggers had gotten down here?  Were they stalking him!?  He didn’t want any of them following him, he wasn't their meal.  Shivering and gripping his sore arm, Al kept an eye over his shoulder and started to hasten his progress down the street.

Metallic clatter broke out once more, louder this time, an animal hissed, and one more miserable rat raced across the street at blazing speed.  But, this rat was pursued by an oversized black streak that shot across the pedestrian roadway, and a brilliant silver flash caught the corner of Al’s eye.  A numbing shiver flushed through his body as the animals crashed into a storefront, collapsing the fragile entryway in a wicked, dust-filled racket.  The tips of Al’s fingers and toes tingled as he saw Wrath emerge from the cloud of wreckage, his mess of black hair wrapping his upper body like a dark veil.  His AutoMail leg shone with the light of the underground world, but it was his bountiful teeth glowing through his wiry hair that radiated the loudest. 

Before Wrath could go anywhere, Al transmuted a cage with thick stone bars around the lone homunculus, packing the dirt as firmly as he could to try and prevent him from smashing his way out too easily.

Unease taking a stranglehold on him, Al’s approach to searching for his brother was immediately turned upside down.  Armstrong’s concerns had been validated; if Wrath were here, then Dante had to be as well, and Al quickly began to reassess his position.  How much time had Dante had to get reorganized?  What assets did she have available to her here?  How did she intend to hunt down his brother now?  Did she have any idea where he was?  How did Ed intend to target her?  How could Al intervene?  Could Wrath help him in any way?

Al eyeballed the asset that had arrived and marched up to the homunculus holding a hysterical rat in his unflinching grip.

“Wrath, where can I find Dante down here?”

Wrath didn’t answer.  He didn’t even move - even the rat clawing at his hand went unacknowledged.  He simply stood squarely on two feet in the centre of his confines like an iron statue, his face hidden behind his hair.

The firm seam of Al’s lips turned down with a heavy frown as he slowly started circling around the cage, “How long have you been down here?”

The rat flailing helplessly was the only thing that acknowledged a plight.  

Wrath was a living tantrum, every slight against him and anything that interacted with him was subjected to his vitriol.  This homunculus had no restraint, how was he so silent and still?  

“Dante told me that my brother let you see the Gate, is that true?”

Of all things, the mention of the Gate should have gotten a rise out of him.  By Izumi’s account, both the concept and mention of it spun him wildly with fear.  Yet, despite deliberately egging him on, Wrath remained unresponsive to the efforts.  The inaction unsettled Al, he could feel his nerves fray like strands snapping on a strained rope, and he glanced into the unknown depths of the city to silently question what was causing it.

“...What’s wrong with you?” 

Wrath compounded Al’s growing fears with a reply. 

Lifting his single good arm, Wrath secured the rat’s head in his mouth and conducted an unnervingly swift execution.  Like he’d done nothing more than pop the head off a doll, the homunculus discarded the body parts to the street.  The long, tangled mess of black hair blanketing his upper body moved, swimming around his torso as he turned to face his warden.  Two purple eyes gained light behind the wire veil, latching onto Alphonse.

Al backed up; this wasn’t right.  This was far from right.  Something was terribly wrong with what he was witnessing. 

The memory of Dante rashly clapping her hands and reaching into Gluttony’s mouth to mutilate the distraught homunculus played in the young Elric’s head.  He watched her transform him into a creature mindless enough to barely do her bidding, with no regard to how the raw Philosopher’s Stone corroded his face. 

Al was drawn to the toothy grin leering hungrily at him and watched the tall purple slits of his eyes lengthen before Wrath quickly spun away.

Whipping his arm through the bars of his earthly cage, without thought or care for the flesh and bone that would quickly heal, Wrath demolished Al’s cage and smashed his way into the street.  A set of flesh toes, and an opposing set of metal ones, clawed into the dirt when Wrath burst forwards and charged towards his new prey. 

Al clapped his hands and slammed them to the ground.  A column of earth thrust out from the dirt as Wrath arrived, launching him into the air, much like he’d done in Xenotime.  But, instead of the warm swell of pride that had risen in him the first time, Alphonse felt the chill of dread drain the colour from his face when the homunculus inexplicably leapt from the column and soared through the air.  

Wrath cleared countless buildings with momentum at his back, arching over city blocks like he’d done nothing more than taken a gallant leap through the city skyline.  He descended beyond the buildings in the distance, vanishing behind rooftops and chimneys, his landing accompanied by a deafening crash mere moments after he disappeared from sight.  

Al grit his teeth, clenched his hands, and took off after him.

 


 

Wrath’s landing had carved a swath of destruction, yet the homunculus was nowhere to be found in the aftermath.  The city had contently returned to its dormant state and only the inherent silence of the wasteland found Al’s ears.  AutoMail limbs made distinct metallic noises when someone moved, especially barefoot, and Wrath wasn’t giving himself away.  When nothing at ground level was providing clues, Alphonse moved to a higher vantage point atop the tower to survey the scene.

Perched atop a bell tower attached to a building fronting a private courtyard, Al overlooked the district. 

Wrath seemed to have no intention of showing himself and Al couldn’t help but wonder at what point Dante would come out to find out what the heck was going on in her private city.  Causing a ruckus would make it easier to find her than it would his brother, but he wasn’t sure if he could go that route, not unless he could think up some way to use Dante to his advantage and dissuade Ed from doing whatever the heck he was planning. 

Al slowly circled the top of the tower, taking care to avoid the girth of the bell absorbing the majority of the platform, and took in his view of the city.  Nothing stood out that pointed him in any direction; nothing for Dante, nothing for his brother, nothing for Wrath, nothing at all…

Glowering in frustration at the expansive city refusing to yield answers, Al needed to keep moving and he lifted the hatch to the stairwell.  The orange light of the underworld flooded the stone column and ignited a pair of homunculus eyes nearing the peak of the darkened ascent.

Al slammed the hatch shut and clapped his hands. 

Wrath exploded inside the stairwell with voracious speed, tearing the hatch from its hinges when he punched his arm through.  He was barely allowed a glimpse of Al before he forcefully sent Wrath crashing back down into the tower.  The oversized bell was given a firm push – Al swung it towards Wrath, sounding it for the first time in hundreds of years.  The rich, echoing gong filled the deadened cavern, masking the eruption of crumbling stone and snapping wood when Al’s transmutation released the bell from its mount.  The bell swallowed Wrath whole as it came free and crashed through the brittle floorboards.  It tumbled down the stone column, tearing the swirling steps inside from their mounts, and producing a sound so deafening when it hit the bottom that it filled every crevasse the underground had to offer.  

Straddling the tower ledge, Al took his hands off his ears as the noise faded and transmuted a stone platform from the galvanized tower to shuttle him down to the building’s roof. 

Al stepped off quickly, not realizing the roof beneath him couldn’t sustain his weight.  His left leg broke through the aged wood, sinking him up to his hip.  Before Al had time to react, before he’d had time to panic, a hand gripped his ankle and ripped him into the building.  Al managed to gasp prior to crashing to the floor in a shower of wooden shards.  With only a moment to spot the vicious purple gaze that leered over him, Wrath secured his hand around Al’s ankle and swung him off the floor like a rag doll, throwing him through a stained glass window into the courtyard.

Al landed in a heap in the shell of a once manicured garden as shattered glass rained broken colours down all around him.  On hands and knees he gingerly regained his bearings.  Wrath leaped through the broken window in pursuit and rushed at him, missing when Al scrambled out of the way.  Clapping his hands, a lantern pole was transmuted into a lance and Al squared off with the homunculus coming around for another pass.  Wrath only had the single arm to contend with, so Al let the creature grab the weapon’s body.  Jamming the end in under Wrath’s arm, Al used the torque offered by his shoulder to spin the homunculus off its feet.

“What did Dante do to you, Wrath?” squaring around again, Al took the lance in both hands, “why are you so quiet?”

The feral homunculus regrouped to charge at his prey.  

Al swept around to Wrath’s exposed side and jammed the lengthy weapon into his legs, tangling it at his knees.  Moving swiftly on his toes, Al wrenched it around and put Wrath down on his backside.

“Did Dante get sick of listening to you and mess you up like she did Gluttony?  Do you remember that?”

Once again, no response was given, not even a defiant cry or snarl, and Wrath rushed at Al again. This time, Al stared the homunculus down, letting him run right at him.  The young Elric shifted away from Wrath’s reaching arm and dropped his shoulder below the shining fangs.  He stepped into Wrath’s empty side and thrust the base of his right palm into the bottom of Wrath’s jaw, slamming his ravenous mouth shut and viciously snapping his head back.  Turning on his toes, Al threw his elbow into the small of his back, then spun the lance through his hands and sliced out the achilles of the one flesh leg Wrath had left, dropping him down to one knee.

“Is that it?” Al seethed through clenched teeth and backed up to catch his breath, “she nurses you and uses you, then gets tired of you and mutilates you, like she thinks she can just coerce someone else in pain to perform human transmutation to replace you?”

An unnatural jolt rocked Wrath’s body – tossing his head, thrusting his torso, twisting his hips, and shaking his flesh leg.  Wrath rolled through his spine as his body put itself back together and the homunculus rose back up onto two legs far quicker than Al would have liked.

“Fine,” he snarled, widening his stance in defence.

Wrath flew forwards with fangs bared and Al thrust the lance’s body into the gaping mouth, then watched the homunculus bite clean through, snapping his defence into two.  A powerful fist driven into his midsection threw Al from his feet and deposited him in a wooden bench that disintegrated on impact.  Gasping for air, Al caught Wrath’s approach in his periphery and dropped the two ends of his lance.  From his knees, his palms slammed together and a transmutation was conducted through both the broken lance and shattered bench. 

A brilliant black sheen coated the refurbished lance like a finishing polish.  This time, when Wrath knocked Al to his back and his vicious mouth chomped down on his defences, teeth started to shatter.  Wood was fifty percent carbon and Al re-transmuted his lance with a protective coat – Greed wasn’t the only one who could use carbon as a protective element.

Al continued to break teeth as Wrath struggled, digging his feet into his abdomen to keep him at bay.  The homunculus’ one good arm grappled with Al’s ankles, fought with one of two hands holding the rod in his mouth, but had the most success when he was able to use his strength to move the lance.  Al dropped his knees to his chest and thrust his feet into Wrath’s stomach, tossing him over his head before Al’s grip on the lance could be overpowered.  Spinning up to his knees, Al caught the mess of wild black hair move like a swarm in the corner of his eye.  The lance was pointed and Wrath impaled himself on the unbreakable weapon when he lunged forwards.

Tightening his grip on the end, Al rose to his feet uneasily as Wrath stared at the wide, leaking wound embedded in his gut, unsure of his next action.  His body jerked uncomfortably as a result, but his single hand couldn’t bend or break any part of the weapon.  Before Al could try and rip the sharp end out, Wrath chose to let the entire thing run straight through him.  Bursting forwards, the empty metal port still anchored in his right shoulder jammed into Al’s chest, his feral hand secured Al by his neck, and Wrath charged through the barren courtyard, smashing both of their bodies into the stone wall at the opposite end.

Alphonse collapsed to the ground as the wall crumbled down around them.  The arching windows above sprouted unruly spider cracks and the glass quickly began breaking away, crashing atop the bodies and rubble below.  The beams holding the wooden roof began to groan as the supporting wall waned.  

In the middle of everything collapsing around them, a poignant blue transmutation spark shone.  Almost instantly Wrath was fired clear across the compound, the lance still lodged in his body, and into the heart of stone bell tower.  Al crawled out of the mess and watched the compromised tower across the yard buckle and cave, crumbling down in a boisterous thunder.  The dust cloud spawned by the collapse blew into the garden and bloomed richly above the walls containing it.  Their fight echoed unforgivingly in the empty city.  

Amidst the dissipating clouds in the mangled garden, Al watched Wrath stride through the aftermath.  The lance proudly gripped in his teeth, Wrath’s good hand rubbed his stomach as the last of his major wounds healed right before his opponent’s eyes.  The homunculus spat the fortified weapon into his hand, spun it to secure his grip, and grinned at the Elric he was toying with in Dante’s playground.

Al’s arms flew wide, but someone else clapped their hands.

A wicked flash of light burst and blinded him.  Gasping, Al clutched his eyes and scrambled backwards, but Wrath chilled his blood and froze his body when he screamed.

The first vocalized sound the homunculus released hit a fevered pitch as an unrestrained wail of terror ripped out his throat.  Of all the screams and tantrums he’d heard Wrath make, nothing compared to the terror embedded in this.  Alphonse staggered back until he bumped into a wall and he glued his shoulder to it, pinned by the horrific cries emitted from an animal overwhelmed by some kind of primal fear.  His heart thundered in his chest, causing the white light in his eyes to pulse even while they were clenched shut.  Everything in his body told him to run, but he literally couldn’t see where to go and the growing sound of Wrath frantically demolishing his surroundings only bolstered the blind terror.  Unable to see what was transpiring around him, Alphonse released his own scream when he couldn’t see who grabbed one of his wrists.

A hand clamped over his mouth to silence him.

“Al.”

Al opened his eyes to stare into the pulsing white light.  

Brother!?

“Let’s go.”

Ed wrapped an arm under Al’s backside and hoisted him up off his feet, and Al hung onto his brother’s shoulders as he was carried away.

 


 

Wrath’s screams were long gone by the time Al was put down on his feet again.  Ducking into an archway, the shield from the cavern light made it even more apparent that Al still had some wicked spots in his eyes, though far less abrasive than before.  Staggering around on his own two feet, he dug the palms of his hands into his eyes.

“Jesus fucking Christ Al, what are you doing down here?” Ed hissed.

“Looking for you!” he protested too loudly for his brother’s liking and got hushed for it.

“Great, you found me,” Ed mumbled, trying to keep his voice low, “When did you get back?  Did Dante do anything to you?  Did she hurt you?  Are you okay?  What the hell happened in Xenotime?”

“Everything happened!” Al stretched his face to try and battle the aggravating white spots while Ed yanked his arms out for inspection, “I found Brigitte and we were rescued,” Al clenched his eyes again and his arms were suddenly thrown above his head, “the brigadier general killed Aisa and got red water poisoning,” he squirmed away when Ed tried to pat him down, “Dante hurt Sensei, but Major Hawkeye saved her,” Ed took a firm grip at Al’s ears and tipped his head forwards, “the laboratory caught fire, but we couldn’t stay and left for East City,” Al winced when his brother pulled a sharp piece of something out from his scalp, “what the heck are you doing down here!?”

“Mustang won’t bite the dust that easily,” Ed made his brother flinch again when he plucked out a shard of glass from his shoulder, “is Sensei okay?  What did Dante do to her?  Did Dante do anything to you?  To Brigitte?”

Al felt his brother dust his hair free of loose debris, “Dante caught Sensei and hurt her.  She’s still in East City recovering.”

Ed paused, a deep grumble reverberating in his throat, “She’s going to be okay, though?”

“Yes.  Brother, have you lost your mind?” Al demanded, rubbing his eyes once more before Ed forcefully spun him around, “what are you doing down here?  What… what did you do to my eyes!?”

“It was just a light flash, it’ll fade,” Ed yanked the back of Al’s shirt up, looping it over his brother’s head, “Dante didn’t try any bullshit with Brigitte?”

“Brigitte’s fine too,” Al flinched every time Ed picked a piece of wood or glass out from his back, “answer my question, what are you doing down here?”

Ed took a firm hold on his little brother’s shoulders, “Taking care of something.  Don’t worry about it, you jus—”

“NO,” Al yanked himself away from Ed’s grasp and stumbled around, flailing around until he’d tugged the shirt off his head.  Realizing his eyes were more or less cleared, he spun around, “Brother WHAT are…”

Alphonse’s words fell apart before Ed could hush him again.  Staring wide-eyed at the man standing in front of him, Al’s mouth hung ajar, silenced and taken aback by the unfamiliar sight of his older brother.  Dressed as Sheska had described, Ed’s thick bangs guarded a stern, focussed expression.  His complexion was a little grey and his face looked heavy, like the skin was weighing on the bones, and his older brother’s vibrant golden pupils poignantly contrasted his dark, deeply-set eyes. 

Al didn’t realize his wrapped left arm was being held between them until Ed drew attention to it.

“What happened to your arm?”

Al stared at his brother, “A rat bit me.”

“A rat!?” Ed snorted, practically laughing, “Dante’s gonna be pissed to find rats down here.”

But nothing – nothing – about his brother’s appearance made the elder Elric look as unrecognizable as the growth consuming his face did.

“Brother… you have a beard.”

The corners of Ed’s mouth turned downwards sharply, his shoulders falling in despair.

Engrossed by what he was looking at, Al didn’t have a suitable way to verbalize how stupefied it left him.  It wasn’t like it was a surprise that his brother could grow one considering their father, but the fact that it seemed like it was suddenly just there left Al dumbstruck.  It concealed his brother’s jawline and grew under his chin, crept into his cheeks a little, encircled his mouth, and made its way up under his lower lip.  It somehow seemed a few shades brighter than his natural hair colour, which did nothing but highlight the ill complexion painting the rest of his look.  The travel-weary look his brother came home with already made it clear he was older, but this made it worse.  It wasn’t a rich, full beard like Sig, but it wasn’t a stubbly beard like Mr. Hughes had either, it was something in between and it completely re-invented his brother’s presentation.

“You look weird,” Al gawked, not wanting to tell him who he actually kinda looked like, but was at a loss for anything else to say.

Ed gave an exaggerated groan to his state and scratched his hands through his chin, “Yeah, I hate it too.”

Alphonse was momentarily thankful that Ed’s voice hadn’t changed enough to stop him from sounding like his brother, too.  Al’s hands returned to his eyes, egged on by the memory of the brutal flash that blinded him, “What did you do to my eyes?  Why did Wrath scream?”

Ed frowned, “It was just a flash of light Al, don’t give it too much thought.”

“Was it the Gate’s light?” Al got straight to the point and slung a heavy chunk of information at his brother, “because you can summon the Gate for Wrath?”

The intense weight of the question caught Ed off guard.  He stiffened, wrenching his shoulders back as tension began to strain his facial features.  Ed scanned his brother’s unwavering stance, saying nothing in response.

“Dante said you showed Wrath the Gate,” Al watched Ed’s expression narrow as the younger brother strengthened his position with knowledge the older one previously hoarded, “the only chance you would have had to do that was right before Sensei took him away.  Did you do that?  Did you show Wrath the Gate in the basement?”

Ed’s brow inexplicably loosened and rose high with intrigue, “Dante thinks I showed Wrath the Gate?”

“Yes!” Al clenched his fists and raised his voice to combat the non-answer, “is that what happened!?  Did you show Wrath the Gate in the basement?”

The gears in his head clearly began to turn and Ed glanced away.

Al had no intention of allowing his brother’s mental machine to go anywhere.  Reaching up, Al grabbed the front of Ed’s shirt and yanked him down, “ANSWER ME!  Did you show Wrath the Gate!?”

The Elric brothers met at the nose while Al’s faint echo rang.  Ed’s bangs settled around his face and Al watched his brother’s expression transform from the initial surprised reaction back into the firm and focussed, no-nonsense look he’d carried earlier.  The hardened look felt a little foreign to Al, who was exclusively familiar with Ed’s impulsive, emotionally driven behaviour.  Somewhere along the way he’d learnt how to calm that down in order to operate critically… like the soldier he never truly was.  Al wondered if it was something that was simply learned through the additional experience and age, because it felt like it was part of the gap that existed between them now.  

Regardless, emotion was splashed all across Al’s face and he wasn’t interested in doing anything about it.  He wanted Ed to see how angry and frustrated he was.

Without disengaging in the physical standoff, Ed gave his response, “I didn’t ‘show’ it to him, exactly.  The Gate doesn’t manifest itself, so saying he ‘saw it’ is probably the only way he can describe what’s going on.”

Al firmly voiced a desperate question, twisting the front of his brother’s shirt in his hand, “What IS going on?”

“It’s complicated.”

The bridge of the younger Elric’s nose creased and his brow weighed heavily atop his eyes, “But you did ‘show’ Wrath the Gate in the basement?”

“Al this isn’t the—”

“BROTHER, DID YOU SH—”

“Yes,” Ed emphatically hushed Al in the underground nightmare where voices carried.

Al’s shoulders rose while tension began seizing his muscles.  Every single one of Dante’s strategies hinged on her opponents’ or victims’ lack of information and Ed had sent her a major weapon to add to her arsenal.  Al had sat in a room with Dante and put up with her taunts, fought against what he thought were lies, and had to stomach how she whittled away his faith in his brother, when Ed was ultimately indefensible.  Sending Wrath away with that information undermined everything; from the trust all his friends had for him, to the protection being freely given, to the safety of absolutely everyone.

Alphonse soured, “Then you tried again with Sheska and she couldn’t see it, right?  That’s why you asked her to tell you if she had any hallucinations?”

Ed narrowed an uneasy eye, “Al, you need to stop looking into this.”

“Absolutely not,” Alphonse bit back furiously, “you filled her living room with ‘alchemy stuff’ and then burned it all!  What on earth were you working on?  Why are you down here after all that?  Why couldn’t you rely on Lt. Colonel Armstrong to help you?”

Defensively, Ed began to strengthen his guard and he tried to pry his brother’s hand out of his shirt, “Al, you don’t understand what I’m—” 

“You’re damn right I don’t understand!” Al barked above him and again got hushed for it, “if what I don’t understand is so important, then I really don’t understand why you’re down here with it!  Dante should be the last person you go near.  Are you going to try and kill her?  Commit murder?”

Ed baulked at the question, “No, that’s n—”

“Okay good!” Al cut him off again and finally released his shirt in a huff, “I didn’t want to have to convince you to not murder someone.”

Scratching a hand through his hair, then his cheek, Ed glanced out into the street, growing uncomfortable at how long they’d spent loitering in the street, “Look, let’s get out of the open and find somewhere better to have a conversation.”

Locking his scowl firmly into his face, Al glared at his brother from beneath his heavy brow, “Is there somewhere down here with water to clean my arm with?”

“Yeah,” Ed nodded.  Dipping back under the archway, he led his brother away into the maze of the underground city without another word.

 


 

Al stepped into an abandoned kitchen entry and listened to the drawn out creak of archaic floorboards. 

Intruding in the long-dead home his brother was squatting in, the half-drawn curtains in the window allowed enough light to brighten the front room and highlight all the disturbed dust floating in the air.  Wooden bowls and cutlery littered a meagre table, centuries old cookware covered the counters, and a metallic kettle rested idle atop a wood-burning stove.  Alphonse eyed the two wooden stools near the head of the table with heaps of fabric folded on them, a pair of animal hide slippers placed atop each. 

Ed gave his brother a tap on the shoulder and Al resisted the urge to stomp around the corner into the next room.

The windows on the back wall had their wooden shutters closed, shielding the heart of the home from the perpetual light outside.  Al examined the displaced antique furniture, everything moved aside so his brother could set up camp in the corner farthest from the front room’s glow.  Borrowed bedding had been laid out, a deflated duffle bag was up against the wall, and bags of dried food and canteens of water were stacked next to it.  Near a makeshift pillow, Ed struck a match and lit the candle nestled in a holder sitting on the floor.

Al remained silent, visually interrogating his brother placing one of the canteens of water near the tip of his left shoe.  The younger Elric stared at it, momentarily enchanted with how the metallic container took on a bronze tint in the dull light. 

Down on one knee, Ed reached for Al’s bitten left arm and tugged the wrap off, “Let me see that.”

Al released his arm, wondering if his brother could feel his heart pounding through every vein inside the limb.  Ed soaked the cloth and squeezed it to let the cool water wash over the wound.  Al’s injuries may have needed it, but his burning cheeks could have used that chill.  Ed tended the arm, cleaning the wound as best he could.  Al stared at the wall, listening to the ringing in his ears.  Ed wrapped the damage firmly with both of his good hands.  Al fumbled with the threads of his composure.

Ed tied the knot firmly, “How’s that?”

Al flexed his fingers and tested the arm by punching his brother. 

The fist that landed in Ed’s right cheek knocked him off his knee, dumping him on his hip, and Al swooped down after him.  Straining his damaged muscles, Al grabbed a fistful of dress shirt to anchor his brother with and mercilessly hit him again with his stronger arm.

“YOU SHOWED WRATH THE GATE.”

“ALPHONSE!”

“AND DIDN’T TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT IT,” Al screamed, his voice cracking in the fire of his reddened face, “YOU DIDN’T TRUST ME,” with a relentless hold on the front of his brother’s shirt, Al threw his fist again, “DANTE KNEW BEFORE ANY OF US.  YOU PUT EVERYONE IN DANGER,” the distraught candlelight snapped in his eyes, “HOW CAN YOU BE SO STUPID!?”

“Stop yelling!” trying to get to his knees, Ed grappled with his brother’s fist flying in for another strike, “stop hitting me!  Keep your voice dow—”

Edward fell forwards onto his hands and knees when Al released him and took a grand step backwards.  Erupting with fury, looming over his brother, Al clapped his hands and stomped his foot down on the ancient wood floor.  The transmutation flashed and sealed the brothers inside pitch black walls.  The captured candle fluttered in the breath given by the transmutation’s wake, flashing off the polished surfaces inside the black enclosure, and eventually settling into its calm rhythm again.  Al stood with fists clenched firmly at his sides and head thrown high, burning brighter than the tiny flame beyond his shoulder.  His chest heaved through every raging breath as Al solidified himself on two feet as firmly as the walls he’d constructed.

Down on all fours, Ed scanned his unhinged little brother, dissecting the outburst.  His eyes jumped between Al’s hands, down to his feet, and finally scanned the walls of their confines, “What the fuck.”

“It’s carbon,” Al announced, “now no one can hear us.”

“I get that,” easing off his hands to sit on his knees, Ed rubbed his battered face and kept his brother in the corner of his eye, “what the heck was that transmutation?”

“Something I did to give us a place where we can talk privately,” Al replied hotly, “now you can stop complaining.”

Matching his brother’s scowl, Ed tried to stand up and discovered the enclosure was only high enough for the smaller one to stand.  Ed reluctantly shifted around and settled on his backside, crossing his legs, “There isn’t time for this, Al.”

“That’s too bad,” with a hopeless sounding sigh, Al gave himself a moment to breathe and recollect his composure.  He shook out his weaponized right hand, scrubbed his clammy palms over his heated face, and eased down to his knees in front of his brother.  “Why are you down here?  What did you do to get through the Gate that’s causing all this?”

The question was met with silence.  Ed’s mouth had opened, Al had heard his brother’s lips pop apart, but nothing came of it.  It would have been more of a surprise for Al if he’d gotten an answer and he searched for some way to get through to him.

“Brother, I sat tied up on a chair, my hands locked in a stupid metal box, listening to Dante accuse you of these things that are all turning out to be true!  I have to concede that she was right to call you a liar – that you’ve been keeping information from us about the Gate and deceiving everyone who cares about you.  Why would you do that?”

Sitting forwards, no explanation for his actions was forthcoming, no apology either, and no remorse for what he’d done was evident.  The only thing Ed did in response was put a hand to Al’s forehead and let his voice fill with concern, “Did Dante try to get anything out of you?  Like, did she…?”

“No,” Al shook him off, sweeping his hand away, “she figured out you’ve been lying to me.  What’s the point if she can’t trust what’s in here?”

What was the point?  

Al locked Ed in his sights and watched the concern that had welled up so quickly get flushed away in a nod.  Relief washed in to fill its place.  

What was the point of Dante even trying if there was nothing in his head she trusted?  Was that the point?  Was Al – were they all – set up to be deceived in order to create a lack of trust?  To create doubt not just in everyone, but doubt in Dante?  To deter her from rummaging through their heads?  For Ed to engage her with a ploy meant finding a way to play the game closer to her level, but instead of sacrificing people, Ed sacrificed their trust in order to safeguard them from Dante.

Alphonse’s constitution began to sag, “Is that what you wanted?  To make sure Dante thought you didn’t trust us with information from beyond the Gate?” the candlelight at his back danced as a stream of wax flowed free, “I guess it worked.  She sure was pleased to find out you’d kept things from me.”

Hinging forwards and bowing his head, Ed leaned into his arms resting over his thighs, “I’m not getting any enjoyment out of this, Al.  It was just the best option.”

“Best for who?  You?” Al challenged what felt like a baseless assessment, “why couldn’t the best option have been to talk to me all along?  To work with me?”

Ed picked his eyes up and buried them in the shadow of his lowered brow, “I just gotta take one good look at how close Dante got to you and it’s not looking like the worst decision.”

“Xenotime is a convenient argument for you,” Al bit back, “if you had trusted me, then maybe I’m not in that situation.  We might not even be in that stairwell when Aisa shows up.  Maybe everything is entirely different.”

Turning his hands over, Ed’s gaze trailed down and he let his eyes settle in the open palms of his hands, “Al, it’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it!?” the solution was crystal clear in his mind, Al just needed to clear the muck out from between his brother’s ear’s so he could see it too, “we went on this journey together – to live and get our bodies back and someday move on.  And I know in the past I’ve had doubts and fears about what was going on, but none of those ever turned out to be as bad as I was afraid they were… not until now.  Maybe it is simple.  Maybe you've just been gone for so long you started to forget what it’s like to have me in your life to rely on.”

The horrific accusation was met with a face blanched by the implications and the anguished sound of Edward’s voice eked out of his mouth, “Al, there wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t think of you.  Where I didn’t lay in bed trying to remember or sit around imagining what it would have been like if you'd have been right there with me every single day.”

“I'm sure you did,” Al breathed new life into his words, “but maybe you've imagined it for so long that you forgot what some of it was actually like, because I feel like I’ve done something wrong.  I feel like I’ve done something to lose your trust – not because you wanted me to feel that way to trick Dante, but because I shouldn’t have been used like that at all.  I feel like I’m supposed to apologize or do something to get you to let me back in, but there’s nothing for me to do.  I’m not the one who’s doing things differently.  You’re the one who’s changed.”

Alphonse watched the wall beyond this brother’s eye crack.

Deliberately, stubbornly, and obstinately Edward had spent his years beyond the Gate keeping the world around him beyond arm’s length.  He did it willfully, because it was part of a greater agenda: he did not want to give the other world the opportunity to change him.  He’d built up walls for protection, he’d shut people out, and he’d kept to himself – the less he had to do with the world beyond, the better he would be for it when he came home.  But that solitary defiance was never meant to go on as long as it had.  The private, lonely struggle to get home was never meant to consume a quarter of his life and the merciless march of time incessantly victimized Edward Elric with his own stubbornness.  Well after he’d started to feel like he was faltering and losing ground, Winry’s arrival started to mask the damage and allowed him to feel a sense of that self he was afraid he’d lost, and he’d stopped thinking about it.  But the damage had already been done.

Numbed by the gut-wrenching statement delivered by the voice of the one person he had wanted to retain the essence of himself for, Ed’s jaw hinged open wordlessly.

Al latched onto the shaken look his brother wore and levied more of his words, “Just because you happened to wind up with things Dante wants doesn’t make her your responsibility.  Just because you’ve made some kind of deal with the Gate to get home doesn’t put this all on you.  Dante isn’t your burden, she is everyone’s, and you’re just another tool for her to use like everyone else is.  We need to work together to fight her, but I can’t be fighting whatever kind of bullheaded Edward Elric came back from the other side of the Gate too.”

Alphonse eradicated Ed’s contention in the argument, forcing him to stare into the rift that had been created by ill-conceived, well-meant intentions.

Ed sat silent, occasionally looking at Al, most times letting the thoughts in his head struggle to reconcile in one of the dark corners of the enclosure.  His shoulders slowly collapsing, Ed eventually caved forwards and dug his elbows into his knees, creating a bed in his hands for his chin to rest.  His fingers began clawing through the coarse hair growing on his face while his thoughts shifted his pupils around, and eventually he tucked his mouth and nose away into the cup of his hands.  Wrapped in dark frames, the whites of his eyes shone in the candlelight while his pinpoint pupils drilled straight across the tiny room.

Softening his disposition, Al tried to ease the despondent reaction consuming his brother, “Everything else we need to talk about we can worry about later, but I need you to work with me right now.”

Ed’s hands slid up through his face; his fingers crawled into his bangs and his palms pressed into his eyes, “Al, I’m only—”

“Trying to protect me?” Al filled in his brother’s sentiment with a familiar rhetoric, “I don’t need you to protect me.  I need you to remember how to trust me.”

A disparaging pair of golden Elric eyes looked out from beyond the drapery of loose hair and fingers tangled in his face.

“Talk to me,” tucking his hands away in his lap, nestling his head atop solid shoulders, Al addressed a weary looking human being, “I’m actually right here.”

 


 

A brilliantly carved fountain was the centrepiece in the square at the heart of the underground.  No water flowed out of it, but Al could imagine it did.  Around it there had been rich green grass.  There had been shrubs and bushes.  And there still were benches and fence posts and lantern poles and sidewalks.  There was even a clock tower stopped at ten past eight.  The square was a blank, brown canvas that Al stood in the centre of and painted with his mind.  

In the open air of the city centre, exposed for any peering eye to see, Al was admittedly anxious about his position.  He ran through his mental checklist again and focussed on his breathing to calm his nerves.  He found it somewhat ironic that after everything they’d gone through, he’d wound up in the place he and Izumi had originally planned to meet Dante at after luring her out of Xenotime.  Granted, he was without his teacher for this engagement.  

Glancing up and down the central street fronting the quiet square, Al’s next breath was deep and expanded his chest with air, “DANTE.”

It had been almost three hours since he’d started mulling about in the exsanguinated heart of the underground, trying to get her attention.  He’d been at this long enough that Dante must have heard him by now.  His internal clock told him it was the middle of the night, but there was no doubt in Al’s mind that she wasn't sleeping – one of these windows, one of these shadows, had Dante, or even Wrath, lurking… waiting and watching.  

He’d rather she be out in the open where he could see her, though. 

“Dante!!” Al filled his lungs with another bountiful breath, “I WANT TO TALK TO YOU.”

Al cringed at the sound of his voice again.  He really didn’t like how his high, pre-pubescent voice squeaked so badly in the echo of the underground city.  The more times he yelled, the more often he hoped his voice would change a lot more than his brother’s had.  That wasn’t to say his brother’s voice hadn’t changed, Al just wanted something more drastic and deep like their dad’s.  He thought that’d be neat.  In the boredom that filled in around his anxiety and determination, he’d entertain himself with how he imagined his adult voice might sound when he opened his mouth.

Kicking his feet through the dirt and shuffling himself around in a circle slowly, Al glanced up at the clock one more time, like he held onto hope it would tell him how much time had passed.

“DANTE, IT’S ME, ALPHO—”

“Alphonse Elric.  Yes, I heard you.”

The back of his mind couldn’t help but lament over how sad it was that this once innocent child’s voice now struck him with fear.

Al wheeled around to face the terrifyingly familiar presence echoing from behind. 

Taking her strides like her approach was as simple as a midnight stroll, Dante casually made her way through the empty square and towards the boy disrupting the overnight peace.  The long lengths of Nina’s hair hung untied down her back and draped over her shoulders.  Decorated in a bountiful, lengthy navy dress that gathered in a wide, lace collar around her neck, the generous sleeves swallowing her arms swayed freely at her sides.  The ensemble was accented with bright white lace trimmings and hem, plus matching stockings and shoes.  Dante presented herself like an immaculate doll.

“The parents that lived here had harsh discipline for children who caused a ruckus at night,” Dante’s words were trite, in stark contrast to the childishness of her appearance, “would you prefer a wooden paddle or a leather belt?”

“Um,” Al had to clear his throat, “neither, thank you.”

“Then stop disturbing the peace.”

The sinking feeling in Al’s stomach told him that if Dante could have executed either punishment on him with just her eyes, she would have, “I’d like to talk to you.”

Dante stopped.

The expression she wore offered no insight into her motive for why she’d finally decided to show up right then.  A poker face with centuries of practice hid emotions and intentions with perfection.  She stood a garden-plot’s length away from her guest, unmoving and without a word.  Al took a moment to glance around, never spotting Wrath or anything else that might heighten her advantage.  When he returned to look at Dante, she was entrenched in visually cataloguing every minute details of the solitary boy standing at the centre of her stronghold.  Al let her eyes take him in, it wasn’t like she would find anything different from the last time they’d met, except for a few additional cuts and bruises.

Like the absent winds had changed, Dante finished her assessment, turned, and began walking away, treating his presence like it was of no consequence to her, and nothing to fear turning her back on either.

“We have nothing to talk about.  Leave.”

Al frowned at the disregard he was given, “You aren’t going to try and kidnap me?”

Clicking her heels together neatly in the desolate soil, she stopped.  Dante projected her voice out into the city, not bothering to turn around, “Did you come all the way down here because you want me to kidnap you again?”

“No,” Al’s wrists were still yellowed with what remained of the bruising from his prior kidnapping, “I just thought that was something you’d try to do, since you want my brother so badly.”

Lifting her arms nestled deep inside generous fabric, Dante pushed the decorative ends of the bell sleeves together tightly and concealed the position of her hands within.  She turned, smiling over her shoulder, “You have nothing to worry about.”

The contrast between the words that had been spoken and the dread those words created caused a few more of Alphonse’s nerves to fray.  Al fought to keep his composure steady and continued, “How’s your hand?  I didn’t see what happened, but I heard it was kinda gruesome.”

Dante’s smile withered like a prune shrivelling into a raisin, “It’s fine.”

“Is Wrath okay?” Al went on, “I bumped into him earlier and his behaviour was weird.”

She turned away, “He’s not your concern.”

“Does Nina’s family know you’re okay?  I heard the prime minister is pretty distraught…”

Before the sentence faded, Dante lost interest in extending any courtesy to his words.  The confines of her hands landed at her belly and Dante dug the tip of her slip-on shoe into the dirt, letting Al watch her roll her ankle around while she slowly dug a divot.  Tracing a spiralling trail out, she swept her foot around and she spun to face her guest, captivating him as her hair settled all around her shoulders.  Dante’s brows crushed down over her eyes in lines as straight and unrelenting as the seam of her lips had been.

“What game do we play when we get to the end of this trivial exchange of words?  You’ve shown up under your own free will, what foolhardy effort do I navigate if I choose to kidnap you?  Am I to be bribed with more hand-picked scraps from beyond the Gate?”

“I just want to talk to you,” Al told her again.

“When does Izumi turn up to have her say?” Dante doubted his intentions.

“She’s not here,” Al informed her.

“Is she a little under the weather?” malicia tickled her words.

“Yes, so I’m here to talk to you,” Al wrestled the anger out of his.

“You have nothing I want to hear,” Dante re-affirmed, dismissing him.

“You want my brother,” Al told her something she wanted to hear.

“Yet I have you, again,” Dante made sure he didn’t lose sight of his situation.

“I talked to him earlier,” Al shed light on knowledge he possessed this time around, “and now I’m here to talk to you.”

“And now he’s using you as a mouthpiece,” Dante taunted her company in spite of his bait, “are you honestly okay being treated like this by someone so cowardly?”

“It was my call to be the one to talk with you,” was Alphonse’s reply, “we have an offer.”

The curator of the underground city used her eyes to deconstruct the intruding young Elric, attempting to make him squirm while she wordlessly demanded to be told what he was really trying to achieve.

“I’m not interested,” turning her nose up, Dante rejected her part in the play she was being set up for.

It was Al’s turn to press his brows down firmly over his eyes, “You aren’t even going to hear me out?”

“There’s nothing for me to hear, Alphonse,” Dante threw her arms out to the sides of her body, the generous dress flowing as she moved, “I’m not interested in what you have to offer, I only have something to obtain from your brother.  Everyone can go about their lives, happily and peacefully afterwards.”

Decade after decade, century after century, mankind turned its valuables over to Dante.  She controlled an untold, immeasurable volume of knowledge expunged from their lives by either removing the words from history or removing the tongues of those who might share it.  The pinnacle of all her achievements revolved around the Philosopher’s Stone – a stone that she had always taken from the hands of the forlorn few who forged it, if those distraught souls managed to live at all.  That was the comfort she operated with before the world beyond the Gate, and a wealth of knowledge beyond imagination, revealed itself to be an indisputable fact.  The bar had been raised on what she had the potential to achieve, but the crux of that knowledge resided in another person’s hands.

“We want to end this as peacefully as possible too, and we’re prepared to offer you something significant, so that you can get what you want and we can have that peace,” Al fortified his position, “but if you want to obtain something – something from here or something from beyond the Gate, something else of value has to be lost.”

Dante pinched her lips and softened her expression, but lashed her words at him harshly, “It’s endearing, and quite pitiful, how fiercely you boys still cling to the philosophy of equivalent exchange.”

Al’s tone bottomed out defiantly, “It might not be equal.  My brother says the value of his offer is intrinsic.  It’ll be up to you to decide if its worth it or not.”

Tisking at the impudence on display, Dante whipped her voice back at him with the snap of her tongue, “The braintrust beyond the Gate is not his to own, nor can he stake claim to the skill and ingenuity that helped him return with it.  Edward has no grounds to put a price on knowledge from beyond the Gate.” 

Alphonse dug his heels in and fired a warning shot, “My brother says his offer contains knowledge you don’t have the skill to gamble with.”

The childish bravado Dante maintained vanished, replaced by a stark tundra chill that accompanied her emotionless command.  The glare she besieged Al with grew harsh, icing over before his eyes.  Drawing forwards, Dante approached, each of her steps slow, silent, and calculated while she encroached on her relentless nuisance.  Latching on to the strong golden eyes of an Elric who’d steeled his resolve like the armour he’d once wore, she hunted for his cracks.

“What carrot are you attempting to steer me with, Alphonse Elric?”

Al held his head high above her, “My brother is offering you his manuscript for The Theory of Beyond the Gate.”

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


 

Notes:

*checks clock* yeah it's Sunday now. Sorry this is two weeks later than I had originally hoped ;A; thank you for waiting and reading. This chapter gave me a bunch of hell :'')

Next chapter is April 24th (because I won't be around Easter weekend)

Chapter 60: Inequivalent Exchange - Part 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Dante tilted her head, spilling her hair off her shoulder strands at a time.  She pried her lips apart, only managing to voice a fragment of the thoughts Alphonse had sent swirling around in her mind.

“His manuscript?”

“For the Theory of Beyond the Gate,” Al confirmed.

Hohenheim’s flight of fantasy: The Theory of Beyond the Gate.  An overreaching leap of faith concocted in his youth that loosely tied fragmented historical information together with his experiences in human transmutation to explain a greater universal authority.  It conceptualized a link between two independent universes through a single metaphysical entity he recognized as ‘The Gate’.  The Gate itself had the potential to be anything from a literal piece of equipment for the higher universe to a God of some kind existing in that form.  For the centuries since its conception, Hohenheim and Dante separately entertained the prospects it had to offer for both their futures and their world’s history.  History told tales of travellers who’d come from a world beyond, but no stories survived of Amestris’ own journeymen, if there were any at all.  The Theory speculated on why the Gate existed in the first place, what purpose it was meant to serve, how to reach the other side, and what might be needed to return again. 

But incentive to seek out the other side had dwindled.  There was no identifiable recipient to reach out to beyond the Gate, no one who might know to hear the call, and no one to invite to their world.  Throughout their lifetimes, no one from the other side had ever attempted to come through.  The only lingering hints that existed of a world beyond came from the teasing flashes of understanding the Gate handed out on arrival.  Even at its doors, the Gate withheld its secrets, only ever showing the black void and haunting purple eyes trapped within.

It wasn’t until a soul so wrought and desperate that he sacrificially offered himself to the Gate that Dante revisited the theory’s proposals.  Ed’s gesture was significant enough that he revived his brother, but what use did the Gate have for a whole life willingly offered to it?  What would it do with him?  Where would it put Edward Elric? 

I’m going to find out, was Alphonse’s objective.

He journeyed beyond, was Dante’s conclusion.

But, the Theory hadn’t been taken out of obscurity until after Ed had embarked on his journey.  Dante and Hohenheim controlled the dissemination of its information, both choosing to never do so, and Dante herself didn’t breathe life back into it until she realized what Ed had done for his brother.  

Now that brother was watching hundreds of questions and speculations and conundrums pass through her eyes.  Alphonse stood back and witnessed them all flow in a torrential waterfall, easily able to imagine what they might be.  When did Ed learn about such a thing?  What did the world beyond know about the Gate?  Who educated him on the theory?  Why would he have drafted it?  When did he have the time?  What purpose did it serve?  

Not a single question found her voice; instead Dante quickly shut the turbulence in her mind down and took a strategic step away from the Elric brothers’ dangerously auspicious offer.

“I’m not interested.”

“Why not?” Al wasn’t going to let her get away that easily.

Never addressing any of her overarching concerns, or making an attempt to corner Al over his motives, Dante simply refused the offer on practical grounds, “It doesn’t tell me anything.”

Pretty pleased that he’d thrown her off her game for even a moment, Al let Dante recompose herself.  Fully prepared to work around how she wasn’t going to play along and he stated the obvious, “The Theory of Beyond the Gate explains how everything works.”

“Yes, it does,” Dante wouldn’t deny the credibility of factual evidence, “but it has no substance.  It doesn’t contain tangible knowledge from the other side,” she let out a theatrical sigh at the ineptitude of her company to grasp what she was ultimately trying to accomplish.  With the swing of her next step, Dante began reeling the conversation back under her control and attempted to appeal to the alchemist across from her, “Alphonse, you are a scientist, as is your brother – you understand the hunger for knowledge.  The unquenchable thirst to expand our minds pushes us.  The insatiable craving to find out if there’s something more drives us.  All scientists, myself included, are slaves to these inherent desires to push our boundaries.”

That unabashed drive to expand humanity’s limits only conjured up images of a horrific creation manufactured from of the perfect lives of a girl and her dog in Al’s memories.  Dante’s quest for knowledge enabled her to wear a facsimile of that child’s face. 

“Diana was made, the Gate was crossed, and Edward has completed the journey, accomplishing what no other in history has done.  The theory would only explain the process on how the achievement was possible, but it is your brother himself who possesses the knowledge from beyond.” 

Somewhere in that response was Dante’s underlying desire for self-preservation, even if she was concealing that in the grandeur she fed to Al, “I don’t think we were ever meant to have knowledge from the other side, I think we’ve always been meant to find our own future.”

“The knowledge from beyond the Gate was once our future.  It was something free for us to obtain and we should have made it ours, but we were too infantile to recognize the significance of the gesture,” Dante shamelessly chastised men and women long dead.

Al frowned, “Or maybe our ancestors knew better.”

“Or maybe they were ignorant.  Ignorance isn’t a crime; it’s simply a lack of understanding that’s cured with education,” said the pharmacist who’d weaponized ignorance and controlled the educational cures, “that ignorance deprived us of the relationship we had with the world beyond the Gate, and the Philosopher’s Stone was one of the few gifts they left behind to help open our eyes.  I’ve created it.  So many others have as well.  You’ve transcended it all and been it,” Dante gestured to the unwavering Elric who had nothing to add, “what achievements lay beyond the Philosopher’s Stone?  There are none, so the knowledge needed to ensure we continue to progress is found beyond the Gate, like it was centuries ago.”

Al stood in the parched remains of alchemy’s most horrendous achievement, the pinnacle of science as Dante believed it, and angrily started punching holes in the narrative she’d constructed, “The knowledge from beyond the Gate just gives you more power to control and manipulate people.  You don’t share it with anyone, so the only one who’ll ‘progress’ is you.”

“The knowledge I gain trickles down,” Dante explained her generosity, like Al should have been smart enough to have figured that out on his own, “I plant the seeds and help society grow, and do so in a safe, controlled manner.  Imagine the anarchy if all of the knowledge that had existed throughout history had remained in humanity’s hands, you’d have created all sorts of ways to destroy yourselves by now.” 

Pulling his shoulders to his ears, Al’s frown deepened to a scowl over how blatantly she flaunted her lack of faith in people and desire for control, “What about the ‘anarchy’ you create that hurts people?   That wipes out civilizations? Hundreds of thousands of people have died by now just so you can go on living.  You’ve never created the Philosopher’s Stone for the benefit of anyone other than yourself.”

“It has directly benefited you.  And your brother.  And your father too, by the way,” the corner of Dante’s mouth curled victoriously, enjoying how Al cringed before she moved on, “and all of mankind as well.  You’d be remiss to ignore how much I’ve helped cultivate and guide the prosperity of man while maintaining a balance in society,” she scoffed and shook her hair behind her shoulders, “what do you think I spend my time doing growing old in these bodies?  Indulging in lovers?  Just because I don’t shower myself in the limelight like show dogs toting silver watches do, doesn’t mean I haven’t used my life to devote myself to the betterment of society.”

Dante rose up onto her toes and threw her voice into the sealed heavens, enriching the alcoves with the sound of her voice and accosting Al with the echo of her words.

“There have been so many diseases I’ve had a hand in wiping out – plagues that have killed countless numbers beyond our borders haven’t ravaged this land in centuries.  So many breakthroughs have been buoyed by my guiding hand – your brother would have been a shadow of himself without me.  AutoMail thrives because the foundations of its medical science blossomed out of my studies on the nervous system a century ago.  The mechanical sciences have benefited from centuries of my transmutation research into purifying and refining metals.  I sew these breakthroughs safely into your livelihood and let you thrive!  My longevity has allowed me to curate and continue to refine so many comforts bettering your lives today.  Procuring a Philosopher’s Stone every other generation is a small price to pay for the sake of the larger evolutionary picture.”

“This… this is how you justify murdering tens of thousands of people every half century?  So you can continue your research?” the picture Dante painted of the world owing her the repeated extension of her life sent blood furiously flooding into Al’s face.  His words erupted, propelled by the boiling frustrations heating his core, “You’ve deprived us of our history so you can validate your actions and create a false need to justify your crimes.  You think of my brother like he's a tool to raise the bar with, but all you’re going to do with him is create more need out of the knowledge you gain and continue the murderous cycles.  You aren’t doing that because we’ve actually ever needed anything from you, you’re doing it to create excuses to justify why you think you deserve to keep on living!”

Dante stared coldly into the heart of the young Elric’s tirade, “You’d rather see what becomes of society when it devolves into anarchy without me?”

“I’d rather see what we can do on our own as self-determined people, and not have some selfish person who’s placed herself at the top of the food chain feed us the hand-picked scraps she’s chosen to give us!”

Dante swung the bountiful bell sleeves of her dress out around her body and let her hands meet behind the cover of the trimmed ends at her chest.

Alphonse jumped back and readied his hands.  

Dante’s transmutation light sparked behind her left shoulder, swallowing an abandoned cart on the street curb into the earth.  The light sparked again at her feet where the transmutation re-emerged and the reconfigured cart was expelled as a pile of wood fibres onto the surface.  Dante reached into the fibres with her left hand and extracted a lengthy serrated knife from the mound.  The reach of her fingers barely enough to circle the grip, the blade brilliantly flashed the orange light of her underground estate as she turned it over in her hand.

His arms held wide and palms open, Al anxiously watched Dante calmly study the vicious weapon, unsure what she intended to do with it, but determined to fend her off if she did anything that looked like she might attack him with it.

Dante lowered the weapon, picked her eyes up, and took a single step towards her guest.

Al backed up two more strides than she took and then several more when she haphazardly swung her arm to lazily toss the knife into his feet.  It skittered to a stop before reaching Al’s toes and he stared down bewildered at the weapon Dante had provided him.  His gaze snapping up, Al wordlessly demanded answers.

“Pick it up,” Dante instructed.

Al blinked, “What?”

“Pick it up,” she pushed him by taking another step forwards.

“Why?” Al insisted, glancing down at the knife.

“Pick it up before I do,” Dante embarked on a confident march through the barren garden, positioning Al in her crosshairs.  Her strides gained with intensity, marching with purpose, never hesitant or teasing.  

Al gulped and picked up the knife before he could find out what would happen if she reached it first.

Even after he had the ice cold handle in the palm of his hand, Dante’s approach didn’t cede.  She advanced on Al with authority, aggressively shrinking the distance between them and causing Al to stagger back.  The soles of his shoes scuffed the reddish-brown earth as he shuffled backwards, the knife held at a distance by his side.  What did she think she was doing!?  The audacious confidence Dante encroached on him with brought her up to Al faster than he had retreated and the tips of her shoes tapped his toes when she caught him, stopping him in his tracks.  The flare of her bangs swept over his chin when she tossed her head up and Dante tucked her hands behind her back to offer Nina’s wondrously young, wide-eyed face to Alphonse.

“Kill me.”

Al choked, “Wh… what!?”

“End this,” her words rang like an officer’s order in the air, “use that knife and kill me.”

“What?” he gasped, breathing in the heavy air of rotten fruit that Dante’s presence accosted him with.

Like the knife was in her hand, Dante plunged her directive straight into Alphonse’s heart, “Run that through me, spill my blood on this empty land, and let my remains try to feed the dead soil.  Take my life, allow Nina Tucker to finally die, and set humanity free from my oppression.”

Al stood immobilized by her words; his heart pounding, stomach churning, and chest heaving.  What kind of ploy was this?  Had she gone absolutely mad?  He couldn’t do that.  The arm gripping the weapon became locked in cement near his side and Al’s thoughts crumbled into a disastrous mess as he tried to rationalize what she was really trying to accomplish.

Her voice pitched sweetly and Dante neatly wrapped a verbal noose around his neck, “I’ve handed you a simple, easy solution.  All you have to do is use that knife in your hand to kill me and everything you view as a problem is solved.”

Al didn’t know where the sweat came from that quickly ran through his temple as he stared at this monster wearing Nina’s face.  It was stupidly, irrationally simple, and Alphonse Elric couldn't do that.  His eyes dashed down to the knife locked in his right hand and watched it tremble, though he couldn’t will the arm to move any more than that.  His vision raced back to her, but was captured on the way by the glint reflecting off the silver chain that vanished beyond the neckline of her dress.  Nina’s sweet voice trickled into his ear to interrupt the memory of Izumi’s description of the necklace she wore and Dante tightened the stranglehold she’d taken on him, bleaching Al’s complexion.

“Cut off my hands if you need somewhere to start,” she corralled the disturbed eyes of the boy buckling before her by unsheathing her mutilated right hand from her dress sleeve.  The wrapped and immobilized thumb that had managed to hang on to what little remained of her ravaged hand reached up to Al’s forehead.  Dante used the cotton bandage holding it together to mop up the sweat gathering on his brow, “I don’t like this one anyways.”

His shaken gaze clung to the wounded hand for dear life, unable to access his mind to come up with an explanation for why Dante had chosen not to repair it.  His stomach turned over from the putrid odour the wound filled his nostrils with.

“Come on,” she peeped, shuffling her feet childishly, “I’ve lived long enough according to you.  I’m right in front of you and you have the power to liberate society in your hand.”

Alphonse’s pupils vanished to pinpoints and the whites of his eyes dried out when Dante’s good hand gently took hold of the wrist gripping the knife.

“You can do it.” 

Al’s hand popped open like a broken hinge, releasing the knife to the lifeless soil.  His ears rang and body tingled as the sound of the blade clattering around atop the ground faded in the air.  Neither one of them looked at it.

Dante retrieved her hands, tucked them away in her dress again, and neatly brought them back to her chest.  Bowing her head a little, she looked up at Al with her eyebrows pushed nearly to her hairline and clicked her tongue until his dysfunctional focus found its way back to her, “This is why you need me.  The knowledge I control enables me to operate successfully above the quaint moral authority that shackles you.  I can make the enlightened, unbiased, objective decisions for society’s benefit that you can’t.  That you’re too weak for.  That you’re too human for.”

Al hadn’t realized how deeply he could despise a single person until he’d found himself staring into her eyes and watched Dante effortlessly discard the value of his existence.  

“Tell your brother to deliver his offers himself, I’m not playing any more games with you.”

Dante left Al standing in her dust, desperate for his next breath, but hardly able to stomach in the air she left behind for him as she walked away.

“Wrath.”

Dante’s call summoned a metallic clank that bounced off the ground.  The first thought that Al hadn’t needed to wrangle out of his mind screamed at him ‘move’.  He dove from his position, falling heavily atop the firm ground, and felt a gust blow over his back as Wrath rushed by.  

Like an obedient hound, Wrath trotted up to his master’s side and allowed her good left hand to reach uncontested into his mess of hair to yank his head back.  Dante forcefully craned his head around, twisting him until he needed to rebalance himself.  Locking eyes with the creature waiting for her instructions Dante leaned in and offered him a directive. 

“You can play with Alphonse on his way out.”

Wrath’s head was thrust towards his prey, released from the prison of Dante’s command and his body was launched back into motion.  The homunculus began thundering towards Al like a starved hyena on three legs, his strides crashing into the ground, and the razor edges of his teeth flashed eagerly as he barrelled in. 

His heart still pounding away in an uproar, Al frantically tried to reactivate his mind.  His hands swam along the earth, reaching for the weapon Dante had left him, but a flash of light emanating from the sidelines accosted the eyes of every creature in the desolate city’s core.  

The scream Wrath released when Ed clapped his hands threatened to shatter every pane of glass the underground city touted.

 


 

Wrath crumpled down onto his back, overpowered by Ed’s weight in his dissociated, frantic state.  The unrestrained wails fought back at an inhumane volume, filling the dust-filled air with the horrific sounds.  

Ed used one leg to steady himself and buried his other knee in the homunculus’ chest while he struggled to subdue Wrath’s left arm with his weaker right.  Ed’s left hand reached into the creature’s hair to try and secure him, but it did very little to quell the mounting concern that he was about to lose control over the stronger, increasingly frantic creature.  Searching for some way to restrain him, like the homunculus had desperately tried to do in the basement, Ed decided to find out what would happen if he smacked his forehead against Wrath’s.

Wrath froze – his voice was confiscated and his body was seized, like all the ability and function he possessed was taken away from him.

Taking the reins of control, Ed adjusted his grip and kept his focus channeled into the purple irises of homunculus eyes looking into him, pupils blown wide and petrified by whatever it was they saw.  Each breath Wrath took choked on the air again and again, like every gasp was meant to be his last.

“Wrath, I’m only going to tell you this once,” Ed’s voice rose up for all ears to hear as he physically bore down on the last homunculus and extended a final courtesy, “you lay a hand on Al again and I will bury you so deep in this Gate you will never, ever see the light from the other side again.”

Terror stole Wrath’s next breath, and the ones after that, until Ed figured his point had been made and released him before he passed out.  Ed was nearly knocked onto his backside in Wrath’s frantic scramble to escape, his screams echoing deafeningly in the underground city as he struggled to remember how to coordinate his legs to get away.  Rising to his feet, Ed used his slacks to dust the dirt off his gloves and held his focus dead ahead, watching Dante rub the last of the light from her eyes.  The flash had gone off at a distance and ended up not being as abrasive as it had the potential to be, so Dante’s vision had cleared enough by the time Wrath fumbled his way back to his master that she was easily able to snare him.

A prize presented himself in front of her and Dante stared at what had turned up, visually devouring the scene.

The voice she had an insatiable desire to hear came from a figure that didn’t match any expected description.  Her feet cemented to the lifeless world, Dante’s only movement came when her pupils began dancing over Ed.  They jumped from feature to feature in a seemingly random pattern, like she wasn’t sure where to start unravelling the mystery.  The scowl of annoyance Dante wore lifted to a frown of confusion, which gave way to cautious, but deeply curious wide eyes that locked onto his.  It was the harsh and heavy golden glare Ed subjected her to that ignited the first spark in her mind’s eye.

For a brief, fleeting moment Dante let astonishment and wonder brighten her expression.  Each piece of him she put together breathed additional false youth into the child’s body she wore.  She frantically catalogued the updated details of the tantalizing prize in her sightlines with utter delight and neither Elric brother interrupted her as she did.  Both allowed her all the time in the world to gratuitously expose how she put no effort into subduing the confusion and shock that danced with excitement in every element of her body language.

Ed glanced to Al when he walked up to his side, “You okay?”

Al knelt down, stabbed the knife into the dirt between his feet, and rose back up to answer, “Yup.”

“My goodness,” Dante cleared her throat of Nina’s high pitched squeak and collected matching sets of golden eyes, “welcome home, Edward.”

“Right,” Ed frowned.

“You’re quite the surprise,” a deep breath and controlled exhale helped Dante stabilize her tone, “and you look… well.”

Even if the inflections Dante gave were her own, of all the bodies she could have chosen, of all of the ghosts he’d have to hear again, of all of the lives denied peaceful rest, why the hell did it have to be this one?  The shadows lining Ed’s eyes darkened, “You look like shit.”

Pride withheld whatever sarcastic sneer Dante might have responded with and she pressed her palms together.

The Elric brothers quickly braced in defence, but the transmutation was directed no farther than the creature at her side.  Reaching down, Dante wrapped her good palm around the side of Wrath’s head and cradled it, encouraging him to nestle into the transmutation energy being forced through him.  Ed and Al watched the light dissipate and the childish ferocity that had been stripped from Wrath suddenly overtook his every movement.

“DANTE!” his gasped his first words and took a desperate grip on the front of her dress, “GET IT AWAY.”

The brothers exchanged an uneasy glance – Dante had learnt enough that she could control the modification of Wrath’s behaviour?  Neither one of them liked that prospect.

“Get what away?” Dante sweetly asked.

“IT’S THERE!  SEND IT AWAY!!”

Dante egged on every fascinating word Wrath screamed, “You mean the Gate?”

“YES,” Wrath cried, “Dante plea—”

“Shhh,” sweeping her left hand into Wrath’s hair, Dante moved the mess out of his face.  Wrapping her obscene hand in her sleeve, she used the remaining nub to hush him, “Where do you see the Gate?”

Wrath frantically pointed at Ed.

Alluring temptation plucked Dante’s eyes off of her wailing homunculus and placed them down on the scruffy, surly Elric standing an empty garden plot away from her, “I don’t see a Gate.  I see a… fascinating man.”

Ed’s scowl grew deeper, creasing the space between his brows.

“No Dante it’s there.  It’s right THERE!”

“How is it there?” the demand in her tone began to rise, though she still made a half-hearted attempt at easing Wrath’s fears, “I can protect you from it, you know that, so tell me – what do you see when you look at the Gate?”

Gasping through every breath, his body rocking with the rise and fall of his lungs, Wrath used his only hand to anxiously claw at his hair and he nervously tried to look at his fears, “It’s so noisy.”

“The doors are open?” Dante searched the air around Ed for an afterimage of what Wrath saw and voiced her confusion aloud for all the ears to hear, “there’s no baby to hold the doors open, nothing is crying to upset you…”

“I CAN HEAR IT THOUGH,” Wrath screamed as though it were the only way he could be heard above it.

“The noise from inside the Gate?” Dante asked.

“YES,” Wrath wailed.

Intrigue, fascination, and pure desire radiated from the malicious smile that dispelled any concern Ed held in his heart that he would struggle to differentiate Nina Tucker from the monster that Dante was.

“You can hear the cries from within…”

Alphonse glanced up to Ed uneasily and hesitantly scanned his ferocious glare.

Ed put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, gripped it tightly, and unlocked his jaw to tempt Dante’s insatiable greed, “The Theory of Beyond the Gate can tell you more.” 

Dante let Nina’s eyes gratuitously swell with a childish tease, adding more lines to the wrinkles in Ed’s nose.  She casually took a step away from the quivering Wrath and reached out for something far more enticing, “I have both Elric brothers down here because they are willing to exchange the Gate’s instruction manual for something I can give them?”

“Yeah,” Ed confirmed.

Dante was unable to resist, “What would you have me give you?  An arm and a leg?”

Ed scoffed and qualified his offer, “Winry.”

A single eyebrow on Dante’s forehead perked.

Ed’s voice rose for an impossible offer of exchange, eager to see how Dante would squirm in her own lies, “Al told me that before you trapped him at the Gate you got him to come down here because you were holding Winry hostage.  We want her back.”

“A prisoner negotiation?” without missing a step, Dante gladly picked up the end of Edward’s lure, “the value of a written document equates to a single person’s life?” 

“No,” Ed replied as he strengthened his position.  Aisa had clearly seen Winry in the stairwell with them, but Al assured him there’d been almost no reason or opportunity for her to discuss it with Dante amidst everything that went on and Ed slowly began reeling her in, “Neither one has measurable value.  Winry means more to us than she does to you and she’s not something we can give value to.  The Theory can give you insights into things you’ve never even known to consider before, and more than half of the content I put together is derived from the other side, which makes its value immeasurable.  Two things neither of us can put a price on – Al and I are comfortable making that exchange.”

Nodding her head in acknowledgement of the demands, without the bargaining chip in her possession Dante continued to play coy, “So, you ask that I simply turn her over to you, at which point you’ll provide me with the theory, and then what?  We go on our merry ways?”

“Pretty much.”

“I’m not going to allow you to play this so ignorantly, Edward.  You have to know by now that I want to hear more from you than just that,” Dante gestured to the unexpected sight before her, “just look at you.  We have so much more to talk about.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ed shrugged, stringing Dante along within her own game, “our offer is simple.  We get Winry, you get the theory.  You can study the hell out of the damn thing, actually learn why the Gate operates the way it does before you try to screw around with it or me again.  Try to poke all the holes you want in it, maybe you’ll find something I missed.  If you still think the knowledge in my head is worth it when you’re done, then you'll know where to find me.”

Pursing her lips, Dante slowly shifted her weight over one leg, then swayed back to the other, letting her eyes wander in theatrical fashion as she picked apart Ed’s words, “It almost sounds like you believe that I’ll learn something from the theory that’ll dissuade me from procuring all that you’ve learnt beyond the Gate.”

“As an alchemist, understanding why something operates the way it does – from a car engine to the reproductive cycles to the greater constructs of our universe – is damn important information to have,” Ed chastised someone who should have understood that.

Scoffing at the gall he had to try and lecture her on the fundamentals of alchemy, Dante examined the two Elrics across from her once again.  One somehow taller and far more filled out than the other, she sidestepped an offer she couldn’t meet for concerns more relevant to her interests, “Yes, understanding why something is the way it is fundamentally vital, you are absolutely right.  So, tell me Edward, how long were you on the other side?”

He shrugged his shoulders for an uninspired reply, “Long enough.” 

“How unfortunate,” Dante chided, “I had no idea how much of his brother Alphonse had truly lost when we last spoke.” 

Rolling his jaw, it took all of Ed’s willpower not to chomp down on the taunt.

Sweeping her arms around her body, Dante decorated her voice in sorrow and steered the conversation back to issues she had more power over, “The older brother he idolized left a feisty headstrong boy and now he’s returned as a remarkable, matured young man.  Alphonse has been denied the opportunity of growing with his elder brother throughout his formative years and the man he gets back has shown him nothing but a propensity for being less than forthcoming.  Can he even say he knows who you are?  It must feel like he has no family at all.”  

Ed’s eyes burned through the darkened hollows they resided in, “The personal shit Al and I deal with is none of your business.  Our business revolves around you, me, Winry, and the fucking Gate.”

Delighted to see the fire that could still be stoked in him fairly easily, Dante returned to the matter at hand, “You’re going to have to do a better job of convincing me of your sincerity if you want to catch a glimpse of Winry again.  Answer the question:  How long have you been away?  How old are you now?”

Ed drew his arms up to his chest; he firmly crossed them, tucking his hands away tightly into the creases of his elbows.  Dante’s lust for knowledge and power was inflated exponentially by the possibilities derived from Ed’s age.  Whether or not he had done it, the potential was there for Ed to have done nothing but study alchemy for over five years and he fed Dante’s greed, “I’m twenty-two.” 

Her eyes raced over him, like his visual could somehow unequivocally confirm or deny his words, and Dante slyly offered him an assessment of what she saw, “You look too sullen for twenty-two.”

The darkened look besieging Ed’s expression found a heavier shade when he soured at her for that.  

“Regardless, you’ve certainly had ample time to expand your horizons with so much time away,” Dante indulged in her most pressing curiosity, “how do you show Wrath the Gate?” 

Ed offered a simple answer, “I put my hands together.”

“Every time our palms meet the three of us have access to the Gate, but you’re suggesting that you’ve accomplished something else with the process,” she dismantled the vague response, “Why didn’t I see the Gate?  Because you made physical contact with Wrath, did that have something to do with it?”

Ed continued to provoke her with short replies, “Something like that.”

Insatiable desire begged for Dante’s question, “What happens if you clap your hands and touch me?” 

“Who knows,” Ed took a moment to weigh the fortitude of her intrigue before he shook out his arms, flared his hands, and challenged her, “why don’t we find out?”

Dante’s counterattack to Ed’s challenge came through Nina’s laugh.  The vicious sound of the child’s laughter, steeped in arrogance and dismissal, filled the air until it rained down around them with the aggression of Wrath’s howls, “I’ll allow you to touch me once I’m in a body more suitable for that.  For now, I don’t know what kind of fool you’re attempting to play me for, but don’t delude yourself of the impasse we’re at: you have something I require, but you aren’t willing to give it to me.  I see no reason to turn Winry over to you for a fraction of what you’ve come to understand when you yourself are standing right here.  What do you think is stopping me from executing her if you refuse to get down on your knees for me?”

Like the mangy alley cat he was beginning to look like, Ed guarded his territory against the woman intent on invading it.  He let his hands slip into his pockets and allowed the gloves wrapping them to swim in the dustings of aluminum and potassium perchlorate lining either pocket, “That’s not going to happen.”

Dante brushed her hair from her shoulders and drew her good left hand up to her neck.  She slipped her fingers under the silver chain that vanished beyond the collar of her dress and withdrew the Philosopher’s Stone worn around her neck.  Presenting the gem between her thumb and middle fingers, she showcased an abominable weapon to her audience.

“It will, because I will make you – the child prodigy, the son of Hohenheim – turn over the knowledge you’ve gained without recourse.  If you want to retain any shadow of yourself, if you want the people you care about to continue to survive, I suggest you temper your protest as we proceed, because I would very, very much like to learn what the Fullmetal Alchemist is capable of now that he is home.”

Ed looked beyond his left shoulder to Al, standing square with his hands firmly clasped behind his back.  Al flicked his gaze up to meet his brother’s eye for a moment, and then promptly resumed his watch over Dante.  Returning his attention to the tiny monster intent on ruining everything, Ed withdrew his hands and eyed the dust-speckled palms of the white gloves he’d brought to the charade.  The covered left hand, richly endowed with tactile feeling and all his strength was also burdened with everything he trusted.  The right, lacking the recognition of this world and damaged by his own decisions, was a gift given to him by the brother so important to him that language was insufficient to help him express how he felt.

Ed clenched both his fists tightly, as though simple human strength had the power to make the fabric wrapping his hands ignite, “The Fullmetal Alchemist?”

A rush of air puffed out of the cracks in the dry soil, like a pressure valve had been released and the earth briskly exhaled.  The breath blew Edward’s hair from his face, cleared Alphonse’s as well, and billowed out Dante’s dress as her hair was tossed around.  A sequence of pops led into a series of sharp bangs that swarmed around them from all sides of the central square.  A deep rumble woven into the fabric of the empty city overtook the  explosive noises and began to quake the perfect fortress Dante maintained.  Compromised and damaged wood succumbing under excessive weight began failing with aggressive snaps and window pane after window pane began to shatter as the destructive sound burst throughout the city.  One after another, buildings surrounding the entangled alchemists came back to life one last time before they finally began to die.

Aghast at the sight and sound of her underground castle beginning to crumble, when Dante spun back to tear into the menaces upheaving her sanctuary she found Ed standing with his arms thrown wide and he launched his voice above the blooming furor in the heart of the graveyard. 

“Let's find out what I'm capable of!”

The blinding light that burst at the clap of his hands pre-empted the collapse of the buildings encircling the square, drowning out the sound of Dante’s screams when the flash robbed her of her sight.

 


 

Dante’s own defensive handclap was buried in the sounds of her collapsing city and the cavern seized beneath their feet.  Joining the orchestra of brittle buildings buckling under their own weight, the groomed floor of the underground began breaking apart.  Aggressive transmutation pressure forced into the rock seams began to explode and chunks of dead soil and parched earth quickly burst.  The floor of the city centre was upheaved and thrown into disarray, the pathways that led away from it were shredded, and a jagged obstacle course as far as the eye could see was laid out. 

Wrath’s cries that erupted into bedlam were silenced by a hastily composed transmutation and Dante screamed a singular, indisputable command as she blindly rewired him.

“TEAR THEIR ARMS OFF.”

Alphonse slammed his palms together and drove a rocky barrier up between the two parties.  Racing towards his barricade as Wrath began tearing through it, Al snatched up Dante’s knife from a slab of dirt.  He looked back for his brother and spotted him holding steady on one knee atop the disturbed ground. 

Al had been ready to shut his eyes when his brother’s hands met, but Ed wouldn’t allow Dante to see him brace for the flash and that left him reeling over his loss of sight just as much as she was.  His brother’s incapacity allowed them to judge how long Dante’s vision would be crippled and, so long as she couldn’t see a target, they were confident of two things: whatever action she took in the chaos would be non-lethal and she had no idea Al was acting in his brother’s stead.

The mobile Elric set himself up to address the last homunculus as it smashed through the rock wall, showering him in debris.  

Al clapped his hands and transmuted the knife he held, fashioning a pair of gauntlets to protect his human hands as Wrath leaped in.  Somewhere deep down inside the mess Dante had made in his head Alphonse suspected the origins of Wrath still existed.  Maybe he was even aware in some way, because Wrath honestly seemed surprised when Al’s eyes lit with golden fury reminiscent of his elder brother, engaged him without hesitation, and buried his armoured fist into the creature’s toothy face.  His next fist took the wind out of Wrath’s lungs and the force of Al’s knee crushed the contents of his stomach.  From the metal protecting the back of his hand, Al transmuted a blade reminiscent of the one he’d watched Ed forge so many times.  Driving his fist under Wrath’s only arm, Alphonse sliced it off at the shoulder. 

The blade was removed and Al put some distance between himself and Wrath, watching with a bit of awe at the efficiency of homunculus biology.  Almost no time had elapsed before the regenerative tendrils began flaring out from the bleeding, open wound to rebuild the severed limb.  

But Al’s aggression had left a foul taste in Wrath’s mouth; as his arm continued to reform, he set his sights on a different target and leaped through the unstable ground toward a far less aggressive prey. 

“BROTHER!”

Ed heard the call and clapped his hands.

Wrath visibly flinched and stumbled through his next few steps, like the scared creature inside the monster’s body was begging it to flee.  But the disconnect was too great and, in spite of how his steps faltered, Wrath continued towards Ed.

Al hastily transmuted the ground between them, lifting the rocky earth up like two curling floorboards had separated, causing his brother to tumble away into an earthly bunker and sending Wrath stumbling back in Al’s direction.

The regenerative properties of Wrath’s arm finished weaving his fingers and a coat of flesh wrapped the new hand in time to reengage his challenger.  Rebounding towards Al, Wrath’s kicking leg was blocked, his wild free arm was as well, and Al jumped when Wrath whirled around and tried to sweep his legs out from under him.  Continuing to spin through his motions, Wrath’s free arm snagged Al by his ankle as he landed and the homunculus flung his legs out from under him.

Al’s feet sailed skywards and his eyes found the ground when he tossed his head back.  The strength of his arms became his secure footing; sinking into his shoulders as he came down, Al flared out his legs and propelled himself around on his hands.  The heel of one foot clipped Wrath across the face, and the other slammed into his side.  Swinging back down to his feet, Al slapped his hands together, but never drew them apart – the metallic portions guarding his hands were transmuted together to form a single, solid metal mass.  Al dug his toes into the dirt and threw his fused fists up into the bottom of Wrath’s open jaw, crushing his mouth shut.  His arms thrown high overhead from the momentum, Al drove his fists down overtop Wrath’s head, letting his knees go as he bore down, and he buried the homunculus’ face in the rocky earth. 

Like the earth itself had thrown him back into motion, Wrath lurched forwards in a flurry of rage.  Startled by the quick recovery, Al brought his arms up in defence, but his hands were torn apart when Wrath drove into his chest.  The homunculus’ bare toes shredded the earth as he ran, driving Al backwards until they collided with the plank of earth built to separate the combatants from the elder brother.  The impact shattered the transmuted soil and together they came to rest in a broken pile of earth.  

Al peeked out at the world when it finally stopped moving and he looked into the homunculus eyes looming over him, drawn into the overwhelming cognitive vacancy they were consumed with.  The purple slits stared at him, Al could have sworn he’d been identified as some sort of item, but Wrath’s gaze showed no acknowledgement that someone was looking back at him.  Al shifted beneath the monster Dante contrived, struggling to move his right arm awkwardly pinned near his ear by Wrath’s inhuman grip.  He didn’t dare struggle with his other – it was snared by the teeth that had taken hold of it.

A much, much larger feral rat had sunk its teeth into Al’s left forearm.  

The crumbling underground had gone quiet in his ears.  Time struggled to crawl along, stretching out the passing seconds Alphonse spent doing nothing but stare at it.  He could not explain how he could feel Wrath’s teeth, why he could see the blood seeping out around the wounds, and why he could feel the arm pulse like it was in pain, but somehow none of it actually hurt.

Wrath attempted more than once to tighten his bite, but the damage Al had done to his jaw moments before spared him.  Drawing his knees up to his chest, Al put the soles of his shoes into Wrath’s stomach and lifted his hips off of him.  Wrath’s legs flailed around as they left the ground and he scrambled to maintain his control as Al rolled back onto his shoulders.  Wrath nearly ripped a scream out of Al’s lungs when he attempted to adjust his balance over the chomp he’d taken into the arm, but Al thrust him off before it got any worse. 

Wrath landed heavily on his back and Alphonse pushed himself away with a transmutation that grew a thick array of earthy spikes polished to pinpoints in the space built between them. 

The aggressive defence did not deter his opposition – Wrath picked himself up and jumped, attempting to overcome the lethal barricade as it formed.  A single leap wasn’t enough and the base of the solid metal foot Winry had made was called upon to crush the head of the spike Wrath landed on.  Utilizing the durability of impermeable metal, the spike was transformed into a platform that he used to propel himself upwards.

Al craned his head back to look skywards as Wrath rose up overhead, tensing as the creature turned his body around on descent.  The hard, unforgiving metallic leg kicked out to lead his attack, flashing amber in the underground light as gravity brought him speeding down.  Al pressed his hands together as Wrath’s shadow enveloped him and he reached up into the shade.  The palm of his hand absorbed the impact of the merciless heel destined to ravage him from above and the transmutation energy surging through Al’s fingers shattered the AutoMail limb.

The explosive power of the destructive transmutation punched Al down to the ground and launched Wrath beyond the outer reaches of the square in a sprawling shower of metallic debris.

The residual crumble of the underground city settled in as ambient noise in the tussle’s wake.

Crawling out of the dusty aftermath, Al coughed and gasped for his breaths.  Now his arm hurt.  It really hurt.  The suit of armour shielded him from all the physical pain he’d have otherwise endured, but now this soft, warm arm was a bloody, howling mess.  His lungs wanted to empty like his body was crying for him to, but he swallowed the urge – Al had no intention of giving Dante any insight into their situation.  He tried to flex his fingers but they weren’t interested in cooperating and all he could do was cradle the arm against his stomach.  From his knees he silently surveyed the dusty bedlam calming throughout the city.

A transmutation light in the centre of the underground city burst and fanned out into the city.  Al flinched as it went by, but he was left unharmed as it passed and spread harmlessly.  The transmutation quickly reached the outer rim of the city and it brightly washed the stone walls, polishing every crevasse to erase any markings that would have identified where to get out… if an exit still remained at all.

But it was a passive transmutation, letting Al know Dante’s vision was still hindered.  Dragging himself back up to his feet, Al pulled his shirt off over his head with his good hand, grabbed his sleeve in his teeth, and wrapped the shirt around his wounded arm.  Holding the ends of his shirt together in his good hand, Al scrambled through the mess to rejoin his brother.

 


 

Tucked away in a nest of dirt and upheaved soil, Ed didn’t need his vision to be completely cleared to tie the ends of Al’s shirt for him, “What the hell happened?”

“Wrath caught me,” the vague answer was given between heavy breaths, “I’ll be fine.”

Ed finished the knot and let his brother reclaim the arm, “What was that transmutation you sent through the city?”

“Wasn’t me, it was Dante,” Al corrected, “looks like she wiped out all the exits.  Do you want me to set off another round?”

Ed debated the offer.  A number of the taller buildings around the city centre had been staged with small packets of gunpowder affixed to lower supports.  Each one was meant to go off like a small firecracker and compromise the infrastructure, then the building's weight, gravity, plus woefully fragile state would allow them to collapse in on themselves with little additional effort.  In the playground of alchemists, Dante had absolutely no reason to consider manual triggers would be used to cause an uproar, and if she did start to suspect anything it would only add confusion to her speculations.  Now that Al was involved, Ed had a plethora of options to play around with.

Edward Elric just needed to be the Fullmetal Alchemist one last time.

The energy hadn't been there for alchemy the second time he'd woken up on the other side of the Gate.  A lot of days, it wasn’t even a thought.  Performing alchemy required stamina, something Ed used to have in abundance, but for a while all of his energy was needed just to get out of bed.  Izumi’s teachings had made it easy for him to transition to a life where he couldn’t rely on alchemy for day to day tasks – she’d made sure he’d known how to take care of himself first, even if he only had one arm and one and a half legs to accomplish that with now.  Everything beyond the Gate felt hard, but leaving the practical applications of alchemy behind didn’t add to Ed’s grief.  The potential of the science still captured his imagination, and by the time he sat in a room by himself and put his hand down on a transmutation circle lazily etched on a piece of paper, it wasn’t resignation that he felt when nothing happened, it was relief.  There were enough things in his life that left him feeling disappointed in everyone or everything or just himself that Ed didn’t mourn his loss of alchemy in the other world.  He had other things that weighed on his heart more, so he acknowledged it, accepted it, and moved on.

Returning home with a bounty of otherworld knowledge was tantalizing – Edward had spent so much time studying with only the Alphonse Elric in his head that the thought of actually sharing it with his younger brother made him childishly excited.  But, returning home and striking out as an acclaimed alchemist all over again hadn’t factored in.  It didn’t motivate him.  Al motivated him.  Winry motivated him.  The people he wanted back in his life motivated him.  Getting home for what they gave to his life motivated him and Ed didn’t need the rest.

But when he returned the Fullmetal Alchemist was resurrected right along with him.  The Fullmetal Alchemist was the title Ed had paraded around Amestris with for years, his little brother in tow, and they lived that life together.  The Fullmetal Alchemist was the only kind of Edward Elric the military personnel knew.  It was the path Ed walked in spite of his teacher’s feelings.  It was the burden he’d taken on after he’d burned his childhood to the ground, so he could march into the adult world and repair what little he had left.  The Fullmetal Alchemist became relevant to nearly every person who looked at him or even heard of him – including Dante – and he needed to fill that heavy role. 

So, Ed hadn’t told any of them that the Fullmetal Alchemist was gone.  The sacrifice and conditions required of him to re-enter this world made the resulting loss of his alchemy an afterthought; Ed didn’t care, he just wanted to be home.  He understood how his decisions of the past and present would affect his life going forwards and he accepted the consequences of those actions.

But there had to be some way to use his situation to his advantage and one thing he couldn’t say for certain on return was what exactly would happen when he finally did put his hands together.  He feared a number of things, but suspected it would be nothing at all, so Wrath was an unnerving but relieving surprise.  The final pieces of an improvised experiment were put in place and all that remained was for Ed to make certain Dante was unequivocally convinced the person she was entangled with was the Fullmetal Alchemist she was expecting.

“Where the heck did she go out there?” Al peered over a rocky ridge as Dante’s presence remained dormant.

The silence Dante was wrapping herself in wasn’t sitting well with Ed either, “She’s up to something.”

“Too bad we can’t sniff her out,” Al voiced a passing thought.

Ed raised an eyebrow, “Sniff her out?”

Al turned around to explain, “You were too far away to smell it.  Dante’s wearing some kind of gross, perfume-y ointment.”

“Perfume?” the word unlocked a gear inside Edward’s head and his eyes began to widen when it turned, “what’s it smell like?”

Cradling his left arm against his stomach, Al looked to the rocky ceiling as he thought, “It’s not body odour.  Rotten fruit I guess?  It smells like the bottle of whatever she’s using expired.”

Even if his vision hadn’t completely cleared, Ed’s facial reaction still showed how a collection of ideas in his head had spun into motion, “…She’s rotting?”

“Rotting!?” Al squeaked, “why would you think that?”

“There’s an odour the body gives off when it rots, it’s kinda got that perfume sense, but it’s foul,” hastily putting what he knew out on his mental table, Ed scrambled to line up how Dante’s soul could already be destroying Nina’s body, “you weren’t able to smell it back then, but Dad had it before he crossed the Gate and Dante came down with it shortly after she moved into Lyra.”

Coming down off the ridge and crouching next to his brother, Al joined him in lining up the pieces of their mystery, “Nina shouldn’t have that problem.  Do you think it has anything to do with her bad hand?  It was pretty potent when she stuck it in my face.”

“An open wound might be an easy target for the rot to consume,” Ed tried to remember if their dad had made any mention of something like that, but he couldn’t say.  From what Hohenheim had said was the rot was directly connected to the rate of decomposition the soul was experiencing.  The body rotted as a result, like acid spilled out of the soul as it degraded to ruin the container.  The rot was exacerbated if Dante had a soul like Lyra’s to suppress, but Nina was a gift that should have guaranteed her many additional years.

Ed’s eyes compressed to narrow slits, “Unless it’s worse than we thought…”

Racking his brain, Al remembered why the smell had been familiar, “I smelled it in Xenotime too!  It was in the air in the room… and around her, but not this strong.”

“Can you remember anything before that?” Ed asked.

Al thought back to the only other time he’d spent with Dante, “No, she was fine at the Gate.  This is recent.”

Was Dante running out of time?  Ed dissected the potential of that scenario.  If her soul was destroying Nina’s body, it had to be dying at an accelerated rate and that would mean Dante’s actions and decisions were being forced on her with an increased sense of desperation.  But, something wasn’t adding up and Ed shuffled pieces around to put his finger on it.  Why was the rot obvious?  Why wasn’t she healing it?  She arrogantly dangled a piece of the Philosopher’s Stone in front of their faces, yet her hand remained a mangled mess and she wasn’t covering up the smell that plagued her.  And then there was Aisa…

“Maybe that’s it,” a forming thought escaped Ed’s lips.

“What’s it?” Al asked the churning gears.

“That’s it – that’s all she has left.  You guys said you didn’t know how deep Dante’s resources go… what if they don’t go that far?” Ed laid out the parts of a puzzle coming together in his mind and began slamming pieces together, “why the hell would Dante go to all that trouble and waste all that time creating something like Aisa just to finish solidifying a portion of that Philosopher’s Stone if she has stock?  Say she spent a few years setting up the fall of Ishibal, and then she spent ten more years after that tracking the damn thing down to try and finish it, before she finally got her hands on the fraction inside Gluttony.  While she was chasing it she was forced out of that old lady’s body into Lyra.  Then the rot got so bad so quickly that she built Aisa, but rather than trying to salvage Lyra’s body she jumped into Tucker’s soulless re-creation of Nina.  Why the hell would she do all that if she had more than a pendant and Gluttony’s slow-working guts to rely on?”

Answers coming to fruition began looking Al in the face, “If the gem around her neck is all that’s left of the Philosopher’s Stone, if she starts healing Nina’s body with it she won’t have enough to secure the knowledge you came back with.  There’s no guarantee it’ll even sustain Nina’s body long enough for her to get a chance to make another Philosopher’s Stone."

"It would explain why she didn't go straight to snooping around in your head when you were in Xenotime," Ed added on.

"If she can't risk depleting it for anything frivolous,” Al solidified the conclusion and stared poignantly at his brother, “then Dante needs the knowledge you came back with to save her life now.”

The urgency to manage what they were trying to accomplish ratcheted up a notch and Ed needed their position secured, “What did you do with Wrath?”

“He’s crawling around somewhere.  I broke his AutoMail leg; don’t tell Winry,” Al winced, “is your vision clearing?”

“Yeah it’s pretty clean,” Ed clawed the ignition gloves off his hands; if Wrath wasn’t available to scream, flail around, and cause a fuss, he wasn’t going to catch Dante off guard with an amplified camera flash in the palms of his hands a second time, “get him out of sight.  I need you covering for me if we’re going to pin her.”

“Right!”

Handing the gloves over to Al, Ed stalled in the exchange before he relinquished them from his fingers, “Al… your shirt’s red.”

“Is it?” Al snatched the gloves away from his brother and shoved them into his pocket before Ed could protest, “it's okay, I’ll be fine.”

The concern in Edward’s voice rose at the discoloured state of the shirt wrapped around his brother’s bleeding arm, “What the hell did Wrath do to you!?”

Alphonse grabbed the ridge of their protective bunker with his good hand, intent on climbing away, but he froze, “Brother, stop.”

“No, Al you…” Ed gestured to the wound, but then had to try and figure out why on earth Al was suddenly down on his knees with his hand to the ground, “what?”

“Can you feel that?”

Lost with the question, Ed looked around, “Feel what?”

Al narrowed his gaze to interrogate the barren soil, “the ground's vibrating.”

Sinking low, Ed’s left hand quickly met the ground.  It was.  An evenly paced rumble quivered through the stone, free from any lingering vibration the destruction may have caused.  Ed moved his hand, found another surface to test and identified the same tremble.  Suspicion pointed to the apparent inactivity Dante hid behind and Ed swallowed hard not knowing what it meant.

“Get going, Al.”

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Yeah.  Dante’s occupied with something,” Ed grumbled, “I need you out there.”

Alphonse vanished over the ridge and Ed pressed the palm of his hand against a protrusion of cool dirt even harder.  He laid his shoulder into it as well.  Shutting out the lingering noise of the city, Ed listened through his fingertips for any story this quake had to tell.  Slowly, but gradually, the vibration shaking the earth gained in strength.  Minutes passed before the rumble had exhibited enough strength to be visibly noticed.  The constant quake, like a freight train slowly drawing near, transformed into a low thunder reminiscent of an approaching storm.  Steadying himself against the ridge, Ed peered out into the city and examined the thin breath of dust released from the surfaces of every building that shivered.

And then it stopped.  The trembling didn’t fade, nor did it didn’t temper, it simply ended and nothing rose up to take its place.  An eerie, undisturbed quiet devoured the air.  

Adjusting his hold on the rocky ridge, Ed tried to identify the first signs of whatever the heck it was Dante was attempting to do, but nothing gave away any telltale signs.  Cautiously lowering his position, an uncomfortable sensation between Ed’s fingers distracted him.  Peeling a hand off the dirt ridge he clung to, Ed was startled to spot the imprint his grip had left behind.  He looked into his hand and stared at the mud coating his palm and then felt the soles of his shoes stick atop the soil as stepped away.  

The next breath of air that flowed through his sinuses turned the gears in his head once more and the distinct smell of stale cavern water began to fill the sealed city.

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


Notes:

Chapter 60 🥳 600,000 words 🎉🎉 I haven't done an endcap image in like 20 chapters *smacks one on* someday I'll have them for all the chapters.

At one point in the story’s history Ed coming home without his alchemy was significant in other ways… so much so that (in a round-about way) it’s half of the reason the fic stopped in 2011. Every time I type up that explanation it turns into a huge paragraph. Sometimes many paragraphs LOL. So, I’ll leave that for my end of story Author’s Notes.

I’m glad I threw Easter Weekend in there because this chapter was so slooowwww to come together. IDK where I even dawdled. I don’t think I did, it was just meaty.

Next Chapter: July sometime :D it got a good workup this weekend (June 26) and I'm super hopeful for getting a solid polish done over the long weekend (bc I'm really busy in the two weeks after that eep...)

I have a small twitter thread on the go you can peek in on to see how things are going! I update it on Sundays :>

Chapter 61: Inequivalent Exchange - Part 3

Notes:

Thank you so much for your patience on this chapter, it is by far the longest one I've ever written, and I hope you enjoy it!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Clamouring to escape the bunker Al had built, the dampened earth mashed, slid, and slopped beneath Ed. Everything he grabbed became malleable, his hands sinking with greater ease each time he put one down.  Awkwardly clawing his way to higher ground, Ed wiped his hands off on his slacks and reached into his backside pocket.  He pulled out a plain pair of white gloves; with all the scrutiny Dante was going to give him, he wasn't about to draw attention to the sight of his bare flesh hands, and he discretely slipped the blank pair on.

Turning around, Ed examined the state of Dante's world.

Every torn up path and plot on the city's floor was painted in a damp, glossy sheen.  As time went on the sheen gradually transformed into a skim and that skim rapidly grew into a layer of water coating the city's floor.  All of it flowed down to the lowest point: the city centre.

"That's a nasty little parlour trick, Edward."

Ed's pupils dug into the corner of his eyes as Dante reasserted her presence. Making her way towards him with one wounded hand pressed neatly against the other, Dante's ever-present poise pushed her chin higher as she strode atop the water's surface.

Ed lowered a single brow and eyed the frozen pathway growing beneath her feet, "I'm not the only one playing games."

Relying on his brother to have had enough time to set up for their charade, Ed placed his dulled hands together.  His palms had barely met when Al transmuted a dried slab of earth to lift him above the muddy water level with.

Dante watched Ed rise and let a smile worm into her lips at the apparent sight of his touch-free transmutation.  She clicked her heels together and came to a stop.

Ed made sure to dispel her parlour trick, "The transmutation circle we create when our palms meet passes through the heart and the heart can be used as an interchange to divert the energy through the circulatory system," what sounded like the makings of a heart attack was not all that difficult according to Al.  Ed was honestly a little disappointed in himself – no, really disappointed in himself – that he hadn't thought of it already, "That's why you don't need to use your hands when you transmute something, you've redirected the energy out your feet."

Nodding like an instructor commending a pupil, Dante added a footnote to his explanation, "I am proud of my innovations, but it would be disingenuous of me to take credit from someone else," the forced smile she offered looked like it pained her, "your father pioneered it."

"Good for him," Ed grumbled, firing back, "and you really want to come out of here having to admit that the better part of what you know is credited to your Ex and his son?"

"Knowledge is the result of cumulative efforts passed down.  When we cannot be the inventor, we can excel as the innovator," Dante's brows settled in two flat lines above her steeled gaze, "but, before we commence, we must take a moment and address Miss. Rockbell's situation."

Ed's expression narrowed.

"You see, a trade like you've proposed is not something I can oblige, because I've already placed Winry beyond the Gate," a sly grin teased the corners of her lips, "I broke the bonds to her mind, body, and soul and dismissed her to the depths of the thing.  So, you can spare me the theory of this and that, it won't do either of us any good – she's expiring inside."

Fighting to keep his poker face, Ed slowly rolled his jaw to hide how he nearly laughed at how desperately she was trying to strengthen her position.

Dante tossed her bravado like a stage performer projecting their song, "Throw those doors open and dig her out before there's nothing left to reclaim!  With the access you have to the Gate now, such a task must be nothing but child's play for you.  I'll step aside to watch how you accomplish it."

It was clear she was still unaware of the actual ramifications of breaking a person's bonds and that worked in his favour, but if the world actually operated as Dante believed it to, Winry would have been cast aside months ago.  If Ed were truly finding this out now, Winry would be dead, and that deepened the angered creases of his brow.

Dante lifted her broken hand and mockingly tapped the bandaged wrist with her good index finger, "Time's being wasted Edward, go get her."

With an energetic flourish Ed threw his arms out at his sides and sucked Dante into his performance.  He clapped his hands with gusto, making his audience flinch in anticipation of a flash that never came.  As Dante braved her confusion to put her eyes on him again, frantically trying to see what he had done, Alphonse's transmutation finished lifting a wall of cycling mud behind his brother. Ed ripped his hands apart like they still contained all the power in the world and slammed them down on the platform.  The mud raced forwards, parting to pass him, and blowing Ed's ponytail over his shoulder as it charged ahead.  Tumbling over itself like a thick ocean wave, the rising surge Al controlled stretched to encircle Dante.

A fountain of transmuted water erupted like a protective barrier around her.  Bountiful and strong, the fountain bloomed at its apex and spilled generously over on all sides.  The billowing peak expanded, widening its girth, then began to peel away at the top, tossing fat waves that blanketed Al's dirty onslaught the moment it arrived.  The force of the water falling at Dante's command drove Alphonse's mud back down into the lake growing at their feet.

Dante put Ed back in her line of fire.

Ed put his hands back together.

Al's transmutation swept around the fringes of the central square, collecting the runoff flowing down the streets to fill the city's core.  Corralling the growing flood into a swell behind his brother, Al drove the water to a focal point and built the head of a water cannon to channel it through.  The force of a runaway river was fired at Dante.

Dante's defensive transmutation drove a divide straight into the heart of the attack.  Wrapping herself in a compact tornado, the strength of the wind she generated sliced through the centre of the blast and split the torrent in half.  Two harsh streams of water were deflected away in horizontal sprays.  The strength of the cannon wasn't enough to stop Dante from challenging it even further; she put the tornado into motion and dared the transmuted force to come down on her even harder as she snaked towards Ed in spite of the assault.

Opting not to engage her further, Al abandoned the attack in favour of moving his brother out of Dante's path.

The tornado dispersed when Ed left her path, but Dante's swirling transmutation found a new purpose – the energy snaked into the water.  Like an invisible spoon began churning through dirty batter, the mud around Ed began to swirl and a column started to rise around him.

Ed clapped his hands before he'd vanished from view and Al breathed life back into his platform.  The transmutation pushed the slab upwards, prompting muddy tendrils to sprout along the rim of Dante's creation to chase him into the air.

At Ed's next 'transmutation', Al put a familiar weapon into his brother's left hand.

A wicked Elric grin grew through Ed's face at the sight of an elaborate spear he used to forge for himself years ago.  The nostalgic weapon doubled as a message: Al was leaving Ed to hold his own for a bit and the elder brother was more than eager for the challenge.  Snatching up the spear, Ed wheeled it around and started trimming Dante's talons.

Stepping through the corners of the raised platform, Ed spun the long reach of the weapon through his hands, slicing off tendril after tendril with each swing.  Soft and formless, they were easily broken apart – the heel of Ed's shoe severed one wriggly arm that teased his ankle and a firm swipe of his left hand took off the leading reach of another.  Wide sweeps of the spear's blade took care of the rest.  Navigating his steps in one corner of his eye and managing Dante's lures in the other, Ed spun his defence through his hands and danced around the obstacles harassing his feet, keeping them at bay.

As easy as they were for Ed to dismantle, they were just as easy for Dante to recreate, and every arm Ed sliced away was quickly replaced.  Dante's transmutation grew more adventurous, challenging Ed to navigate quicker each time one tugged at his knees, licked his arm, or managed to snag an ankle or wrist.  For each taunt that tried to catch him, the viscosity of the transmuted soil decreased.  The solidifying tendrils started yanking on Ed's arms to pull him off balance.  They incessantly tugged at his legs, trying to take one or the other out from under him.  Getting caught up in the whirlwind of an increasingly frustrating tango, one of Dante's lures secured Ed's left ankle and dropped him on his backside.

Ed scowled at his teacher's warning coming to life – the transmutation was snaking up his unfeeling leg.  Steadfastly refusing to allow either of the limbs Al had given him back become a hindrance, Ed choked up on the spear and cemented it in both hands.  He thrust his arms overhead and lunged forwards, driving the blade into the body of the snare.  Ed severed Dante's tendril below his foot and the wriggling mud recoiled.

A fresh arm was born out of the severed body and Dante wrapped her counterattack around the shaft of Ed's weapon.  Knowing better than to engage in a physical tug-of-war against a transmuted force, Ed shoved the struggle for the spear above his head and dove in under it.  He relinquished his defences and took a two-handed stranglehold on Dante's malleable lure.  Clawing holes into the stiff mud with his fingers, Ed grimaced in frustration and bore down, attempting to tear the damned thing apart with his bare hands.

A brilliant red and orange flare exploded along the side of the city centre.  The air shuddered in shock of the blast, distracting both Ed and Dante from their tussle.  Flames rose from a building that made up a piece of the city centre's frame and a column of fire reached up high, stretching well above the tallest steeples, momentarily casting heavy shadows throughout the underground sphere.

Before the fire could settle and dine on a delicious dinner of brittle wood, the towering flame toppled like the great north wind had blown it over.  Sweeping across numerous rooftops, the wave of fire ignited a line of once luxurious, ornamental buildings flanking the downtown core.  The flames danced on the rooftops and dove inside, swarming the halls like they were playgrounds, and exploding with glee at each packet of unlit gunpowder they found.  Pockets of fire burst like popcorn each time more fuel was added to the fire.

Ed curled his fingers, focussed whatever strength he could scrounge into his wrists, elbows, and shoulders, and tore the muddy tendril harassing him apart.  He felt his spear bounce off his back when it came free, but never heard it clatter on the platform – the noise was drowned out by the ferocious sound of the underground city's stolen history going up in his brother's flames.

 


 

Throwing her prowess brightly across the lake she was growing in her city, Dante's response scoffed in the face of this fiery challenge.

Bringing every last drop under her command, the rush of water she transmuted generated a light breeze in the sealed underground, offering the flames a final opportunity to dance.  A wide, liquid blanket was lifted above the fire, reaching higher than than the flames ever dared, and the damp fringes licked the rocky ceiling overhead.  Dante's transmutation was excessive, far more than what was needed to snuff out the blaze, and she tossed it over the fire anyways.

The towering floodwater crashed down over the flames, exploding like a burst dam, and offering no mercy to the fragile city it assaulted.  Racing through the streets unrestrained and claiming structure after structure, the flood tore down buildings, ripped open walls, broke through doors, and shattered windows at its farthest reaches.  Church bells rang out as the demonstration flattened a district of the city, forced to chime by the quake the waterfall caused, adding the disjointed melody to the roar of deafening destruction overwhelming the underground city.

Dante made the message conveyed in her actions perfectly clear: Long held sentiment wasn't nearly as valuable as one might think. The lengths she was willing to go were not to be underestimated.

The fire Al taunted her with was ultimately extinguished as an afterthought.

Debris-filled water began washing back into the city's core and, as though she'd never relinquished her control, Dante steered the returning flow.  The murky flood was aggressively redirected towards Ed's tower.

Al flew out to counter her.  Capturing the stone perch and the remnants of Dante's abandoned tendrils, he swept his brother back down to the ground and immediately repurposed the materials.  A low, wide ramp was constructed before the dirty torrent arrived to redirect the flood over their heads in a wide, roaring arch, and send it into the back reaches of the city's core.

Beneath the rushing water Al scrambled up to his brother's side, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," dusting himself off from the abrupt rescue, Ed gestured to his brother's gloved hands, "I think you got her wondering if Mustang's involved."

"I'm just putting them to good use before we have to give them back," Al patted his hands together and the spark of an idea brightened his eyes, "turn around."

Ed blinked and did as he was asked.

"Arms up!"

"What?" Ed's shoulders shot to his ears when Al's gloved hands reached around and dipped into his side pockets, "be careful…"

"I am being careful."

Al took his hands back and examined the nearly invisible signs of elemental powder now lacing the ignition gloves.  A bit of aluminum powder from one pocket, potassium perchlorate from the other, carefully kept separate so they wouldn't accidentally cross and go off.  Little packets of desired explosives tucked away here and there, carefully orchestrated to give Dante the impression that an alchemist would have been at work wreaking havoc had Alphonse not shown up.  Yet, no matter how careful either of them were, a palatable solution was out of reach.  Dante had laid down a narrow path for them: her way was the only way and she would sooner die than concede.

Ed had said from the outset that he wasn't down here to kill Dante.  If she wasn't going to back down and his brother wasn't going to kill her, Al needed to know what this other option was.  What was the point of the secrecy, the lies, the setup, and the entire charade he had been playing?  And what on earth gave his brother the confidence to attempt this alone?

The answer initially made Al uncomfortable: Ed was going to send Dante to hell.

Ed understood the outcome if she gained access to his mind, but what if he returned without the knowledge she needed?  Introspectively, nothing Ed could think of helped Dante, and if a monster running from death was forced to accept the harsh truth of her inevitable fate, what would she do?  How would she react?  The potential was terrifying.  And what might Dante do if she got any hints that he had returned any differently than he'd left?  Instead of investigating Ed's mind, she would be cautious and investigate Ed, and everyone associated with him since his return would be at grave risk of Dante's desperate claws.  But, so long as she had no reason to go looking, so long as all of the answers resided with him, Ed could weaponize the same kind of ignorance Dante victimized an entire country with.  The relationship he'd established with the Gate could be used to escort her to its doorstep, and Ed could force her over to the other side.  Beyond the Gate Dante didn't pose a fraction of the threat that she did in Amestris.  Society there would find a place to slot her in, constrain her to its rigid rules, and punish her if she didn't comply.  All the information she craved would be at her disposal if she chose to seek it, all of it utterly useless, and alchemy would never, ever be a weapon she would wield again.  Dante would learn, like Ed had, what the cost of gaining access to knowledge from beyond the Gate truly was: everything else you valued.

It was a prison without bars.  A personal hell.

Al had a laundry list of questions and moral quandaries for his brother's plan, but their options were limited and Dante had tied their hands to much else.  If they didn't kill Dante, whatever imprisonment she faced would become a death sentence.  She would succumb to the rot, die in agony, and they would have enabled that fate.  If they broke her bonds to stop the rot and somehow managed to keep her here in the process, she would have to be locked away in secret for every remaining year of her life, or until someone got antsy about that and she was found dead.  But, it wasn't so much Ed's plan that caught Al's concern, it was how he framed it.  The more Al thought about it, the less he believed that his actions would condemn Dante to a life in hell.  The world beyond the Gate wasn't hell, it was home – it was Brigitte's home, and for a while it was his brother's home too.  At some point they were going to have to send Brigitte back to her family, and Al didn't want to believe for a second that the life and world she missed was any sort of hell.  Sending Dante there would allow her to live out the rest of her life, peacefully if she chose to.  The rot would stop and, given the young age of Nina's body, the possibility existed that she would physically heal.  In that context, wasn't his brother actually saving Dante's life?

It was one last life to live.  A final respite.

Whichever point of view the brothers chose to see it from, the method of getting to that point needed to be addressed.  Al insisted that there was less risk involved containing Dante and taking her to the Gate together where they could easily break her bonds, and after a ton of arm twisting he managed to talk his brother into that plan.  Now, they just had to find a way to pin her down.

The water flowing overhead had petered out and the growing lake around them was crawling up their shins, growing more polluted by the minute.

Ed stabbed a broken plank of wood with his spear and fished it out of the water; an idea had washed in with the debris.  A bent nail was worked free from the plank and Ed repurposed it into a tool.  A tiny rendition of Al's signature transmutation circle was etched into the shaft of his spear.

"You come in from the left," Ed tucked the manually transmutable polearm into Al's elbow and handed him the nail, "I'll swing around wide from the right.  Let's see what she does this time."

Al secured the spear against his body, "Got it."

With a nod the boys split, trudging their way to the opposite edges of the ramp.

Al peeked out into the deteriorating cityscape and easily found Dante.  Perched at the head of the city centre she waited, standing above the water's level.  Flanked by the building remains the Elric brothers had brought down on one side and the washed-out skeleton on the other, she was leaving it up to her opponents to show her their next move.  Al turned the nail around in his fingers and etched a transmutation circle into the underside of the ramp.

Ed didn't make Dante long; showing his hand he emerged, giving her a wide berth in the process.  Al watched his brother move through the exposed landscape, running through the unsteady mud and water hampering his feet en route to the city's ruins.  Dante honed in on his movement like a hungry vulture, put her hands together, and Ed turned on a dime to challenge her when she did.

Al bounced the spear in his good hand to ready it and laid his thumb down on the etched transmutation circle as the lake's turbulence intensified under Dante's orders.

Ed slammed his hands together at his nose and sent Dante's confusion soaring when neither a flash nor a transmutation came of it.

Al stepped out into the open, swiped his thumb over the transmutation circle and made sure the only light that caught her eye was his.  He anchored his feet in the muck, brightly transmuted the air around the spear, and launched it at Dante.

The squealing tailwind that rushed by Dante's ear forced her eyes wide.  The blade sailed past the same ear as the gunshots that had claimed her hand, catching her hair as it flew by.  The spear continued to sail straight and true, embedding like an oversized arrow in the side of a building well beyond her.

A generous clip of Nina's untied hair slipped off her shoulder, severed by the blade that had flown by, and it settled softly atop the water at her feet.

Al's hand swept the transmutation circle etched in the ramp.  Collecting the material he transmuted a solid path above the lake leading straight to Dante.  He clenched his fists, dug his toes in, and raced straight towards her.

Dante's visual claws latched onto Al and the moment her frozen blue gaze lined him up in her crosshairs, Al slammed his hands together.

The chemical reaction, enhanced by the ignition cloth, flashed once again in Dante's eyes and it was Alphonse's turn to send her reeling.

Announced with a piercing shriek and bolstered by blind fear, believing that one or both of the Elric brothers were on the brink of reaching her, the water flooding the underground city was hastily repurposed as Dante's shield.  A waterspout was whipped up, wrapping her behind a tenacious liquid barrier.  The speeding spiral of water rushed to the city's ceiling, carving a notch in the rock where it churned.  Its width swelled as the water in the city basin was sucked in, swallowing a wealth of accumulated debris to fortify the storm's wall.

Even clenching his eyes like Al had, the flash had still shone through his eyelids.  Al backed away, putting distance between his position and the waterspout he could somewhat see, until Ed arrived to help guide him away.  Retreating to the opposite end of the city centre, beyond the panic Dante stirred, the brothers reorganized.

Al rubbed his eyes again, clearing his vision a little more, "I guess that's what she's going to do."

"Could be worse," Ed's hand patted Al's shoulder and motioned away from the ravaged city square, "c'mon."

Al followed his brother's lead and disappeared with him into the wider expanse of the city, leaving Dante's fears to fester in the raging, polluted waters she hid behind.

 


 

"Brother!"

Ed picked his head up and looked through a bowed wall like he could see Al on the other side.

"It's coming down."

Hastened by the reverberating whoosh of Dante's waterspout dispersing, Ed snatched up a packet of matches from a table and tucked them into his vest pocket.  The tired walls of the old house he stood in shifted again atop the unstable foundation, putting every aged nail and crossbeam under immense strain.  Ed grabbed two small envelopes off of the floor he'd attempted to sleep on the last many days, shoved them in his backside pocket, and ducked out of the house before the roof had a chance to cave in.

Ed rejoined Al in the street as bubbling waves of water washed around the lower street corners, decorated with foaming white caps.  Unreasonably fast and lively, the water sloshed between buildings and advanced through the streets like the eager waves of a tsunami flooding through.  Pouring around foundations and washing the ledges of windows, the water gained with every passing second and grew thicker with each piece of debris added to the stew.  The open streets didn't offer enough space for the aggressive floodwaters to comfortably advance, so the insatiable onslaught began tearing through the obstacles in its path.  Crashing through doors and tearing down walls of the already compromised buildings, the liquid mass forced open new pathways as it routed the city.

Al transmuted a smooth, solid walkway through the street to save their legs the agony of another sloppy trudge and directed his brother up ahead, "There's a clock tower at the top of the street, we can get a better view from the top."

The race to the tower doors took them through the deteriorating, warped state of a city in decay.  The softening of the city's floor caused nearly every building they passed to look like it was on the verge of collapse.  Walls had shifted, doors had popped ajar, windows had cracked, roofs had broken open, fences had gone askew, and all the upright poles – be it sign or lantern – pointed everywhere but up.  The moisture leaching through the earth continued to feed Dante's needs and the sound of water rapidly devouring the city settled in as an ever-present, hungry growl.

A professional building proudly sporting a stone clock tower welcomed the Elric brothers to its entry, and Ed and Al were already halfway up the stairs by the time the flood tore down the street level doors.  Al reinforced the walls of their shelter before the water could find any additional seams to leak through.

Emerging at the uppermost reaches of the tower, the boys flew through an entry door and staggered to a stop in a dark, windowless loft.  The roaring destruction stampeded outside of the echo chamber they'd landed in, rumbling deeply in the vacant hollow overhead and relentlessly quaking the foundations at their feet.  Weighted chains and hefty cords dangling from the apparatus danced and jingled amidst the shower of ancient dust shaken free by the disturbance.  Ancient gears mounted in the dark loft, idle for so long, creaked and chirped disapprovingly at the disruption of centuries of rest.

Cautiously making his way through the darkened room, Ed's hand searched the wall. He fished around, investigating every nook and latch, and eventually found the handle to a maintenance door.  The door was thrown open, allowing the light to flood the loft, and he poked his head out onto an external ledge.

"Holy shit…" Ed gawked at the colossal force of water decimating the city below them.

Al snuck in around his brother, "I tried to transmute water when I got here, where is she getting all this?"

Ed shook his head in disbelief, "There's a drained lake somewhere nearby."

The brothers' conversation went silent while they watched the water pick up a crumbling building from its foundation and literally carry it away to disintegrate in the swill.

Passing minutes beckoned the water levels to rise higher, soon exceeding second floors.  Twisted remains floated atop the rising flood like a rich, thick stew and the sound of wood succumbing to the pressure persisted without end.  The screeches of metals bending, grinding, and breaking as they were abused in the disaster became the agonizing cries of a falling city.

Dante continued to summon water and redefine the context of the underground world.  Streets were eliminated, submerged to remove the protective cover of the city's maze.  Buildings were compromised, swollen with water or destroyed altogether to limit where Ed and Al could safely stay.  Mobility was crippled, stripped from them by the event they were witnessing.  There was no way down and no way out, and if something wanted to breathe the air, it had to exist in this last quarter of the city that remained above water level.  Dante was literally attempting to flush them out.  It was working.

Past the point where every building had been deprived of access to at least the lower three floors, a sparkling transmutation danced through the entire cavern.  The boys' arms came up to shield their eyes from the light and, when eyelids cracked open and arms fell away, Dante's endgame offered an awe-inspiring scene to greet them.

The water was frozen solid.

The city in disarray was locked in ice, literally frozen in time, completely unmoving.  The ice plate was painted by the dark ruined mass that filled it from below and the orange glow of the underground light glossing it from above.  Packed with everything that floated free, the surface was a chaotic obstacle course of broken, jagged, and trapped remains.  In a few precious gaps splattered here and there, the clean ice meekly tried to shimmer.

For the first time in what felt like ages, silence settled in the wake of something Dante had done.

Al slumped against the frame as his eyes digested what they had to contend with, "What a mess."

"Yeah…"

Ed gave his head a shake and tried to get his thoughts in order.  He and his brother had conjured up a plethora of scenarios they might encounter and what they would try to do if they faced them, but Dante continued to exceed expectations.  Then again, considering she'd brought down an entire city in the first place, it wasn't all that surprising she'd have the wherewithal to know how to flood it.  In hindsight the logic made sense, if the city's location was ever exposed, it would be easier for her to flood it than bury it in a rush.  Ed brought a hand up to his mouth in thought, how the heck could they turn this around and use it to pin her down?

"Sorry I didn't grab her when I had the chance."

"What?" Ed tumbled out of his thoughts as quickly as he'd gotten into them.

Al drew a deep breath in through flared nostrils and let the breath out in a heavy, frustrated sigh, "She walked right up to me and I had a knife in my hand and I couldn't wrap my head around how I got there."

Ed shook his brother's lament off, "Al, she was screwing around with you."

"We're not going to get that close to her again… not without a fight, anyways.  We have to figure out a way to trip her up and trap her and I mean…" Alphonse's shoulders travelled up to his ears, his head shaking, "she's desperate and dying and if I'd been thinking I could have just dropped the knife and grabbed her and we'd have gotten this over with."

As convenient as Al's mental scenario could have been, Ed didn't share the sentiment, "I doubt she walked up to you without a plan on how to deal with that."

Al soured, "Yeah but—"

"Yeah but nothing," Ed's left hand landed firmly atop Al's messy bed of hair and he gave it a light shake, "can't go back and fix that, so don't worry about it.  Keep your eyes looking in the same direction you're going, and we're going forwards."

The arm attached to the hand in Al's hair wrapped around his head and Ed firmly secured him against his side.  He hadn't given a second thought to Al and Dante's exchange and he wished he could dismiss the disappointment that was weighing on his brother.  Sure, it might have been an opportunity, but since when did anything ever come that easily for them?  Maybe if only one of a thousand things had gone differently, they wouldn't have ended up here.  Lots of different 'if's and 'or's and 'what's might change everything.  More time might mean they'd find a better way of addressing it, but that wasn't a luxury they had.  For all the disagreements they'd had since reuniting down here, the brothers met on common ground believing that Dante needed to be dealt with now.  The potential consequences for dragging this out, or dragging it north, and tempting the 'if's and 'or's would be unimaginable.

As they were now, teamed up and poised to escort Dante to the other side, Ed couldn't help but indulge in the enormous relief Al's presence gave him.

This was what Ed wanted.

This was what Ed laid in bed for too many nights wishing for.

This was what he'd tried to circumvent the Gate for.  This was what he came home for.  This was what motivated him to get out of bed for over five years.  Not the bullshit they were stuck dealing with, but having the chance to deal with it with his brother at his side.  Ed fought through the loneliness of every single day on his own, so that when he got home he wouldn't have to any more.

What happened?

When the hell did Edward Elric get so scared and untrusting of everything that he'd actually forgotten that this was what he wanted?  Al was who he wanted at his side at times like this… and for better or for worse, here they were.

Ed sighed, "There'll be plenty of time to kick ourselves for things we have or haven't done later."

The sentiment drew Al back into the conversation, "You have a lineup of people who want to help you with that."

Ed's nose twitched, "I'm sure I do."

"I think I'm going to start charging a fee to anyone who wants to kick your ass," Al grinned at his neat little idea, "1,000 cens per ass kicking sounds reasonable."

"What the heck are you doing picking on your big brother right now?" Ed grabbed the giggling child by the crown of his head and shoved him away, "we gotta deal with this first before you start profiting off me.  How's your arm holding up?"

Al's left arm was swiftly tucked away at his side, out of his brother's reach, "It's fine.  But we're not doing much about 'this' sitting here."

"No, we're not," Ed admitted – they weren't down there to exhaust Dante with a chase, they wanted to engage her.  But the type of terrain they were facing was looking to be more daunting than all of the other challenges still in their way, "We're going to have to figure out how to ice skate pretty damn fast."

"Or," Al brought a thoughtful finger into the air and let his eyes dance with his idea, "or even better…"

Ed watched Al's waggling finger carry him away from their vantage point and directed him back to the entry door.

"Take off your shoes!" Al called as he started down the stairwell.

"What for?" Ed asked.

"I'll show you!"

The ice was freezing and the surfaces of everything were dropping in temperature, so Ed was not about to take off his shoes until he knew why Al wanted him to have literal cold feet.

Tailing his brother into the poorly lit stairwell, filled more than half way with the frozen sludge of city water, Ed descended past the single window welcoming the light in.  Coming to a stop a few steps above the frozen blockade, he curiously watched Al snap the end of a twisted bit of metal out of the ice.  Al slipped out of his shoes, put them down on the ice, nestled the piece of metal between them, and transmuted the metal onto the soles.

Al snatched up his shoes, admired the sharp metal cleats he'd added to the bottoms, and turned around to show them off – he immediately frowned, "Why are your shoes still on your feet!?  Take them off, I need them!"

The persistent ingenuity shining in his younger brother put a grin back on Ed's face.  He kicked his shoes off and used his toes to flip them down the final few steps to Al one after the other.

 

 


 

Emptying his lungs with an exhale, a thin white puff dissipated in front of Al's nose.  The volume of ice continued to cool the air and every breath he took was sharp and crisp.  Goosebumps covered the exposed parts of his arms and his bare back – Al had given up trying to shiver them away.  He adjusted the shirt wrapped around his throbbing arm.

Surrounded by self-imposed ruin, the imposing silence under Dante's command restrained the life lurking in frozen corridors of debris, waiting to execute whoever or whatever dared disobey.  Dante herself could have been anywhere – from the northernmost corner to the southern tip – but both Elric brothers knew she wouldn't expend that much energy.  She wouldn't go looking for them, because patience would bring them back to her.

However, the Elric brothers had something a person with thinning patience wanted more than anything she may have once valued, and they offered Dante the chance to meet them halfway.

Planting his feet shoulder width apart, Al faced the abstract location of the city's centre and clapped his hands.

The light of his transmutation danced across the frozen floor, the disjointed, icy mirrors showering fragments of light on the rocky earth overhead.  His power fanned out, capturing more and more of the debris-filled obstacle course trapped in the ice.  From road signs to rooftops and encompassing all the stationary ruins in between, if it was embedded in the ice, once Al's transmutation grabbed it, he dragged it under.  He dawdled with the process, taking it excruciatingly slow to ensure his beacon was unmistakable.  When the process finished, a sprawling, clean, polished sheet of ice opened up in front of him like a generous exhibition ground, though the bleachers remained filled with the decay of the city's carcass.

Dante didn't snub the bright hail.  Giving away her location as freely as the Elrics gave away theirs, a transmutation light beyond stretches of building tops flashed.  Masterfully commanding her opponent's eyes, she forced them wide at the sight of her reply.

Sculpted from the ice, a frozen head mounted atop a wriggling liquid body came to life.  A transmuted ice serpent uncoiled to rise above the city's remaining peaks and it opened its toothless jaws – blunt clamps designed to batter, bruise, and assault.  The squealing sound of grinding ice sliced through the air in place of its breathless cry, prior to Dante unleashing it.

The underground silence unlocked its restraints and erupted in destructive bedlam at her behest once again.

Dante's 'greeting' bulldozed through the ice-top debris field, decimating the brittle remains of the exposed city.  The transmutation was driven blindly, without regard for what laid in its way, assuming that whatever, or whomever, stood in the path was smart enough to move if it valued survival.  Ploughing through everything like a bull on a rampage, the serpent exploded onto the slick, clean ice field Al had opened up and raced freely across.

Al watched it arrive and simply stepped out of its way.

Without Dante's eyes on the scene to supervise it, the serpent's first pass was merely a warning shot.  The snaking transmutation drove clear through the rink and barrelled into the remaining cityscape beyond Al, its tailwind helping to spin him around as it blew by.  Smashing through the bountiful stretches of debris beyond the clear field, Dante's menace snapped its liquefied tail along the floor like a wiper, exacerbating the damage it created, before she swung it around for another pass.

This time Al's hands came together.

The static generated in his palms as he rubbed them put the hairs on his arms straight up on their ends, and even the hair on top of his head started to rise.  Digging the spikes on the bottom of his shoes into the ice, he raced to reposition himself, and aligned a building's attic trapped in the ice between himself and Dante's approaching attack.  His leading arm flying open, Alphonse ripped his hands apart and threw the static he'd generated into the air.  The transmutation cracked like dry lightning the moment it gained life.  Forging a corridor within the oxygen, Al directed the energy towards the attic, and the building exploded in the serpent's mouth when it arrived.

Every time he blew something up, Alphonse understood the brigadier general's alchemy preferences a little better – the explosive power he was able to generate was quite a rush.  He watched the solid head shatter in the blast and his eyes followed the generous chunks of ice hurled into the air.  All of them crashed down like cannon balls throughout the field.  Burning deposits of wreckage carved welts in the ice and the debris thrown from the explosion rained like confetti around the impact zone, littering an already tumultuous landscape.

The decapitated body of the serpent writhed, mimicking pain while picking up the warm hues of the fire in the idle water.  The body slowly gathered around itself… around the fire… and the transmutation morphed into a dense, liquid bubble to envelop the blaze.  The fire was put out.

Al's expression collapsed and he took a step back.  It wasn't a surprise Dante had retained control of the transmutation, but the transmuted water addressing the fire was.

Dante could see the fire.  Dante could see him.

Dashing into the city's debris field offering shelter, Al slipped behind a teetering half-wall and hunkered down next to his brother, "She showed up fast."

"She's pissed off, she's desperate, we have something she wants, and we didn't give her too far to go," sitting up on his knees, Ed pulled out the two small envelopes he'd picked up earlier.  He popped up their flaps and shook what was left of the contents out into opposite hip pockets to refresh the flash powder, then discarded the empty envelopes through a crack on the beleaguered wall.  The plain white gloves came off his hands next and were stuffed away in his backside pocket.  With the flick of a finger, he popped the pack of matches out of his vest, flipped it open, and tore out what was left of the matchsticks, "Gimme the ignition gloves."

Al plucked them off his fingers and handed them to his brother.

Ed put the ignition gloves back on and nestled the bundle of matchsticks under his right thumb.  He offered his brother a cocky smirk, "Let's give her something to look at since she graced us with her presence."

The protective guard of the building was abandoned by the Elric brothers and they moved out into the open, making no secret of their activity.  The serpent's head had already been rebuilt and the liquefied body lurched to expel the charred remains it had swallowed.  The emergence of two golden eyed boys summoned the creature high into the air.

Backing out onto the fringes of the polished ice field, Ed stepped up to bat against Dante's rising transmutation, facing it with his left shoulder.  Al swung in opposite his brother, standing face-to-face with him as the creature's body regained its snake-like physique.  Together Ed and Al clapped their hands with all the flourish they could muster, but neither offered Dante the baffling spark.

The speed that Dante's attack dove in with mirrored her mounting levels of frustration.

Ed stepped back from Al, twisted the matches in his palms to ignite them, and used the inherent energy of the ignition gloves to toss a garland of flame into the air when his arms flew wide.  Al's transmutation collected his brother's flame, brought it under his control, and the firepower was launched into the creature's open mouth.

Dante liquefied the head of her transmutation to devour it, quelling the fiery attack behind a thick vapour cloud that was born when water and fire collided.

Ed and Al slammed their hands back together again, mirroring each other's movements.  Ed produced the fuel by grinding out a static spark, but it was Al who used it, punching the follow up transmutation through the air and conducting it into the liquified creature's muzzle.  The transmutation sent skyrocketing heat tearing down the liquid core, boiling the water as it went along, and ripping the serpent out of Dante's control.  The heated transmutation consumed the entire length of the serpent's body and turned it into warm, white steam.

Dante's transmutation lost its life.  Whatever didn't vaporize in the air became a slick of hot water to blister the city's frozen surface.

The eerie silence that settled in the aftermath was filled with whispers as the cloud thinned.  Portions of the distraught city that had been disturbed by Dante's wrath weakly moaned; strained, wrought noises that eked out of the crumbling remains settling in new graves.

In the fading agony, Dante emerged in the back half of the frozen battlefield, offering no hints of her next move.  Only appearing to make her presence known, she guarded her thoughts and actions like precious treasures, refusing to grant anyone the privilege of sneaking a peek at them.  It was up to their imaginations to wonder what all the gears spinning in her head were going on about as the mysteries the Elric brothers built around their actions mounted.

Ed and Al had no problem taking the reins of battle from her.  Maintaining their mirrored charade, their hands met in unison and together they drove their palms down to the ice.

A swath of jagged peaks ravaged the clean sheet between their position and Dante's, glistening with the orange and copper hues of the underground light.  Al began launching them into the cavern ceiling above her head in successive bursts, then drew out more when the first volley ended.  The bombardment rained buckets of shattered ice and sediment down onto the battlefield, and eventually began dislodging larger chunks of the overhead rock free.  The ceiling above Dante's head began to break apart, releasing boulders to the ice.

The sound of Dante's hands meeting wasn't heard by anyone, but the results were clearly seen.  The energy of her transmutation flew through the air, capturing everything that had come free and, in the blink of an eye, all of it was reduced to fine dust.  The residue fell like sandbags spilled across the ice, leaving behind a low-lying, dusty cloud.

"Now?" Al asked below the noise.

Ed nodded, "Yeah."

"Okay," Al bounced up to his feet and rubbed the wrap covering his arm, "I'll pull her over to the right."

Ed stood up next to him, "Gotcha."

The brothers would have waited for the dust to settle, but they only needed until Dante's patience was exhausted and she dispersed the cloud herself.

Tormenting her curiosity with another unison show, Ed and Al clapped their hands.  Ed stepped back and Al stepped forwards and they both crouched down to put one hand onto the ice.  The ice wall Al erected in the space between himself and his brother strained the tension growing in Dante's face.  The transparency of the wall was filled with loose debris and Al expanded it generously on both sides, wrapping towards Dante like a bowl to contain one end of the battlefield.  The construction stopped before eclipsing her position, deliberately placing Al deep in the hollow.

Unlike the polluted wall, Al's actions were a transparent strategy that Dante could see straight through: he was offering himself as bait.  Separated from the shield of his brother, the strategy generously gave Dante the freedom of lethality for her attacks, but in doing so she would leave Ed unattended to roam behind the security of the wall.

Clearly more interested in dissecting his strategy than investing in it, Al managed to get Dante to modestly chase his lure.  The volley of ice needles she sent sailing across the landscape were fended off by the transmutation of wind, blowing the attack aside and even sending some back in her direction.  Sinkholes leading to frozen graves were opened up beneath his feet; Al danced around them all like a lengthy game of hopscotch, dodging each pocket and plugging them for better footing while he crept along the length of the frozen wall.  The farther he travelled, the more often Dante glanced away to inspect the vanishing view.  With every turn of her head, with every dismissal of Al's presence, he slammed his hands together, drove them to the ice floor, and launched chunks of ice at her like missiles, forcing her to pay attention and defend.  Al made no secret of his attempt to try and steer her line of sight, every action he took served that intention and the both of them knew that.  Dante's refusal to fully engage him only highlighted how her interest grew in the areas he wanted her eyes to avoid.  Alphonse was going to command her attention whether she wanted to give it to him or not and he put his hands together again to make sure she'd regret not playing along.

Al crouched down; placing both hands to the ice, the frozen wall evaporated.  The barrier vanished in a white puff of air and the rotten debris caught up inside of it clattered to the surface upon release.  Dante stood in the middle of the icefield as the veil lifted, alone in the clean expanse opening up to shine in her eyes, unable to see anything but the wasteland of her city beyond it.

A transmutation light flashed in the corner of her eye Al occupied.

Dante swung back to the single Elric screwing around with her, finally giving him the undivided attention he craved.  Her eyes captured the image of Edward flying towards her instead.  His hair blown out of his face by the speed, his arms already in motion, Ed rode the head of a growing ice arch steered by Al behind him.  Dante momentarily lost herself in the heavy, unyielding set of golden eyes that barreled in on her, until he deprived her of the visual by dipping his head, leaving her with nothing to see except the explosion of light born from his hands when they met.

The flash rammed through her pupils, drove through her skull, and pounded off of the back of her head.

Dante screamed.

At a lurid pitch only a child's voice could reach, the anger, frustration, and pain born out of the assault on her sight culminated in her voice and fled unrestrained from her lungs.  Caught thrice by the Elric brothers' maddening tactic, every last molecule of air was twisted out of her body and used to fuel her enraged cry.

With no time to transmute a defence, Dante ducked.

Ed's hand caught in the flying ends of her untied hair when he flew by.

Ripped off her feet and flung across the ice like a rag doll, both Ed and Dante crashed down on the frozen landscape and rocketted along the slick surface.  Moving without control, unable to gain a foothold on anything, Dante's body was at the mercy of every toss and turn Ed made as he tried to corral their momentum.  Forgoing a battle with him, the fight Dante chose to engage was the one against the terrain to bring her hands back together.

A successive series of ice blades shot out blindly between them when her palms met, slicing through the strained lengths of hair in Ed's grasp.  Released from his tether, but still flopping around on the ice like a frantic foal, Dante's hands met one more time.

Alphonse captured her arms before she could transmute anything.

One Elric brother had robbed her of her sight and the other robbed Dante of her touch.

Tens of thousands of icy vines were born from Al's transmutation; bursting out of the ice, they hoisted Dante into the air and wrapped her in an untamed field of living ice.  The vines wound around her legs, securing her knees and capturing her ankles. They wrapped around her body, locking her hips and torso, preventing her from thrashing.  The transmutation imprisoned her arms – clamping her shoulders, sealing her elbows, and leaving nothing but the air in the palms of her hands.

But the circle had already been made and Dante had established her internal connection to the Gate for power.  The only thing at her disposal was transmuted: the air.

Damaged, childish hands unleashed the fury of a maelstrom around her.  Winds thrashed around her body more violently than any creature physically could, throwing the free ends of her hair wildly around in a mad rage, ordering the loose bits of fabric to fly in a frenzy, and jostling the soft, malleable flesh on her face.  The blindly transmuted, aggressive vortex waged Dante's war, bearing down with intense pressure against the vines restraining her body.  Every shard that broke off was reincorporated into her arsenal to hasten the process.  A single arm was all she needed, all she asked for in this furious moment, and she honed the storm's core around her left arm.  She ripped it from the Elric brothers' clutches with the help of what little she had at her disposal and set the arm free.

The swift meeting of her palms obliterated Alphonse's bindings in a shower of glistening particles, tossing her into the air with the explosive gust.  The dress ballooned around her body as the force carried her, her hair hugged her ears while she rose; suspended at the point where momentum faded and gravity reached up to take hold, Dante took Al's transmutation into her custody.

The field of vines was transmuted into cold, watery tendrils, wriggling with life as though the air was their ocean.  Dante's desperation whipped them together to buoy her at their core, twisting and stretching them like they were strands of twine.  A fat rope of winding water threads wrapped around her and she threw the lifeline to the ceiling, allowing the rope to form a solid mass when it latched an anchor overhead.  Like she'd done before, Dante wrapped herself in the protective shield of a waterspout wall and rapidly forced it to swell, borrowing from the polluted ice at her feet and shredding the rest of the frozen landmass as its walls expanded.

"Brother!"

Al's voice rang out above Dante's raging storm.

"Spark!"

Up on his knees, the fingers of Ed's right hand scratched inside the bed of his left palm and he clawed his hands apart when Al arrived at his side.  A bright static spark was passed from one brother to the other.  Not only adjusting the oxygen in the air, but using the hydrogen in the swirling water as well, Al guided his transmutation to the cyclone's edge and released an electrical charge to dine on the impurities of the ion rich groundwater Dante was wrapped in.

The excited electricity swarmed the conductive waters, hugging the column with energy.  The charge screamed as it danced around the water, snapping with boisterous lightning and cackling with glee as the current thrived.  The spectacle shimmered atop the ice's surface, flashing brightly and tossing brilliant white and pale yellow light all throughout the city's remains, creating shadows where none existed before.  Cries that called out from the core went unheard, drowned out by the untamed energy set free.

Overwhelmed by the sharp bite of the electrical current, the waterspout's form came undone.  The thick column swayed, bending and curling as the fortitude of Dante's transmuted defences withered.  The waterspout started to unwind, caving at its centre. The transmutation detached from the groove in the ceiling it had been carving and began to collapse.

Al caught it.

His next transmutation froze the faltering tower of water into a solid mass.  Deadening the molecules and snuffing out the conductivity of the water, the spark that once thrived petered out quietly.

All at once, the uncontrolled madness ground to a halt.  Everything stopped.

Frozen like the foundations beneath their feet, Ed and Al remained motionless at each other's side in the looming shadow of a thick, glossy, deformed column of ice.  A chilly fog born from the heat of a battle finally had the opportunity to settle in the stilled air, blanketing the ice with a thin cloud.

The strange silence – the cautious peace – fell under the Elric brothers' control.

Al craned his head back to examine the structure's reach towering above them.  Wicked bends and sharp curves defined the monument, like the water was mimicking the contours of twisted electrical wires.  The solid prison mounted atop a chilly battleground had the audacity to shine amidst the ruins, flaunting the colours of debris encased within.

They caught her.

Alphonse felt the gasping breath he took move his entire body.  The adrenalin-numbed arm throbbed at his side.  They were going to do this.

Broken fragments of the Elric brothers' reflections glistened in the frozen streaks.  Perfectly captured snippets of the underground view shone in the ice's fractured mirrors, highlighting their distorted images in the darkest patches.

The thump of Al's heart against his chest wall pounded in his ears with a beat that could have filled the entire cavern with its echo.  They were going to have to do this.

The underworld's dead silence offered no ambient noise for the task.

A substantial, uncomfortable, imposing weight pressed down on his shoulders, trying to force him into the concrete ice beneath his feet.  Al's eye drifted away to find the spread of Nina's severed hair strewn across the ice - the aftermath of a frantic attempt to break free.

Exhaustion arrived from nowhere, and it made Al a little dizzy.  They were actually going to have to send Dante to the other side of the Gate, but…

"Al."

Ed's hand landed on his shoulder and Al snuck a peek at the dark, steeled look drowning out the colour in his brother's eyes.  He was prepared to do this.  There wasn't a shred of doubt anywhere on his brother's face – he'd put himself at odds with everyone and came down here, because he was prepared to do this.  A decision made as a product of the world governed by harsh adult choices Al wished hadn't ended up in their hands.  Whatever doubt or conflicting emotions his brother had over his decision was locked away behind the fortified wall he tried to bury unsightly things behind.

"Dig her head out before she suffocates," Ed stepped towards Dante's prison.

Al felt his heart wither watching his brother walk away, "Right."

Twisting grooves in the glassy ice welcomed Al's vigil when he stepped up to address the polluted cage.  The single eye he looked at, the one that wasn't warped and distorted by the molded water, was momentarily unfamiliar to him.  He'd forgotten his eyes were gold.

Al swallowed the uneasy feeling creeping up his throat and clapped his hands.

Layer by layer, item by item, Al stripped away the ice and debris.  Tangled, mangled, indiscernible chunks of the devastated city were extracted as the frozen layers of the tornado were shaved away.  Al put an eye on his brother, watching him slowly walk around the base of the ice casing, searching it for the first sign of Nina's tiny limbs.  They needed to ensure Dante's hands wouldn't meet.

Al tried to banish his thoughts while he worked, but their nagging was relentless.  The back of his mind wanted to know – demanded to know – what he intended to say to Dante before they sent her away.  Before they exiled her.  Al asked the part of his mind churning away in the background: what was someone supposed to say at a time like this?  Was something going to be said at all?  Did they have a right to say anything?  He didn't know.

Broken remnants of a forsaken world piled up at their feet, some of it identifiable as a shop sign or door knob, but most of it was nothing more than digested mulch.  The heavy look weighing down on Ed's face gained a sense of urgency and concern as he studied the unidentifiable shadows filling the thinning sculpture.  Al sped up his excavation, shredding layers of ice and releasing the remains of the city to clatter carelessly off the brutally cold ice floor.  Ed anxiously moved to the back side of the structure and searched the length of it.  Al began stripping layers away in multiples, but nothing beyond the city's damaged skeleton ever appeared.

None of these shadows were in the shape of a body.

Nothing in here was Dante.

Reducing frozen waterspout to a decorative snake littered with a thousand broken thorns, Al stared at the glassy ornament. His heart thumped in his throat.

"She's not in here."

Ed's brow furrowed, creasing his forehead, "Where the hell'd she—

The thick ice beneath the Elric brothers' feet cracked.

A single crack sliced through the frozen plate, rocking the earth at their feet like a compact tectonic shift, dividing it in half.  A second, divergent tear raced out from the divide.  Fissures began sprouting and spreading in multiples, mimicking the appearance of invasive roots.  The cracks in the ice began to gain a voice as they grew, squealing as each fracture shifted behind every new divide.  In the blink of an eye, a web of screaming damage advanced to consume the surface.  The frozen plate screeched as the final breaks carved their paths, then the entire mass shattered.

Smashed like a ruined pane of glass, the ice disintegrated into the maw of Dante's rage beneath them.

A whirlpool welcomed the Elric brothers into her ice cold hell.

The swirling, bone-chilling nightmare behaved as an extension of Dante's anger and the punishing waters screamed indecipherable obscenities on her behalf.  The spiteful creation shredded the broken shards of ice in an overzealous, petty tantrum.  The chaos demolished Al's feeble attempt at transmuting footing for an escape, and Dante dragged the boys down into the water, plunging them into the heart of her frigid inferno.

 


 

From the fury of churning waters depriving him of his bearings, and the swirling pollution executing the physical punishment, something pulled Ed out and deposited him on his stomach.  He swam around in a layer of mud until he got his limbs in order, scrambling up to all fours in a panic.

Burdened with a splash of stars filling his eyes after the water in his lungs was expelled, the frantic thump of his heart made the scattered lights pulse.  The water had been so cold when he entered it felt like it burned – he'd gone numb to it initially, but now he was just drenched in the shocking cold.  His jaw quivered from it.  Ed steadied himself over the trusted left arm that had gotten him through so much, but the right arm he lifted to wipe his hair out of his face never arrived.  His mind aggressively stitched his double vision back together, afraid the arm was suddenly gone again for some inexplicable reason, and the first things he clearly saw were both of his hands cemented in the earth.  The mud had gone dry.

Oh.

His mind didn't bother offering any insight beyond that.

Planted at the eye of a storm, the rumble of water cycling around him enticed his ears and lured Ed's head up.  A dark and filthy stew formed the spinning liquid wall transmuted around him, swollen with the broken skeleton of the city.  The powerful roar of the calamity cried out endlessly, never pausing to take a breath, never slowing down, and never relenting.

Al.

An alarm bell louder than Dante went off in Ed's head.

Where was Al?

Ed easily found his brother laying on his stomach right in front of him.  If he'd had his arms free, he could have reached forwards and grabbed him.  The ease of it was almost startling, but Al's arms and legs were almost completely submerged in the same hardened landscape.  His head was turned to face Ed, and his exposed back revealed he was breathing, but his eyes were closed.

"AL!" Ed shook his head like a wet dog, trying to clear the hair from his face, "Al! Al, wake up!"

Dante rose beyond Al.

Ed swallowed hard, banishing his anxious heart to his stomach and instantly suppressing the chill coating him.

Riding through every breath rocking her body, Dante stood at the storm's helm drenched from head to toe.  A tangled clump of hair was dumped on her back from the chaotic melee, the severed portions clinging to the side of her face.  A soiled strip of white cloth lay at her feet and Dante bent down to pick it up, transmuting the dirt out of the fabric fibres as she stood up.

The exposed right hand cradled against her belly cried out for attention.  Ed gave it his.  The injury was still raw; taken over by the rot infecting her, the damage imposed couldn't heal.  The corrosion had laid claim to what was left of her hand and was clearly in the process of breaking it down.  The black and purple stain was eating around the anchor of her thumb, slowly sawing off the only digit left en route to her wrist.  The damage wouldn't allow Dante to use her thumb to secure the end of the cloth that she repeatedly tried, and repeatedly failed, to wrap around the open wound.  She gave up and transmuted it into a tight 'glove' to sheath the unsightly blemish instead.

Dante's pupils crashed into the corners of her eyes and tore into the two boys she'd captured.  A vile glare as rotten as her hand raged silently at them through the blotches still clouding her vision.

Ed was the only one who could look at her like this.  Ed was the only one who could see the decrepit state she was in.

Ed recognized how unwilling she was to come to terms with that.

Pursing her lips, a deep inhale adjusted Dante's entire body.  Flushing the stress impeding her posture, she straightened her back and tossed her head high, sending the tangled mounds of long hair rolling down her back.  The strands stuck to her face were wiped away, banished behind her shoulder with the swipe of her hand.  Dante stiffened her upper lip and attempted to flex her mental strength by willing her composure back in order.  The anger of the storm she'd caged the brothers in roared on her behalf and she encroached on them.  Al was nothing more than a bump in the road that she needed to traverse and Dante stepped up to perch herself atop his bare back like a conqueror, looking down on the elder brother forced to his knees before her.

Ed peered up from beneath the ridges of his brows, through a stream of hair strung across his face, and tried not to gag.  A putrid smell radiated off Dante's beleaguered figure.  It tattled on her, announcing to anyone unfortunate enough to get a whiff of it how she was coming undone, mental strength be damned.  What a sorrowful sight, he thought.  There were nights in his other lifetime where Ed had wondered what Nina might have looked like if she'd had the chance to grow older.  It was nothing like this.  Nina wasn't this.  She was never this… this dirtied, mangled, deteriorating mess of flesh and bones.  There were no hateful creases in her expression, she didn't know how to look at anyone with so much contempt.  If it weren't for those oversized eyes, poisoned as they were, he wouldn't have recognized the body Dante wore.

Dante's left hand unclenched, allowing colour to flow back into her white knuckles.  She lifted her head higher, tilting it as if to think, before issuing her first decree, "Tonight, you will read The Theory of Beyond the Gate to me as my bedtime story."

"Dante you—"

"SHUT UP!"

The commanding shriek exited her lungs like a swift knife had been thrown through the air; the sound pierced his eardrums, but the echo's sharp edges were swallowed by the abyss.

Ed existed without any further word in the silence of Dante's command.  Screws in his neck slowly came loose, one after another he let them turn, and he rewarded Dante by lowering his head.  His soggy bangs slopped off his forehead, reached for the earth, and the water trickled from the dirty golden ends to the ground.  Ed watched it flow, dampening tiny patches of the hardened earth he was locked in.  Obscured from Dante's view, he lifted his eyes and peered out from behind the shield of his clumped hair to look at his brother.

Al looked back at him with the one exposed eye he'd cracked open.

"And before we take our first trip to the Gate, you will tell me what you two devils have been doing to my eyes," oxygen squeaked through Dante's nose with every breath, "what kind of nonsense have you come up with?"

A wordless exchange between two brothers was made and Al closed his eye again.

"I asked you a question!"

Ed tossed his head up, sending water flying out of the ends of his hair, "You told me to shut up!"

The muddy water landed in blotches on the front of Dante's dress, vanishing as quickly as it landed, easily absorbed by the damp fabric hanging over her body.  Her fingers danced at her side uncomfortably, busying themselves by smoothing over the fabric at her stomach in an attempt to regain a sense of calm, "I did, didn't I?" her hand rubbed circles over her abdomen, each revolution becoming slower and more methodical, "please continue to do as you're told, but acknowledge me when I address you."

Ed examined how the soaken dress hung like a weight over Dante's body, adding to all of the forces trying to drag her down.  Tears littered the fabric, and the damp, white hem had been pulled to the earth to absorb the dirt at her feet, dying it brown.  Ed's line of sight travelled up, eventually finding hints of rot peeking out above the neckline.  His eyes tried to measure how close it was to reaching her collarbone.  His mind wondered how extensive the damage really was that she was hiding.

Dante caught his eye line and abruptly yanked the dress up, straightening it over her shoulders to conceal it, "Don't look at that."

"You're dying."

"I am not dying."

"You're rotting."

Apparently the two were different things and she didn't quarrel over the second.

Dante shook out a shiver from her arms and stepped off of Alphonse onto the thin stretch of dirt between the two brothers. Encroaching on the Elric she sought, Dante reached in to collect a bundle of Ed's wet bangs.  Peeling his hair out of his face sections at a time, she wiped the soggy clumps over the top of his head amidst a wordless protest, clearing it away until the vicious look in his sunken eyes was completely exposed for her to admire.

"Not for much longer," Dante raked her fingers through his soiled beard, clawing out the mud dulling the leonine shine, "we'll need to find more tranquil accommodations than this, however."

"Where the hell are we supposed to go?" Ed spat out a short, bitter laugh.  He tossed his head over his shoulder to address the gut-wrenching view of everything her desperation had ruined, "This was your home and look what you've done to it."

The broken carcass of a dead city revolved around them, blended to form a dark, dirty, liquid swill.

"You don't have control in Central anymore.  You screwed up your fake family and the ghosts of your real one are gone.  There's nowhere for you to go."

Burdened in a disabled child's body, an entire country that had once been her playground was inaccessible without aide.

"You screwed up your last homunculus and the one person who's been at your side is dead," Ed looked through Nina's eyes to address Dante's soul residing within, "you've used up your resources, there's no one's out there to help you – what do you have left?"

The vertebrae in her neck hinged Dante's head towards him, dumping the severed locks of hair over her shoulder, "What do I have left?"

The pillars buoying her control, the foundations giving her power, and the assets moving at her command had all been spent to obtain the only person in existence who could offer Dante salvation.  Moving as though grace and dignity still mattered, her functional hand was presented to Ed's eye and the tiny fingers curled into her body one by one, dancing up her chest.  Her index finger found the links of the necklace above the collar's hem and traced its path, sweeping behind her neck in a dainty, single motion.  Dante tucked her index finger under the chain and drew her hand back down.  The chain was lifted into the air and Dante slowly extracted the Philosopher's Stone from beneath her dress.

For all the trials and tribulations that he'd been through, Edward had never really seen the Philosopher's Stone.  Sure Dante had taunted him with it and of course he'd taken a glimpse into the catastrophe Al had become, but the abomination of legend – the tangible Philosopher's Stone – had never truly found his gaze.  At this point, he honestly didn't want to see it.  But Dante let him look at it.  She made a calculated, inescapable offer to his eyes to admire it and Ed got caught looking at it.  The stone touted a rich, saturated, unnatural colour that existed nowhere else in nature – that existed outside of nature, procured exclusively through sacrifice.  The intense shade of red captured the orange light of the underground, borrowed from the flame in Ed's eyes, and claimed their glows as its own.  Sinking in the evanescent allure, a hum gradually made its presence known – it wasn't in his mind, but it did occupy the space between his ears.  The stone deposited a faint sense of its aura there, and it felt a little… soothing.

Dante broke the enchantment; numb to the stone's ethereal charm she swung it through the air until it settled in her grasp.  She leaned towards Ed, chasing him back as far as his restraints would allow.  When he could escape no farther, Dante closed in tight enough to put the stone chained to her body down on his sealed lips.

Ed froze on his knees staring into the hungry eyes of a dying creature, his breaths trapped in his stone lungs, heart caught in the clenched apex of his steel throat.

"I have my life," she had ravaged lands, stolen seas, used peoples, and even tried challenging the Gods' orchestration of two worlds in order to protect and maintain the most important thing she had left, "and you will help me further it."

"What about your life?"

Ed asked despite the weapon he was threatened with.

"I have people I care about, I have a family I want to be with, I have a home waiting for me," his voice steadily rose above the calamity crying out all around, requesting an answer from whatever was left of her soul, "what the hell are you trying so hard to live for?"

A droplet of water slipped from Dante's short bangs.  It tumbled down her forehead, trickled uninterrupted through the centre of her face, and slid past the pupils cast down the tiny swoop of her nose.

"You've abandoned every life you've ever lived and tossed it away like it was garbage.  The only people at your side are the ones you coerce to be there.  You got so sick of the game of life that you stopped living as part of the world altogether.  You fill the void with knowledge – amazing, endless knowledge, so you can bandage it and ignore it.  So you don't have to look at what it is about this bullshit life of yours that keeps you going."

The work she put into procuring a stone every second generation extended her life.  The medicines she studied as a pharmacist helped maintain it.  The advances she'd woven into society all served the agenda.  The effort she'd put into obtaining someone from beyond the Gate was meant to save her.  Helming the course of humanity was the curtain she was hiding behind, because everything Dante lived for was being governed by a singular drive.

To a woman who desperately wanted the longevity of a God wrapped in the simplicity of human flesh, a familiar sentiment was bitterly offered, "But living to escape death isn't living at all."

The corner of Dante's lip attempted to curl with the tart, haughty smile she preferred to subject people to, but instead it came across as a meek sneer.  She fumbled the stone through her fingers, clumsily burying it behind the neckline of her dress again.  Dante wrenched her chin above yet another man she lorded over, his weaponry reduced to simple words.  Reaching for her trophy, Dante placed her mismatched hands together, "You and I are going to get along better if you're in a pleasant stupor."

She swooped in, causing Ed to gag on the air they shared and stifling anything he might say in protest.  Dante's fingers pressed against the rich arteries running through his neck and executed a transmutation to intoxicate his bloodstream.

The next pulse that carried blood through Ed's veins sucked the transmutation out of Dante's fingertips.  It was taken from her hand, pulled through her arm, ripped from her heart, and confiscated from the Gate itself.  Dante felt the vacuum pull her Gate doors shut.  The next beat bounced the power back on her, like it had burst from his blood vessels and been forced into hers.  The pulse rippled the flesh of her good hand, stirred the marrow in her bones, rattled every atom in her body, and ignited a rebound so strong it bounced the ocean of raging water and ice trapped in the underground, rocking the city above it.

Everything that boasted 'life' within the rebound's reach in the underground city vanished from it.

 


 

Dante felt pale.

The loss of colour, the loss of warmth, the loss of the rose tint in her flesh made her understand what it was like to experience 'pale'.

Dante had never experienced the Gate like this.

She'd never felt it subjugate her in every fibre of her being.

Crushed by the strength of its power, the visions that invaded her mind screamed like angry wraiths.  Fast, dizzying, disorienting, maddening; it was a sensation that lasted only a mere second or so, but the pressure on her mind, body, and soul lasted an eternity.  The memory of the experience was instantly and irreversibly imprinted on her.

It was terrifying.

Dante had never arrived at its doors and felt oppressed.

Consumed by the shadow it did not cast, the Gate loomed over her taller and more imposing than anything in existence.  The structure was invasive, overpowering, inarguable, and absolute.  She understood its authority in a way she'd never perceived it before and didn't know why, but she knew she wasn't in a position to question that.

Because that wasn't what scared her.

Through the golden window of Ed's eyes she saw the Gate.  She didn't need to look up to see how the structure towered over them, the doors didn't have to be open for her to see inside – she perceived it through him.  Ed showed her a view that was nothing like any she'd seen before.  The one she saw at the opened doors was insignificant by comparison.  This was dark and immersive, persistent and never ending, and the incomprehensible sense of perpetuity coming from it made her shiver.  It was as terrifying as it was exciting.

This was the source of fear that undid Wrath.  She dove into it with her eyes and heard its indiscernible chatter like a deafening ringing in her ears.  This was what Wrath experienced and she couldn't tear herself away from it.

Her perception of the Gate came to life when Ed moved and Dante gasped at the fright that gave her.  He came up onto one knee, paused when she took a cautious step back, and continued to rise up on both feet.

The window vanished.

Everything went quiet.

Dante frantically searched Ed's face and found no further signs of what he'd shown her.  She had only taken her eyes off of him for a second when she'd flinched, but the view of the inside, the profound sensation of a vast, insurmountable depth shown to her had been shuttered.

Dante stared up at Edward Elric.

How did they end up here?

She studied how he stood over her, imposing his presence on her like the Gate at their shoulders.  The molten cores of his uncompromising dark eyes looked back at her – burdened, tired, and worn, but still with the sense of fire at their centres.  Like the inapproachable sun, they had the power to burn her.

A set of hands clapped behind Dante.

The sound echoed in her mind like an explosion and she threw her head over her shoulder.

Al stood tall behind her; his hair a muddy, storm-mangled disaster, his trousers soaked with water and dirt, his one arm wrapped in a filthy, bloodstained shirt, and his bare chest littered with the damage he'd sustained in the frigid, debris-filled waters.  His hands were pressed firmly together, the tips of his fingers resting just below his chin.

This other set of golden eyes she gazed into never closed or shuttered the sight of the steadfast, stalwart soul that resided within.

Dante's childish face widened with an epiphany: Ed was a window.  That was the momentary enchantment his eyes had been – a window into the Gate.  Millions of thoughts born out of centuries of research lit up in Dante's mind like stars filling a clear midnight sky and her heart danced with excitement beneath them.  Ed was a conduit.  He was a path.  He was a way to the Gate that Wrath had seen, that Wrath had feared, and now Dante had seen it too.  Edward could show Wrath the Gate because he had secured the means to access it.  No, he was the means.  She was here at the Gate with him because he was a means like Diana had been.  A means she had instigated!

And Alphonse's hands were pressed firmly together.

Dante's heart fell from the stars and dropped to the pit of her stomach, landing like a boulder in a vacant canyon.  The thinning air in her lungs barely gave her a voice, "What have you done?"

"Saved your life," Al answered, "make the most of it."

A familiar sound she knew all too well, the familiar sound of grinding stone, became Dante's salvation.

The aged hinges of the Gate ground into motion and the doors slowly swung open with a noise that made her heart flutter no matter how many times she'd heard it.  The doors gained momentum as they opened wide, never creating a breeze when they flew by, but booming out a rich thud as they stopped.  Dante looked into the darkness presenting itself, expecting to catch a glimpse of what she'd seen in Ed, but the Gate wasn't offering her that view.  This darkness was something else.

This darkness reached for her.

Dante staggered away and clapped her hands.

Nothing happened.

Frantically digging out the Philosopher's Stone from around her neck, Dante put it in her palm and slapped her wounded hands together.

Nothing happened.

Stringy fingers attached to boneless arms formed unbreakable black lures that wrapped around her wrists.  They snaked up her arms while Dante stood staring at the memory of her access to the Gate being forced shut.

"No"

Dante thrashed within the unconquerable snare of the Gate's reach.

"NO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

She tried to throw her body around.  She tried to break away.  The arms of the Gate seized her limbs and Dante's legs buckled beneath her.

"STOP THIS"

The Gate plucked her off the ground.

Fighting the prison of black arms, Dante strained to turn and face the Elric brothers, but the black shackles stole her vision.

She wailed.

"WHAT HAVE YO—

Dante vanished into the Gate.

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


Notes:

In the early days of this fic, I considered each chapter to be another episode. I got away from that some time ago (though I still pay tribute to that on the FFN version) but for this one I'll consider this a 45min special or something lol.

For nearly the entire life of this fic, the resolution for Dante has been Ed sending her beyond the Gate (in some way, shape, or form). The number of ways my imagination has conjured up the last two sections of this chapter is very, very large (even in those years where I was a ghost, I did think about it). Most of them are absolutely nothing like this finished product, even the ones that might be similar really aren't that close lol, but in the storyweb in my head I can see how it evolved. It was actually still fairly different even 4 months ago (before I weeded out parts that didn't feel right). Funny how short those bits ended up being overall in such a long chapter, and how they were the easiest part of this chapter to write. After the countless variations I've written, or heck even imagined over the years, I think I'm happy with this. I release this to the scrutiny of the internet and hope it provided some kind of satisfying resolution for readers as well ^^

PS obviously I'm not finished LOL. Now back to our regularly scheduled 'characters being people who are stumbling through life' to wind this thing down (and Brigitte needs to go home :D).

I'm really anxious about posting this, ngl ;A;

Chapter 62: The Wounded Earth

Notes:

There's a bit of German dialogue in this chapter. If you're on desktop, you can hover your mouse over the text and the translation will appear. Unfortunately, a mobile workaround isn't available yet. You don't need the translation to understand what's going on though - it's structured in a way that if you can't get the translation you can still get an idea of what's being said.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Something happened over the last week or so: the mood improved.  Nobody could tell Brigitte exactly what had happened, but it was clear by everyone’s behaviour that something occurred to relieve the tension in the air.  She couldn’t say she’d ever paid such close attention to something like that before – the mood of the room, as one might call it.  With communication as much of a struggle for her as it was, she’d honed the skill.

People’s steps became lighter, more smiles started to happen, spirits were unchained, and her company began to feel free of something heavy.  Security dwindled, curtains parted, and windows came open.  People started to go outside… well, not the adults with guns, they seemed content to remain sequestered away inside the building.  But, the more magical bunch in the lot ventured out – Izumi, Rose, Fletcher, and Russel went outside, and they took Brigitte with them.  She wandered around parts of town with them, was shown a fascinating foreign way of life, treated to foods that tasted amazing, and tried on clothes that nobody was waiting to arrest her for wearing.  Izumi bought Brigitte a parasol to relieve her from the scorching sun she loathed so much and it went everywhere with her.  

The day before last, Russel and Fletcher had packed up and left in cheery moods.  They said their goodbyes and Brigitte couldn’t shake the feeling that it was the sort of goodbye that marked the last time she would see them… 

Bright and early this particular morning, Brigitte and Rose headed out together.  What had started out as a morning jaunt began turning into an event.  The streets were growing suspiciously crowded for such an early time of day and Brigitte had to close her parasol to navigate it.

“Here we are,” Rose beamed as they approached a lengthy, decorative building façade.  She looked down to Brigitte and offered her hand, “Hold on, we have a lot of people to contend with.”

Brigitte glued herself to the woman’s side; what in the world was going on?

A little too short to see over people’s heads, Brigitte followed alongside Rose as they made their way through the crowds while the bells chimed for nine in the morning.  The tone amongst the swell of people gathering appeared light and jovial, with no predominant age or gender to define them.  The people they marched alongside were all heading in the same direction: through the arch centering the building’s face.

Once they crossed through the gated arch and emerged on the other side, Brigitte popped up on her tiptoes.  Beyond all the heads, but not too far off in the distance, she spotted what looked like a string of locomotive passenger cars.  She followed the brown roofs until the idle engine was discovered. Trying to gain more height on her toes while they walked, Brigitte found ticket booths and vendors and scores and scores of people.  Upon further observation, most of these people had luggage.

They were obviously at a train station.  Were they going somewhere?  Brigitte hadn’t come dressed or prepared to travel anywhere.  Neither had Rose – not only did they not have baggage, her son was with Izumi!  Someone must be set to arrive.  Brigitte looked to Rose for an answer and discovered the folded slip of paper she was holding.  While her company’s eyes searched the bustling station, Brigitte poked her nose into the note.  A few English words were written and some kind of identifier: ‘E-03’.  E-03?  A scan of the signs over their heads was nothing but A’s.  

“Come on,” finding the conclusion before Brigitte did, Rose took her hand again, “I think we’re on the wrong side, there should be a tunnel to get across.”

Weaving through the crowds, together they descended cement stairs, traversed a dreary tunnel beneath everything, and emerged into thinned crowds on the other side.

Now Brigitte could see things a little more clearly.  There were five stretches of tracks and matching lengths of platforms for all of them.  Crowds clearly preferred the first two on the other side, though there were certainly a good number of people on this platform as well.  The signage on the wall identified the track as ‘E’, but unlike the A and B tracks, E was split between folks who had luggage in their arms, and even more who did not.

Stopping beneath a plaque that said E-03, Rose and Brigitte waited.

And waited.

The sun crept up higher into the sky.

And waited.

Brigitte popped her parasol open.  

And waited.

The platform filled up a little more.  The ‘I’m sorry’ Brigitte got from Rose was a statement that wasn’t so foreign to her any longer.

And waited.

Both Rose and Brigitte were hiding under the parasol by the time a monstrous black locomotive rumbled in.  Smoke billowed from its nose like every engine she’d ever seen and was literally emanating heat when it passed.  The engine, followed by the coal car, dragged in some of the most dilapidated passenger cars Brigitte had ever seen.  She couldn’t help but look on in awe over how people were absolutely crammed into the thing.  Bursting from every seam, passengers hung out the windows, occupied connecting ledges, and more than one person actually appeared to crawl out from underneath the carriage when it came to a stop.  Passengers cheered on arrival.  The people on the platform joined in.  It was a merry event.

The passenger cars unloaded with an unfathomable flood of people that kept Rose and Brigitte glued to the wall, until a familiar voice cried out above the buzzing crowd. 

“Rose!”

Brigitte’s eyes dove into the sea of people.

“Brigitte!”

Unearthing the sight of a glowing boy with golden-brown hair shoving his way through a swell of people, excitement bubbled through Brigitte and brought her bouncing up onto her toes. 

“AL!”

Watching him come into view more clearly, the boy’s figure put her energy on pause.  Al’s left arm was wrapped and secured in a sling.  What happened to him?  Was he okay?  It didn’t seem to affect his mood at all.  In fact, she still got a very strong, single-armed hug from him.  Alphonse Elric remained the most personable young man she’d ever encountered – but for a boy to have the gumption to show it in public!?  It made Brigitte blush.

“This is cute,” Al admired her parasol, his oversized smile never fading, “it’s a good idea!  You’ve never liked the heat,” he had to laugh, “my brother even admitted it’s a lot warmer here than he remembered.”

Brigitte just tried to match his smile for an unknowing response and curiously eyed his arm when he turned his attention to Rose next.

Rose got her own hug.

“You made it!” she squeezed him.

“We did!” Al grinned up at her, “hot as heck in there though, we all need showers.  We were packed like sardines the whole time.”

“With all the problems Central City is having with its politics, riots, and the water shortage, I’m not surprised the train is so full,” Rose picked her eyes up to scan the thinning crowd, “where are your brother and Win— 

Rose stopped like someone had hit pause on her entire existence.  Coming back to life one motion at a time, the whites of her eyes glistened in the morning light as her eyelids vanished in awe.  Her eyebrows ventured as high up her brow as they physically could go, and then tried to go higher.  Both of her hands came up to cup her mouth, failing to hide the gasp she made.  

At a loss over what was happening, Brigitte looked at Al to see if he was reacting to anything, but in contrast to Rose, Al was foolishly grinning.  He was looking over his shoulder, so Brigitte followed his line of sight, and it took her a good few seconds to figure out what on earth they were gawking at.

Edward Elric.

The sight of him caused the bustling noise on the platform to vanish.  The people around him inexplicably did as well.  Brigitte felt her hands go numb, her heart took off racing without her feet – it was really him! 

But, his presentation left her somewhat bewildered.  

Edward was a well-dressed homeless man marching towards her.  A little sickly coloured in the bright light, unsightly circles hung under his eyes, and the burgeoning beard of a woodsman covered much of his face.  He didn’t seem too particularly happy about anything, in fact he looked rather unhappy about something, yet there was no one in the world Brigitte was happier to see than this miserable, dishevelled man.

Shedding her manners like a weighted cape, Brigitte shoved her parasol into Al’s hand and let her feet thunder on the wooden planks beneath her.  She ran with strides unbecoming of a young lady, shoved past men who cursed her for getting in their way, and didn’t stop until she collided with her target, running headlong into him.  

The ‘oof’ Ed let out on impact was audible and Brigitte’s hold on him pinned his arms at his sides.  

Got him.  

Brigitte had successfully captured Edward Elric.  

This random man she’d hardly known for a few weeks, who was somehow the key to absolutely everything in her struggles, was the most important person in the world.  He was the man who could understand her.  The man these people had wanted to know everything about.  The man in this unwanted journey who knew both where she was and where she wanted to be.

Brigitte let go of him and stepped back, red with embarrassment over hugging a grown man so desperately in the public eye like that.  Straightening herself out in the crowd, she looked around at a station full of comings and goings, arrivals and departures, and wished to know which one of these trains was meant for her.

“Please tell me you’re here to take me home.”

It wasn’t that she hated any one particular thing about her situation, in fact it was as good as it had ever been recently.  The people were kind to her.  The people around her tried their best with her.  But, despite their efforts, for whatever reason she was even here in the first place, it did not change the fact Brigitte did not want to be here.  

Greetings and salutations were entirely skipped over, and Edward didn’t seem to mind.  The surly man softened in a way she’d never seen on him before – not in her memories nor her imagination. Emerging from within the messy exterior looking at her, compassion and understanding landed as a hand atop her head.

“Yeah.  Let's get you home.”

 


 

Standing at attention at the foot of Izumi’s bed, Ed adjusted how he clasped his hands behind his back.  For the longest time no one said anything, and Ed was beyond thankful when Mustang finally broke the silence.

“No.”

“I agree,” Izumi followed quickly, “no.”

“Thank fucking god,” Ed dropped his head back and looked to the ceiling.

“Really?  Neither one of you?” Al whined, shifting around to face Izumi on her bed, “I didn’t know what to think at first, but it kinda grew on me.”

“He needs to fill out more before he can pull a beard off,” was Mustang’s assessment.

Ed suddenly scowled and fired it at Mustang, “Did you just call me small?”

The man deflected the shot with a huff, “I’m saying you’re built like a desk jockey.  I could use you for bench presses.”

Ed snarled, “No you coul—

“Enough.”

Izumi lifted her voice above the brewing quarrel and took command of her room.  Al may have attempted to diffuse the tension by trying to focus a conversation on his brother’s look, but that was not why they were there.

Ed returned to attention, finally on trial in front of the two people who deserved some answers.  Laid up in bed, Izumi continued to struggle through off-again, on-again days where the energy just wouldn’t come to her, though the focus on her face didn’t reflect it.  Mustang stood next to her, positioned squarely like a soldier at the ready on the opposite side of the night stand.  Originally steadfast at his brother’s side, Al had been ordered by all the adults in the room to park himself on the bed.  After a bit of arguing, he eventually cooperated.

Nobody said anything after Izumi silenced them, leaving it up to Ed to initiate his testimony.  He’d expected to be hauled into a room and have everyone under the sun yell at him – being left stranded standing in front of these two was a great deal more uncomfortable than the alternatives.  He hadn’t arrived with a plan, just a library of responses for questions nobody was asking him.  Scrambling to put together the only type of address he knew how to give, Ed devised the opening of a scientific essay.

He cleared his throat.

“Due to the way I left our world, in order for me to cross the Gate and get home, I needed to make sure the Gate retained ownership over my existence, because it was not possible for me to re-enter the All-is-One.  To appease the situation, I gave the Gate control over the bonds that bind my mind, body, and soul together.  Turning over my bonds fulfilled the requirement and allowed me to return outside of the All-is-One.”

It was a bizarre amount of information delivered in relatively few words that he’d expected to generate a plethora of questions, so Ed decided to pause there and see if anyone had them.  Unlike Al who’d fired off questions a mile a minute, and Winry who’d thrown fits before he'd finished his sentences, neither Izumi nor Mustang made a peep.  One stood and one sat, both with arms folded, watching Ed silently and making him squirm.  

Ed swallowed heavily and assumed the silence meant he was going to have to continue reading his essay aloud. 

“The Gate stopped Al from getting me home because the ‘fundamental wrong’ it blocked him with was my sacrifice to bring him back.  Because I ended my own life and relinquished it to the Gate, I couldn’t re-enter the All-is-One.  In the view of universal order, I was more than dead, my existence had been terminated.  So, by anchoring myself to the Gate like I did on my return, I could both come home and also exist outside of the All-is-One.”

“The Gate wasn’t concerned about the knowledge you came home with?” Izumi voiced a question, “isn’t the potential damaging?”

“Yes, the potential is damaging, but no, the Gate wasn’t concerned about that,” Ed answered, as surprised with the response as everyone else was, “Dante was right – at one point in our history, the knowledge of the other side was made available to us, but we didn’t take it.  Had we at the time, our history would have evolved much differently, but we didn’t and that’s just the way it goes.  The Gate was never concerned about the knowledge, its purpose is to maintain higher operational law and order between our two worlds.  When someone screws around with that, it instigates the punishment as a deterrent or, in my case, interferes to ensure order is maintained.”

“Go back,” Mustang ordered, his thoughts lingering on a previous glob of information he was still trying to sort out, “the All-is-One is a catch-all term used to describe the interconnecting nature of ‘matter’ of the world.  Every single thing is incorporated into that: biological life cycles, elemental makeup, etcetera.  How can you be present, but also removed from that?”

Even though he’d bumbled through the explanation with Al somewhat successfully, it was still difficult to put into words something Ed understood as a ‘fundamental fact’ that the Gate had provided him with.  He likened it to how Al struggled to explain the ‘fundamental wrong’ bringing him home was – it was a thing the Gate made indisputably understandable, but left an inadequate way of explaining. 

“I guess the best way to picture it is to think of it like my mind, body, and soul are parts of a marionette and the Gate controls the strings that attach them and make them one whole existence.  With this arrangement, as far as the All-is-One is concerned, I’m something like a corporeal ghost.”

The statement raised eyebrows.

“And the Gate’s allowing me to be on loan until I expire.”

“Expire?” both Izumi and Mustang voiced concern over the word choice.

To Ed’s relief, at least his incompatible relationship with the All-is-One was somewhat easier to explain, “Regardless of how I pass away – be it my body failing from age or an accident of some kind – I won’t die in a traditional sense, my time here will have expired.  My body isn’t permitted to feed the earth.  Blood that leaks out of me won’t be absorbed into the soil.  If I cut off my finger, it won’t rot or decompose, the Gate will confiscate anything I might contribute.  So, when my own biology ceases to function, when I ‘die’, the Gate will reclaim me as well.” 

Ed swallowed uncomfortably when neither Izumi nor Mustang reacted.  Both Al and Winry had torn a strip off of him when he explained this, but it wasn’t something anyone could do anything about.  

These were the consequences of his actions.  

It wasn’t fancier than that.  Ed was supposed to be dead.  Ultimately, he was denied an end and as long as he continued to live, the consequences in one form or another would follow him no matter where he went.  So, it didn’t matter what the Gate’s terms were, as long as Ed’s terms were met – that he be allowed to exist at home and live out his natural lifespan with the people he chose – everything else was manageable.

“If your bonds have been altered, if you aren’t connected to the All-is-One, then you can’t transmute anything,” Izumi said.

Ed’s shoulders tensed, listening to his teacher hone in on a damning piece of evidence, “Correct.”

Izumi’s brows settled flat and heavy atop her narrowing eyes, “And that would have been something you’d have known since you came home.”

Ed tightened his jaw, “Correct.”

Hints of his teacher’s percolating emotions were trying to fight their way free from the harness she had on them, “And that it has always been impossible for Dante to transmute information out of you.”

“Correct.  Something that’s not part of the All-is-One cannot be transmuted…”

It would have been so much better if Izumi had let go of her restraints, flown out of bed, and pounded him through the wall.  Ed would have taken the beating in front of Mustang without protest; he wasn’t going to argue that he’d earned it.  Some part of him begged to be left in a black and blue mess on the floor, but instead he had to look at the only thing Izumi didn’t restrain: the utter, silent disappointment in her eyes.  The look twisted Ed on the inside in a way Izumi couldn’t force his body to bend on the outside.  The presence she exuded made him wither and, without a word or hand raised, Izumi made Ed want to melt away in shame.  

“… and the, um, transmutation fails immediately upon instigation,” Ed continued, “any transmutation attempt involving me evokes the Gate.”

Izumi tossed a single, heavy word into the air, “Wrath?”

“I didn’t know that would happen with Wrath,” Ed listened to the sound etched in his mind of the first time he made the homunculus scream with terror.  What Wrath’s fate was now was anyone’s guess, he was as much a victim of Dante’s wrath as everything else she’d ruined down there, “My relationship with the Gate shouldn’t have been something anyone could perceive or sense.  When I clap my hands now, since the Gate holds my bonds, trying to flex those bonds to perform alchemy seems to tap into the Gate within me, but doesn't draw power from it.  I guess Wrath’s relationship with the Gate allowed him to pick up on that.”

“You had us believe…” an unsettling rumble in the air reminded everyone that Mustang was still in the room, “that the power you could draw for alchemy risked putting a crater in the ground.”

“Initially, I was worried that might happen,” Ed confessed - it wasn’t like anyone had tried something like this before.

Mustang’s presence began to flare with the fire he commanded, “Yet you still assumed the risk in Wrath’s presence, risking the safety of everyone not only in this building, but the entire district of Central?”

“No,” Ed bit back in defence of his actions, “I wouldn’t have done anything with Wrath if I’d thought the risk was great enough.”

“When did you stop thinking the risk was great!?” Mustang’s words rang out like shots fired into the air, “when did you arrive at the decision that sending Wrath to Dante and leaving everyone trying to help you out of the loop was an acceptable risk to take?”

Ed didn’t have a response for Mustang.  No kind of calculated strategy existed.  There was no master plan with all the pieces laid out like Dante would have done.  Decisions were made with scant, crucial keys in mind as events unfolded and Ed formulated his action around those decisions.  

The verbal gunfire closed in on Ed, “You put people in danger.  You put my people in danger, people who were trying to help you.”

“I understand that,” he did.  Ed really believed he did.  Despite how it looked, his decisions were made to protect people.  That’s why he didn't include them.  It was why he struck out on his own when the option became available.  Everyone around him was in danger.  Ed could only imagine how Dante would tear apart any pawn on her board that proved to be not only tangibly useful to her, but emotionally valuable to him as well.  

“As long as the truth was with me, if Dante pursued any of you in any way, even if she forced the information out of you, it would send her back to me.  As long as everything she wanted to know pointed at me, as long as she didn’t pick up even a whisper of doubt, I had the power to send her to the Gate.”

Furiously arriving to look his target in the eye, Mustang didn’t restrain himself with Ed in the same way that Izumi did, “You thought that little of us?”

“No!” the glorious few centimetres Ed eclipsed the man with were somehow taken away; he felt himself shrivel in Mustang’s eyes, “this had nothing to do with you or what you’re capable of, it had everything to do with her.  She was a monster Mustang.  A fucking monster!  I wasn’t going to risk fucking around with the trump card I had on a monster like that.” 

“A monster like what!?” the frustration in Mustang’s two good, dark eyes intensified, “you forget that I understand a little something about monsters.”

“You didn’t get the primer on this one,” needing him to understand how important this was, Ed’s voice soared, “I did!”

“You did!?” 

“Yeah, I did!  So, I was equipped to deal with it!”

The fuel stoking Mustang’s fire was abruptly turned off, “I see.”

The man's words landed like two bricks dropped atop the earth, impacts echoing faintly with dull, dusty thumps in Ed’s ears.  Ed watched Mustang end the engagement, turn, and walk back to his post at Izumi’s dresser.  Blindsided by the sudden about face, Ed tried to recompose himself, a task made far more difficult when he caught a glimpse of Izumi’s expression again. 

“What’s done is done.  It can’t be undone and I don’t want it to be, I just wish it hadn’t screwed things up for everyone as much as it did.”

“Is that all?” Izumi asked.

“Yes,” Ed answered.  The technicalities of his situation were just window dressing now.  Anything more he had to say for his actions sounded like insecure excuses.  He couldn’t think of any other details he’d denied them that couldn’t be inferred by what he’d said already.  This conversation didn’t need any more verbal fluff.  “That’s all.”

The awkward silence the session opened with reasserted itself.  Both Izumi and Mustang left Ed standing on his own at the front of the room, locked in their headlights, and offering nothing to indicate what, where, or if the conversation should be moved along.  Ed searched the aura to see if there was any indication that he should have something more to say, but nothing was apparent that he could put a finger on.  He clasped his hands together behind his back again and straightened up tall.

“If that’s all you want from me, I’ll go.  Brigitte wanted me to help her with something this afternoon.”

“Go.” Izumi dismissed him.  

Ed looked at her; the disappointment keeping the fury in her eyes at bay.  Ed glanced over at Mustang; the man didn’t even bat an eye at him, let alone move his lips, and maintained command over his firm, harsh expression.  Ed looked down to Al; silent this whole time, his brother cradled his arm against his body and looked back at him despondently.  It wasn’t sadness or disappointment in Al’s eyes, just the resignation that they’d both known before walking into the room that this conversation wasn’t going to go in Ed’s favour.  And, all things considered, it went as badly as he’d expected it to go.  

But so long as everyone was safe, and their livelihoods were safe, that was what mattered in the long run.  In Ed’s mind, that was the most important thing.  If that jeopardized their trust, their faith, their respect in him, then so be it.  At least they were safe and alive.

Without another word, Ed let himself out of the room.

 


 

It was going to take some time, Maria Ross concluded, for her head to normalize into some kind of rhythm again.  Rose had advised her of the symptoms she’d experienced after being freed from Dante’s hand, but since what was done to Maria was drastically different, she was hoping for a different outcome.  Ultimately, she seemed to be afflicted in similar ways Rose had described.  

There were times when she could sit down and read the pages of a book without a problem, yet an hour later she would look at the same pages and see nothing but black ink on white pulp.  Instead of her eyes capturing entire sentences, she would have to finger each word one at a time to get through them.  She would start an activity, be distracted by a thought, and return to the activity but have no idea what she was in the middle of doing.  Rooms would be entered and Maria couldn’t remember what for.  Just little absences of thought that crept up throughout the day that she had to contend with.

She refused to be mad at it.  Maria was determined to not let it frustrate her.  Her own mind would be conquered again, and this time she would be the conqueror.  Time would help massage everything back into its original form and eventually Second Lieutenant Maria Ross would return to active duty.  

A familiar rat-a-tat-tat of knuckles on her bedroom door thankfully saved Maria from the headache her wandering thoughts were causing.

She knew that hand.  She knew that knock and Maria opened the door.  If Brigitte was here, then the entourage was too, and on the other side of her door was not only the blonde teenage girl she was expecting, but her oversized… escor… 

What.

Maria let all of the gears in her head take a break, rather than force them to struggle over deciphering what appeared to be some form of Edward Elric at her door.

“Oh my goodness,” she stepped back, allowing the door to swing open. 

Brigitte skipped into the room triumphantly, “Maria scheint nicht so böse auf dich zu sein wie alle anderen.”

Ed took a passive swipe over the back of Brigitte’s head, catching mostly hair.

Maria stared at her guests, struggling to think.

Ed seemed to pick up on something being amiss and gave the officer a few moments of silent leeway before he addressed her, “Hey, Lieutenant.  Glad you’re up.”

Good grief, it sounded like him… sort of… his voice had moved out of his nose and into his chest.  She’d understood Ed would return older, but this far exceeded the expectations Brigitte had laid out for them.  Or maybe the expectations had been harder to imagine than she’d thought.  Maria gawked at the sight on two legs easing into her room, looking up to realize this man’s gaze skimmed the top of her head.  She could remember putting his head on her shoulder and how childlike he was when she held him, despite how he desperately wished to be perceived otherwise.  That seemed like it had happened yesterday.   

“Look at you…” was what Maria finally arrived at.

Ed’s response came with a sheepish grin, “Not my best look, I promise that.”

“It’s quite something though,” Maria pushed her door shut and ushered her guests to have a seat on her bedside.

“I hear you’ve been through quite a bit,” Ed sat down next to Brigitte, “how’re you doing?”

“Much better, thank you,” Maria swung her desk chair around so she could face her guests, “it’s a struggle to get all cylinders firing upstairs sometimes, but all things considered I’m doing well.”

Ed nodded like he’d arrived fully aware of her condition, “That’s good to hear.”

“How are you doing?” Maria practically blurted out the question, “so much has happened… how have you been?”

A sense of reservation pre-empted Ed’s reply and it wasn’t until he paused that she saw the weariness in his eyes. 

“I’m fine.  A lot of shit’s gone down recently, hasn’t it?” Ed laughed stiffly, “at this point, I’m just looking forward to getting home.”

Her shoulders softened hesitantly, “Good. You deserve to enjoy some time at home.”

Ed offered a sideways grin for the sentiment and took the moment to re-introduce the ball of sunshine sitting next to his grey cloud, “I got someone here who wants to talk to you.”

Brigitte picked up on her queue and beamed.

“She asked if I could help.”

“Really!?” Maria smiled; after all this time, and after everything they’d gone through, this poor girl who’d done her best to learn, and they’d done their best to interpret, was finally going to be understood, “our first proper conversation.”

“Yeah,” Ed smirked, “she’s got a whole lot of confusion going on and a thousand questions to ask.”

“Have you managed to get her to understand her circumstances at all?” Maria had a hard enough time herself trying to understand the ins and outs of this alchemy Gate and other worlds and whatnot, she couldn’t imagine what Brigitte might be thinking, “does she know where she is?”

A grimace crawled into Ed’s face, “Kind of.  She’s not quite grasping the whole concept… we’re working on it.”

Maria gave a short laugh, “Can you blame her?”

“No,” Ed snorted his reply and glanced down to the girl in question, “bist du bereit?”

Maria hadn’t meant to let her eyes open as wide as they did when Ed spoke.

“Bin ich,” straightening up like she was collecting herself to run straight off the end of a diving board, Brigitte leaned forwards to announce her first question, “Geht es Ihnen besser?”

Ed took a second to marvel at the simplicity of the question, “Are you feeling better?” 

Maria’s expression warmed – that was her first thought?  Asking how she was doing?  It was a humbling gesture, “Yes, I am.”

The relief Brigitte’s body language conveyed said she understood the reply without her translator’s help.

“Ed, would you let her know that I was able to hear her?” though it wasn’t always clear, Maria had been able to hear and recognize Brigitte’s voice at one point or another while Dante had her.  It was a familiar voice with distinct, foreign words that filtered through to keep her aware of what was really going on, “I don’t know where we were or what the circumstances were like, but after Dante muddled things up for me, I could hear her when she spoke.”

Slowly nodding, Ed passed the message along.  Maria tried not to let intrigue flood her face with too much wonder over this foreign conversation she was privy to.  Though Amestris had a number of unique cultures, it was not the epitome of worldly and diverse; she’d never heard anyone carry on a coherent conversation in another language before.  Brigitte was interesting on her own, but hearing her converse with Ed was something Maria thought she could listen to for hours. 

“Dann, als nächstes,” Brigitte took control back on the conversation, “Ich will ihr danken, dass sie mich vor der Hexe gerettet hat, als wir uns zuerst kennenlernten. Ich habe mich schlecht benommen nachdem sie mich rettete, aber ich konnte nicht verstehen was passierte und dachte ehrlich, ich wurde in die Sklaverei verkauft.  Ich wurde ziemlich nett behandelt, vielen Dank. Sag ihr das.”

Ed’s expression stretched tall, “Du dachtest du wurdest in die Sklaverei verkauft?” 

“Meine Schwester hat mir gesagt, dass die Briten deutsche Kinder verwendet haben, um ihre Häuser sauber zu halten!” Brigitte huffed, folding her arms, “Ich dachte, das wäre was mit mir passierte.”

Ed laughed and Maria realized this must be something similar to how Brigitte had felt listening to all the English conversations.

“You met Brigitte originally when you plucked her out of the prime minister’s household, right?” 

Ed’s familiar tongue brought Maria back into the moment at hand.

What an absolute hectic time that had been for her to think back on, though everything seemed a lot simpler with hindsight in mind.  “We didn’t realize who Dante was at that point, or what exactly was going on.  Knowing what we know now, I think Brigitte’s arrival caught Dante off guard, or else she wouldn’t have sent Winry through the Gate in the middle of a building so full of servants and security,” what Maria wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall when that all went down.  Winry’s departure would have gone unnoticed, but a frantic child coming back in return must have alerted the entire building, “Luckily we got her out before Dante dug her claws in too tightly.”

“Huh,” Ed nodded, piecing the details together in his head, “well, she apologizes for being a little shit.  She said she gave you some trouble.”

“It wasn’t much trouble,” Maria brushed the concern aside and gave Ed a knowing smile, “she was just acting her age.”

Ed offered one in return, “You were good to her, though.  She really appreciated the kindness and says thank you.” 

At no point was anything but compassion and kindness the appropriate course of action, “Brigitte, you’re welcome.”  

Brigitte smiled sheepishly at some of the English words she’d managed to learn.

“Kannst du sie fragen ob ich über den See fragen darf, zu dem wir gegangen sind, und der Hütte in der wir waren?” Brigitte perked back up with another topic, “und den Scharaden und Räubern und wieso die Hütte niedergebrannt ist?”

“Räuber?” Ed questioned, "Welche Hütte wurde niedergebrannt?”

“Maria hat mich zu einer Hütte am See genommen, und das ist wo ich Izumi und die anderen getroffen habe. Räuber sind später mit Gewähren eingebrochen, es gab einen Kampf, und dann ist es niedergebrannt!”

Maria looked between the two of them expectantly, bubbling with a youthful kind of curiosity she hadn’t experienced in some time.

Ed redirected his attention back to Maria, “You took her to a cabin at a lake?”

“My grandfather’s cabin,” she clarified.

Ed’s expression pinched, “And it burned down?”

“Unfortunately.”

A very long, debated pause droned on between the three of them.

“Mustang did it, didn’t he?”

Maria frowned, “There was a tactical reason, Edward.”

Ed shrugged like he wasn’t harbouring any underlying doubts and digressed, “Brigitte wants to know about what was going on then.”

For as long as Brigitte wanted, for as long as she needed, Maria would sit in the room with the two of them and answer any and every question the girl could think up.  There were even a number of her own she was hoping to have an opportunity to finally ask.

 


 

Nearly reaching the point where Izumi was ready to clap her hands and terminally remodel the stove, the pilot light for the burner finally flickered on.

A pot was moved from the counter to the stove top.  

The kitchen was providing Izumi’s head with the relief she was craving, but her body wanted her back in bed.  That cursed place where all her thoughts were.  She would rather strain herself tenderizing meat than go back there right now.

As if the mere mention of her thoughts had given them life, they were unceremoniously dragged into the kitchen.  

Ed stepped into the mouth of the room, flinched like he’d walked in on a woman changing, and flipped around to leave like it never happened.

“Ed,” the teacher called, “get back here.”

Someone’s old dog dragged himself back in the room.  Actually, a mountain lion, Izumi amended.  Ed hardly resembled a dog like this; he was an old, wary mountain lion intruding in another’s territory.

“Yes?”

“Are you busy?”

“No.”

Opening a drawer and pulling out a decent looking paring knife, she spun it around in her hand and extended the handle to him, “Grab the cutting board and the vegetables from the counter.” 

Ed complied without a word.  When Izumi looked over her shoulder next, her carrots were well into being peeled. 

She didn’t know what to do with him.  

It was easier to address Ed when he’d confessed to transmuting their mother.  He’d disobeyed.  There were rules he’d broken – clearly defined rules that she’d laid out and he’d broken.  Both Ed and Al had broken them.  

The last time she’d seen Ed, before he’d vanished, before this journey was in motion, he’d apologized to her.  Nothing had happened yet, he was apologizing in advance.  It was something that had filled her with absolute dread, because he was anticipating that whatever was about to happen would go against her teachings.  It did.

And he would be paying for that for the rest of his life.

This time, Ed hadn’t broken any formal rules.  Well, except pawning off military property and bribery, but she was surprisingly indifferent to that – breaking the letter of the law felt like the least of his crimes.  Izumi didn’t know what specifically to focus her feelings on.  Particular memories now enraged her.  Recalling certain moments frustrated her.  But, on the whole, when she considered Ed’s actions since getting home, all she felt was disappointment.   

Ed had disappointed her before, but this felt different.  This felt far more personal – Izumi had been involved, used, and that’s what made it hurt.  She wanted to understand what had been going on in his head to make all the decisions that he had.  What he believed he understood about Dante the rest of them didn’t.

Glancing over her shoulder again, a curious sight caught her attention. “Do you have any problems using your hand for that?” she asked.

Letting the knife handle teeter between two deaf fingers, Ed shrugged, “I have a lot more dexterity and control over my hand than I did with AutoMail.  I just have to keep an eye on the strength of my grip.”

“You grew up with either an iron clad grip, or none at all.”

“Yeah.  Flesh grip has a lot more nuance to pay attention to.”  A naked carrot was laid out on the cutting board and Ed started slicing.

The fledgling hints of a conversation died.  

Izumi wished guilt lingered in the air, asking to be addressed – she would have given it an ear full.  This kitchen was swollen with awkward silence and the sound of the knife against the cutting board did nothing to disperse it.  Ed hadn’t expressed any guilt over his actions.  Forgiveness wasn’t being sought.  He regretted how he'd adversely affected people, but didn’t lament his root decisions, which was frustratingly on par for him.  Not for a moment would Izumi wish for Dante’s return, but she hated how such a monumental victory existed to justify his actions.  The blight was gone.  The people in Ed’s life were safe.  He got what he’d wanted, he would deal with the fallout, he would accept whatever came of it… and that’s what was going on.  Ed wasn’t looking at any other framework for his picture.

Conversation was attempted again.

“Have you and Al found a way to dampen the shockwave you generate?” 

Izumi didn’t realize until she said it how it made Ed sound like a tool, a thing, rather than a person.  The Gate’s thing.  Izumi lifted the tenderizer over a fresh slab of meat and considered driving it straight through the counter.

“Al and I think we can navigate around it by using dual transmutation circles,” Ed walked over to the trash and swept the carrot peels away, “one on the ground around us and one on me.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”  She absolutely hated it.  “You’ll be pulled to the Gate with Brigitte regardless, won’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m the mediator, so I have to go,” Ed sat back down, “Al’s coming too.”

The tenderizer nearly crushed the countertop, “I see.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Ed’s tone lightened, “I’m more stable than Diana was, and I’m directly tied to the Gate.”

“Al already explained that to me,” and Izumi didn’t care.  

Switching from the tenderizer to the sharpest knife the kitchen offered, Izumi carved through the beef.  The knife tore into the wooden board protecting the countertop, announcing every swipe she made, like the meat wasn’t even there.  Expertly handled single strokes performed tens of thousands of times broke dinner down into bite sized chunks.  Piling it all into a mound, Izumi left it on the cutting board… the pot wasn’t boiling yet.

She washed her hands.

Walking over to the kitchen table, Izumi approached Ed’s seat and examined the pile of carrots he’d prepared.  Potatoes were a work in progress.  Lifting the hand nearest him, Izumi settled it on the top of Ed’s head.  She felt him allow his neck to hinge and Ed’s head bowed under the added weight.  Ghosts were rumoured to be cold, but a corporeal ghost was warm.  

Directionless anger flared and Izumi decided where she wanted to point it.  

At that thing.

She despised that horrific thing with more spite than she’d thought she was capable of.  

That Gate.  

Izumi had been an adult willfully ignoring better judgement and completely immersed in grief when the Gate punished her for her sin.  But that same Gate punished a child struggling to mourn.  It imprinted its cruel self onto him with whispers of knowledge.  It deprived him of peace when he surrendered himself to it.  It robbed him of everything that meant something.  And that Gate kept punishing him even as he negotiated his freedom from the hell it forced him to live with.  

The boys implied the Gate was a benevolent structure with design and function that it operated around.  Izumi was tempted to argue it had some sense of consciousness as well… cruel, heartless consciousness.  

Izumi’s hand moved off the top of Ed’s head.  She slid her hand around to his forehead and curled her fingers into the bangs at his hairline.  Wrapping Ed’s head in her elbow, Izumi tucked it in at her side. 

“Is there a way to send Brigitte home without going there?” she asked. “I don’t want you or Al to see that thing again.”

The rigid plank Izumi had secured spoke, “I have to go with her.”

“I don’t want you to,” Izumi answered selfishly.  Ed had been so selfish this whole time, like no one else around him was allowed to feel the same way.  It was her turn, “I want you two to stay as far away from that thing as possible.”

At some point that thing is going to have you.  Don’t give it a chance to act early.

Ed didn’t respond at first, like he’d tried going over more than one thing to say and then realized how little he actually had to explain in order for his teacher to understand.  Yes, he had to go.  There was no other way.  Izumi didn’t need that spelled out, she could figure it out on her own.  She was asking because she didn’t like the answer.

“I’m sorry,” the plank bowed, apologizing before he could disappoint her further. 

Izumi sighed, “Slide over.” 

Ed settled in the next seat while Izumi confiscated his.  Cripes, there he was.  When was he going to shave that thing off so she could get a better look at him?  Mustang was right, he needed more weight on his bones for this.  The stupid thing looked like it was pulling the skin off his face and just… no.  No.  Izumi didn’t care how tall he was or old he was, Ed was too young for any sort of beard.  No. 

“How’re you doing?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Ed answered, carefully carving away the skin of a potato.

The response sounded like a reflex, not a reflection of him.  “You’re doing okay with what’s been done to you?” she asked, like he hadn’t played a part in the design.  Izumi doubted the Gate had given Ed much of a choice.

“Yes,” he answered concisely, “my other options are death and living out my death, so I’m okay with this.  Dante’s gone and we can move on and that’s what counts.  I have Al, I have Winry, everyone’s safe, and we’re going home.”

Izumi tisked sharply enough that it startled Ed.  Removing the paring knife from his hand, Izumi took the potato he’d nearly finished peeling.  

There was no secret code that would crack Edward Elric.  Izumi could hope for one, but she knew there wasn’t any.  An epiphany might change his track, but it was the same fortified train.  It wasn’t a heartfelt conversation he needed to hear – no sequence of perfectly placed words from any language could be put together that would significantly alter him.  Al was the sky and Ed was the earth; the parts that made him were strong and sturdy, but slow to change and stubborn.  He needed time.  

As much as Ed believed he was protecting people by keeping them out of harm’s way, a noble sounding cause, he was also protecting himself from being hurt.  Ed needed the time and space to see how the fear of loss governed him, so he could acknowledge it and try to un-learn it.  

Positioned in Izumi’s hands, the blade of the paring knife went back into the skin notch on the potato.  The last rings were carved away.

The disappointment Izumi felt also wasn’t something that could be magically whisked away with good words.  Only time and a willingness to turn the page in spite of everything would help two rigid personalities like theirs.  It didn’t mean everything was forgiven, that anything was better, or that they saw eye to eye – it just meant they could move forwards and look for ways to repair what was damaged.

Izumi put the peeled potato on Ed’s cutting board.  The knife was turned in her fingers and Izumi looked at this shaggy, run down, tired young man searching for her motivation with all sorts of questions in his eyes.  She offered him the knife back.

“You have me, too.”

 


 

Rose nearly fell out of her seat scrambling to catch Al’s cutlery as he flew away from the table. 

“I thought…” racing back to his chair with an open map fluttering in his free hand, Al made a vain attempt at folding it to make it more manageable, “… that we could start with a route in the east!  Kind of tracing back on tracks we made after my brother was sent there under the brigadier general’s command for the first time, but with a more organized approach.  Rather than going here, there, and then wherever, we’ll actually follow a more sensible route that’ll give us a chance to explore the towns and area more.”

Wiping his hands on a dry dishtowel, Ed walked around the remnants of their dinner table and raised his brow at the ink marks littering the map, “Christ, Al, you’ve marked up the whole country already.”

Grabbing the map by its western edge and leaving Rose to hold the other next to him, Al opened it up wide, “I’ve been trying to remember all the places I wanted to go back to, or places I’ve heard about that we should go see.  I wish I’d kept a journal, I know there’s a bunch I’ve forgotten.”

“Anything particular you’re going to see?” Winry asked from across the table.

“I’ve circled places we couldn’t take in properly the first time and ones with local lore as well,” he nodded thoughtfully, “there are a few cities with alchemy mysteries mixed in there too that we can play around with or debunk, but mostly…” Al slowly lowered the map, revealing the brow he’d furrowed with thought, “I want to try the food.”

The admission brought out a round of laughter from the dinner table.

“And smell the flowers and breathe mountain air and meet new people and re-introduce myself to ones who didn’t know me properly before,” Al attempted to cover for his excited stomach, but really it was going to benefit most from any national gallivanting, “I want to actually see Xenotime properly and spend time with Russel and Fletcher.  I want to find Clausé and talk with her.  I want to breathe the air in a city like Aquoria.  I think it’ll be fun to dig our noses into the rumours and stories of the border cities and see if we can get a glimpse at what alchemy is like in other countries.  Maybe even sneak across.”

Ed picked up a few empty plates from the table and headed back to the sink.

Al crunched the map down in his lap and announced: “It’ll be a great big adventure done properly!”

“A monumental adventure!” chasing the sauce on her plate around with the last bite of her dinner, Winry upped the ante, “it’s going to take you another five years to go everywhere.  You could write a book on everything you learn when you’re done.”

“Nah, it won’t take that long,” Al dismissed Winry’s exaggerations with the wave of his hand.

“I finally get the both of you back safe and sound and you make plans to run off again,” she sighed with an abundance of theatrical dismay.

Ed settled the dishes in the sink and sauntered back to the table, sliding his hands into his pockets, “It’s not like the plan is to abandon Resembool, Win.”

“Yeah, we’ll be home plenty often,” Al chimed in.

The fork in Winry’s hand was whipped up into the air, the last of her dinner hanging onto the prongs for dear life, “By the time you two adventurers remember to visit, I’ll have an entire new industry up and running!”

“And you can hop in the flying death machine and come visit us,” Ed looked off with a slow, sage nod.

Winry whipped around to the nuisance standing behind her, “It is not a death machine!”  

“It is when it falls out of the sky,” Ed countered dryly.

“It won’t fall out of the sky!  My engineering will be perfect,” Winry pointedly shoved her fork in Ed’s face, “and you don’t get the luxury of snide remarks, because you were the one who was studying rockets and propulsion to get up in the air before I even knew that was a thing!”

Ed’s brow flattened and he chomped the last bite off her fork.

Winry’s expression blanked.

Al’s eyes grew wide.

Rose clasped her hands in her lap.

In a flash, Winry whipped the fork around, gripped it firmly, and took a swipe at Ed with it, “Asshole!”

Ed shuffled back to the sink cackling.

“That was the last of my dinner,” Winry bemoaned the loss.

“And now you’re finished,” Ed chewed on his morsel and picked up the dishcloth from the sink to wring it out, “bring me your plate.”

“No, you come and get it,” she snarled.

“No damned way,” Ed wagged his fingers and resumed cleaning the dishes, “use your legs and bring it here.”

“It’s a shame Brigitte never joined us for dinner,” Rose picked out something to quickly distract the kitchen from a squabble – Maria had taken Brigitte out for a meal, “I was looking forward to hearing Edward Elric: Translator Extraordinaire at work.”

Al’s eyes flew as wide as saucers and he jumped all over Rose’s lament, “It sounds so neat when he does it!”

Winry reached across the table and stacked a few lingering dishes, “It’s the angriest sounding language you will ever hear.”

Rose laughed at the quick attention her comment drew, “It must be such a relief for her knowing that not only can she be heard and understood now, but she has a ticket home whenever she wants to use it.”

Al stepped in with a word of caution, “We’re still working out the finer details on Brigitte’s ticket.”

Waddling over to the dish-doer, Winry delivered more work to his dwindling sink, “But, when she does get back, she can tell everyone about the caveman Ed turned into.”

“Oh hell no, I got my freedom after Sensei veto’d this,” Ed rolled a forlorn expression back to the table, “Rose, do you have any money I can borrow?”

Rose grimaced, “I’m relying on the generosity of others until we get back to Resembool.” 

Ed groaned.

“I like it,” Al huffed, “I think it looks neat.  How did Lt. Colonel Armstrong put it, uh,” clearing his throat, Al puffed up his chest, threw his free hand into the air, and tried his damnedest to deepen his voice, “it is a symbol of your ascension into manhood!”

“Oh, for fucks sake…” Ed started to wither at the sink as giggles from both Winry and Rose bubbled to life. 

Al pushed his upper lip towards his nose and anchored his fork there for a silverware moustache and continued, “A rich beard exudes maturity and masculinity, poise and refinement, is a sign of your virility and other endowments as well – all attractive qualities a young man at your age should embrace.  All qualities young ladies will find attractive in you.” 

Ed continued to disintegrate in front of the dinner crowd.

Al’s arm swung out to his side in an attempt to push the bravado, “You should take pride in your ability to produce a presentable mane!”

Rose brought her hands up over her mouth as the laughter worsened, “Did he honestly say all that?”

“Yup,” Winry cackled, “everyone within a country mile heard him, too.”

Al let the fork tumble down into his hand, “It sounds great, I don’t know why you want to get rid of it so badly.”

“I need to find someone with mercy who’ll lend me some money,” Ed grumbled.

Al pointed a firm finger at his older brother, “If you hadn’t been so sneaky with the money you’d had, you could have bought your own razor.”

Unable to win any argument that dragged his Central City antics into the equation, Ed tried to roll his eyes all the way back to the sink, but Winry put herself in the way.

“It’s not like selling that uniform was a crime or anything, Officer Elric.”

The contempt he looked at her with was palpable.   

“Although…” Winry leaned in undeterred by the rising annoyance on display, stuck her fingers into the hair covering his chin, and expertly scratched out the red flush that afflicted him, “Al’s right, it is kinda neat.”

A spray of water was flung through the kitchen when Ed whipped the dishcloth out of the sink and snapped it at Winry, “Bugger off!”

Winry squealed and skittered back.  

Ed snapped the soggy cloth again, and once more, chasing Winry out of the kitchen.

A flurry of mild curses and raucous laughter tumbled into the rest of the suite, the antics flooding the apartment with cackles and shrieks as the foolish escapade continued beyond the kitchen walls.

Linking her fingers neatly, Rose put her elbows down on the table and placed her chin atop her hands, “You know, I’ve gotten to know the both of them individually, but today is the first time I’ve seen Ed and Winry interact with each other,” Rose put her pupils in the corner of her eyes and smiled at Al, “it’s very interesting.”

“Mmhmm,” Al linked his hands as perfectly as Rose did hers, he matched her posture as best he could, put his chin down atop his hands, and concurred with a pert little grin, “it is very interesting.”

Rose laughed.

All interest in the shenanigans came to a crashing halt when Izumi stormed out of her room to annihilate the squealing disruption for waking Rose’s son.  The ears in the kitchen listened in amusement to a few desperate apologies before a tongue lashing silenced the culprits for good.  Promptly conscripting them for baby duty, Izumi expertly manhandled peace and quiet back into the early evening, and slammed her door to seal the deal.

Getting up from the table, Al turned the sink faucet off and meandered back to his chair in the content silence that marked the end of the meal.  

Rose picked up the map lost to the floor as Al re-joined her at the table, “You’ve circled Lior.”

Al nodded, “I know it’s still being rebuilt, but I think it’ll still be worth a trip.  Do you want to join us?”

The invite sparked a sort of delight that Al hadn’t seen all day in Rose’s eyes and the map landed firmly in her lap, “Yes.  I would.”

Al grinned from ear to ear.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about going back lately,” she admitted.

“Do you miss it?”

The spark in Rose’s eyes didn’t disappear, but it did dim as her thoughts wandered through her answer, “There’s a lot I’ll never get back.  That won’t be the same.  And I understand that, I really do.  But, I still dream about the better parts of it anyways.  I miss it, yes.”

“That’s a feeling that’s been going around lately,” Al said.

A soft arm reached out and wrapped tightly around Al’s shoulders. Rose squeezed him and pressed her cheek into the side of his head, “Last year, in the evacuation, I remember one of my favourite restauranteurs growing impatient and wondering,” she deepened her voice, trying to make it sound gruff, “what those military assholes were doing to his kitchen.”

It was Al’s turn for a good laugh.

“I am absolutely certain that man’s business is booming,” Rose sang, “would you join me for a traditional Liorian dinner?”

“I’d love to!” Al beamed.

 


 

An empty glass landed on a counter lit only by a dimmed table light from across the room.  Even the ambient noise had gone to bed early on this night.  It was a long, arduous day and Roy added two ice cubes to the glass in anticipation of a quiet, private toast to putting it behind him.  

Another day he wished to forget.  They were starting to pile up like loathsome paperwork he would never admit to missing.

The knock on the door put a damper on his non-events and Roy debated ignoring it and feigning sleep.  When was the last time he went to bed before 11pm?  Damned if he could remember.  The knock came a second time, a bit harder but not too intrusive, and he sighed.  The night cap would have to wait a few minutes.  

Someone he was not expecting stood on the other side of the door and Roy couldn’t help but sound surprised when he opened his suite, “Ed.”

What a bewildering sight he still was.  Ed was something like an alley cat to begin with, but now he was mangy and haggard, like a ragged orange tabby that needed to be trapped and sent to the vet.  He’d come home looking worn, Roy clearly remembered looking at him lying asleep in bed and seeing the wear.  Now it was just egregiously apparent.  A thickening beard Roy was ashamed to admit he wasn’t born with the biology to challenge covered his face.  The way his skin hung off his facial bones was apparent and the telltale depressions under his eyes advertised his condition.  It was an unfortunately familiar look – something Roy had seen on far too many men in his line of work, including himself.  As golden as Ed was with all that hair on his face, the shine was significantly tarnished.

“Here,” Ed didn’t bumble around with a greeting or small talk, he skipped the pretense and handed Roy that pair of slightly used ignition gloves, “forgot to give these to you earlier.”

“You forgot?” 

“Yeah, forgot.” 

Accepting what was coldly handed to him, Roy watched Ed step away from the door without another word. 

“Ed.”  

Some part of him was content to let Ed walk away tonight.  Roy was mad at this selfish, headstrong brat.  Furious in ways he couldn’t articulate.  There was anger Ed had earned, but then there was the rest of the anger and frustration that was just easy to pin on him.  It was hard to draw a line between the two sometimes.

“…Come inside.”

Roy wanted to talk to him.  

“Have a drink.”

There was something he wanted to see if Ed would discuss.

Ed followed the unexpected invitation like an order, taking a seat in Roy’s sitting room like the dutiful subordinate he’d never been.  He sat with an intriguing amount of ‘proper’ to him, like he was waiting for permission to be at ease.  Roy left him to stew and returned to the counter where his drink lay in wait.  Another glass was plucked from the cupboard and two additional ice cubes were gifted to it.  Roy collected the bottle they would share by its stem and took the menagerie over to the little round table three chairs encircled. 

“Alphonse told me how resourceful the two of you were with these.  He had a number of questions.”

Ed eyeballed the alcoholic collection placed on the tiny glass table, “If Al turns into a pyromaniac, I’ll know who to blame.”

Grinning, Roy removed the bottle’s cork and filled Ed’s glass only enough to shelter the ice, “I don’t mind taking credit for that.”

The drink offered to Ed was taken for study.  Roy relaxed in his chair with far more ease than his guest examining the brown liquid cooling in ice cubes.  The drink and the low light mixed to give the glass a rich, amber hue in Ed’s hand, and it made the dulled colour of his eyes more apparent. 

“Oof,” Ed breathed sharply after a sip, “that’s got bite.”

“It does,” Roy took a sip of his own and digressed, “I got the impression you didn’t like the beard.”

“I don’t,” the answer was fast.

“Begs the question why it’s still on your face.”

“My bank account is frozen.  Seems I’m wanted for desertion,” Ed spat out his response like he’d been waiting for days to bitch at someone about it, “the chunk of change I had is tied up in those gloves and the rest is lost in Dante’s underground sewer.  I can’t afford a razor and my wardens are content to parade me around like a circus attraction.”

Roy fought the urge to chuckle at the unfortunate circumstance, finding it hard to muster up any sympathy.  Bitterly, childishly, Roy decided that this was just karma at work.  And these gloves were his dammit!  Not a commercially available commodity – not something you can return to a store and get your money back on.  On top of that, selling a blasted military uniform to a market vendor was illegal.  What the hell was Ed thinking?  Roy ought to help Al and Winry out and put him in handcuffs for the hell of it.

For reasons unbeknownst to him, Roy extended his only iota of compassion instead, “Would you like a shaving kit?”

A golden light peeked over the dark horizons cradling Ed’s eyes like the freshly risen sun, “Yes.”

Roy laughed, “I’ll see what I can find for you.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Ed took a far too generous gulp of his drink to mask the juvenile embarrassment even his beard couldn’t hide, “thank you.”

Roy lightly shook his head at the golden problem child across from him.  What the hell was he thinking indeed.  ‘It’s not you, it’s her’ was a breakup line, not a call to action.  Not a reason to treat the people around him the way he had.  Did Ed honestly think that the answer he gave today sufficed?  In some ways Roy would have preferred hearing an elaborate, master, diabolical plan he’d come home with to rid them of Dante, full of nuances and other bullshit mad scientists are known for.  Instead he listened to a winged venture Ed had stumbled into executing – something that told the officer his once-subordinate returned more fearful of the threat Dante posed to their lives than they all were.  Regardless of the outcome, it felt like Ed had over reacted.

“Any plans for what you’ll do next?” Roy stirred up idle chatter in the absence of the meaningful conversation he sought, “your future is wide open.” 

“I’m going back to Resembool for a bit,” Ed voiced the beginnings of a vague plan, “Al’s coming up with a lot of ideas for things to do.”

Roy sat forwards and plucked the dwindling glass from Ed’s hand, “He must be excited to stretch his legs.”

“Yeah, he is,” the drink was topped up as Ed spoke, “there’s a list of things he wants us to do and places he wants us to go.”

That was an interesting response, Roy thought – not for what was said, but for the lackluster way it was delivered.  He handed the glass back to Ed, “Sounds like a good time.”

“Yeah, it does.”

Was it possible for Ed to have sounded any less enthused?  Roy was left to wonder.  He was clearly more excited at the promise of ridding himself of the beard than he was venturing around the country with his long lost brother.  

“Do you…” the alcohol must have instigated the words, because once Ed’s brain caught up to his mouth, he stalled until he talked himself into finishing the sentence, “…have any idea what you’ll be up to now?” 

That was a million cens question Roy wasn’t asking himself.  It was why he had a drink in his hand.  In a way, his future appeared to be as wide open as Ed’s.  In every other way, the future he’d planned for himself was in ruins.  The refurbish he’d gotten from the Philosopher’s Stone may have left him feeling physically spry, but how the hell was a man supposed to start over when he was nearing forty?

“I don’t know.  Every time I tried to climb the ladder, every time I allowed myself to think that I could be the one to fix the bullshit from the top, I learned that reality was far worse than I imagined.  Ignorance operated at its finest every step of the way and now I have no idea what my future holds.” Roy lifted his glass, “We share a similar boat, I suppose.  I can no longer entertain my life as a military officer under this incoming regime and you can no longer entertain your life as the alchemist prodigy you were.  Cheers to our unknown futures.”

Roy toasted with a generous gulp of his drink, but Ed did not follow – he only stared into it.

“You deserve better than that.”

“What do I deserve?” the question snapped harshly off Roy’s tongue before the alcohol had finished moving down his throat.

“I don’t know,” picking his eyes up from the glass, Ed deposited his thoughts in the darkened corners of the suite, “I used to think that hard work and perseverance paid off a little better than this.  If you worked hard enough, if you struggled enough, if you fought through it, fought the good fight, you’d get what you were after… you’d earned it.”

Roy frowned.  He recognized the entrenched roots giving life to this sentiment and shut it down, “It does work that way.  Not all the time, but quite often I’d like to think.  It is just not a rule one can hang their hat on and you know that.  A person can do absolutely everything right and still end up losing.  That’s just life.”

Ed’s thoughts returned to the pocket of life gathered around the little drinking table, “I don’t know what I wanted for you, but I think you deserve something better than not knowing what you’ll do tomorrow.”

Roy appreciated that sentiment far more than his stoic non-response led on.  He decided to digress.

“At least I know tonight and tomorrow my thoughts won’t be consumed by a monster.”  The older man watched his younger counterpart offer no reaction to his words.  Roy started wondering if the table was going to need more alcohol for this, “Did you find it difficult to send Dante across the Gate?”

“No,” Ed shook his head and took another sip of his drink, “it was fairly easy, actually.  When she clapped her hands to transmute me, she opened her own door to the Gate to draw power, but when she touched me she created—”

Roy raised a hand to stop Ed, “I wasn’t asking for the technicalities.”  

Was there a capacity left to him that Roy could address this from?  He wasn’t Ed’s superior officer, he wasn’t a co-worker, they couldn’t describe themselves as friends, and he certainly wasn’t a caretaker.  It didn’t seem like he was much of anything at all to Ed at this point, least of all a confidant.  There seemed to be some degree of mutual understanding between them though – Roy had gotten the impression after his return that Ed was willing to rely on him in some way, and from what he claimed today, his actions weren't meant to be construed as a lack of faith.  All Roy had left to go on was the debatable belief that whatever this relationship was that they had now, an essence of trust could be found in it.  

“I want to know if it was difficult for you to send Dante beyond the Gate?”

What it was that Ed stared at while he thought over the question, it didn’t exist within the room.  It didn’t exist outside the room either.  The hollowed look on Ed’s face tried to drown out his eyes from within, “Not really, no.”

“Does that bother you?” the ice in Roy’s drink clinked as he sipped it.

“No,” the corner of Ed’s lip twitched, like he’d tried to smirk but failed, “it really should, shouldn’t it?”

“I’m not qualified to answer that,” Roy stared into the weak lamp light at his shoulder, “as a monster myself, I know there are people out there who would have no qualms about getting rid of me for what I’ve done.”

Ed scoffed, “You don’t compare.”

“To?”

Ed stared at him blankly, like he had no answer prepared.

Crossing one leg over the other, Roy perched his drinking glass atop his knee, “You said that you understood the kind of monster Dante was, because you’d been given a heads up on it that the rest of us didn’t get.  I’d like to know what sort of monster I’m inferior to.” 

A moment of hesitation showed up in Ed’s eyes, before it was tucked away.  He pushed the discussion aside, “Don’t worry about it.”

“I am worried about it,” Roy shoved everything right back into Ed’s arms and hauled him out under the light with it, “regardless of my inferiority, trust me when I say I know what monsters keep doing to a person even after they’re gone.”

What a satisfying reaction Roy was rewarded with; something akin to acknowledgement clicked in this boy’s eyes.  When the gears in Ed’s mind churned, when his thoughts were engaged, it was always apparent.  Ed’s pupils floated dead centre in lightly bloodshot eyes while he processed the words, staring ahead at nothing, but clearly thinking.  Roy watched his gaze shift as the mental machine in his head changed gears, and soon he was clearly rifling through every thought that had the potential to cross his mind.  Resigning himself to one of the conclusions he’d arrived at, Ed finally refocussed on his company across the dimly lit table.

“… And what’s that?”

Putting his drink aside, Roy reached out and plucked the glass from the hands of his sullied company.  He put it down on the table, still mostly full of what he’d last put in it.  Roy added enough of the potent brown beverage to drown the ice and fill the glass to the rim, then returned it to Ed’s hand.  Settling back into his seat, the drink of his own reclaimed the perch atop his knee and Roy watched Ed stare into the liquid courage placed in his hands.  

“They haunt you.”  

Roy lifted his glass, put it to his lips, took a sip, and waited for Ed to decide what he wanted to do with this conversation next.

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


 

Notes:

Big thanks to Erlance for translating Brigitte and Ed’s German for me :D since it was told from Maria’s perspective and Ed was translating, it felt a little redundant to duplicate things. And I wanted to give readers a feel of things from Maria’s PoV. Erlance is a webcomic creator and you should go check out her stuff over on Webtoons!

I spent like 3 weeks experimenting with a version of this chapter set in Central. It wasn't part of the outline, but I got it in my head that I might like it... and I didn't :') I've learnt a valuable lesson. Al's impersonation of Armstrong is a nod to a fun part in that bit of writing I tossed.

The circumstances that brought Ed home are actually quite depressing... in a lot of ways. But, I didn't want the tone of the chapter to be THAT depressing (especially after defeating the big bad), so I didn't focus on it too much. Ed's not focussed on it (or he's done the Ed thing and compartmentalized it so he doesn't deal with it). Really, he's happy to be home and have shit done with.

*gawks at wordcount* how is this chapter so long? It doesn’t feel that long… yet.

Next chapter will be Oct 2! I have 3 story chapters left and that's so weird to me.

Chapter 63: Silversmith

Summary:

Finally able to rid himself of the beard, Ed makes the most out of the new day.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The mirror confirmed exactly what Ed was expecting to find: he looked like a disaster.  

Pinching his index finger and thumb at the bridge of his nose, he slid the two digits out and ran them through the tired rings under his eyes.  His eyelids felt just as clammy when he rubbed them.  It was up for debate if his skin was tinted grey, green, or if it was just the lousy bathroom lighting. 

But, you know what, today it didn’t matter.  Nope.  Not in the slightest.  

Today was liberation day!

Taking a moment to debate where he wanted to start sawing off this wretched beard, something moved in the mirror’s reflection.  Ed was prepared to shrug it off, until the blip happened again.

Ed slowly peeked over his shoulder and eyeballed the open door.  Should he close it?  Not like he was using the toilet or anything.  And he was in the middle of something important, dammit!  A few minutes of peace was all he was asking.  

Ed stubbornly turned back to his reflection and was once again interrupted by something moving near the doorframe.

“What are you peeping for?” Ed snarled at the mirror.

“Sorry!” Al squeaked.

Al?  Sorry?  Why was he sorry?  Why was Al peeping in the first place?  

Ed shuffled backwards out of the room.  Leaning into the hallway, he discovered his sheepish looking little brother standing with his back pressed against the wall, his left arm still cradled in a sling.

“Al…” Ed dropped his name flatly, “what’re you doing?”

“I was just wondering if you were feeling better today?” his grin was a little too wide, “you didn’t really get up yesterday.”

Ed felt his stomach turn over at the mere mention of yesterday, “Yeah, I’m feeling better.”

“That’s good!”

The mystery of Al's perpetually widening grin brought Ed’s brow down like a plank of wood atop his eyes, “Why are you peeping?”

“I’m not peeping,” he waved his one free hand in defence, “I just wanted to check and see how you were.”

“… Uh huh.”

“Yup!”

“Do you need to pee?”

“Nope!”

Suspicion narrowed Ed’s eyes further, “I’m not keeping the beard.”

“I know!” Al rocked on his toes.

There was an obvious subtext in this conversation that Ed couldn’t put his finger on, “Do you still want to shop in town today?”

“Yes, and…” shoving his good hand into his pocket, Al pulled out a bundle of 1000cen bills.  Awkwardly leafing through it with the help of his partially immobilized hand, Al separated five bills and offered them to his brother, “This is your allowance.”

Ed’s expression fell clean off his face, “My allowance?”

Al’s smile broadened, “From Sensei, so watch your finances.”

Plucking the bills out of his brother’s hands, Ed stuffed them into the back pocket of his slacks, “Thank you.”

Despite the exchange, Ed’s suspicion festered. Al had gotten to the financial handout way too easily.  Every single one of his sensors told him that his little brother was loitering outside of the washroom with some kind of unspoken purpose.  But he’d already asked Al what he was doing there and got a dismissive answer, and he wasn’t sure he was interested in playing guessing games this early in the morning – his head was still sore from yesterday’s pounding.

“Okay… so, I’m going to shave this thing off now,” Ed leaned back into the room.

“Sure thing!”

The gears in Ed’s head spun in a tizzy when Al’s eyes follow him around the door frame.  Staring at the haphazard state of his unkept beard in the mirror while his mental machine ran, a lightbulb finally went on in his head brighter than the one in the room.

Ed popped out of the washroom, startling his brother before he’d left, “You wanna watch your big brother shave?”

The utter delight in Al’s eyes was the reward for solving the puzzle, “Yes!”

For someone who had held Ed hostage with the beard, Al seemed fairly excited to watch him get rid of it and he bounded into the bathroom to settle himself next to the sink. 

Al picked up a small pair of scissors, “What do you need scissors for?”

Ed scratched the mess on his face and leaned into his reflection in the mirror, “I heard people say it makes it easier and there’s less chance it’ll gunk up the razor.  But I don’t think it’s long enough to worry about.”

“Oh.  Who’d you hear that from?”

“Just talk I overheard at the barber shop,” Ed shrugged.

Al had shown up ready to ask questions, “Did you go to a barber often?”

With a sigh, Ed had to concede to one of the many limitations he’d had to get around on the other side of the Gate, “There were a lot of things I’ve learnt how to do with my left hand Al, but running a razor blade over my face with precision wasn’t one of them.  I had a regular barber.”

An enlightened, thoughtful nod bobbed Al’s head and he transferred his curiosity over to the bar of soap and bottle perched near the faucet handles with the razor, “Is all this stuff for shaving?”

The best way to explain everything was to go in order, so Ed turned the faucet handle and picked up the bar of soap, “Yeah.  The soap helps make shaving easier,” he rubbed his hands together, “a good lather helps the razor run smoother and prevents razor burn.”

Al's eyes widened a touch, “Oh…”

Ed scrubbed his hands over his face, letting the lather foam and wondering if he could use it to hide the stupid grin he was trying to tame.  Nobody had ever taught Ed how to shave, he’d just sat in a barber’s chair often enough that he’d absorbed the knowledge.  Explaining it to Al was an unexpected privilege.

The fascination Al had with what his brother was doing continued to resonate, “So, once your face is all soaped up, you can attack it with the razor?”

“Yeah, but there’s a pattern,” Ed rinsed off his hands, “you have to follow the grain of the hair while shaving.  Stuff on the face goes towards the mouth,” Ed pointed at his ear and tried to talk without letting the soap trickle into his mouth, “so ear to mouth, nose to mouth, chin to mouth.”

“Ohh…”

Every time Al made that enlightened little sound, Ed swelled with delight, “Jawline is different though, same with under the chin and neck.”

“Ohhh… why?”

“Hair changes direction there,” Ed shrugged and picked up the razor, “just the way it is.” 

As Ed started shaving away the hair on one side of his face, Al’s questions paused in favour of picking up the bottle of aftershave.  Ed peeked down at his brother the first time he rinsed the razor and caught him reading the label.  The second time he looked down, Al’s interest in the bottle had subsided and he’d leaned into his good arm folded on the side of the porcelain sink to study what his brother was doing.  Ed trained his eyes on his reflection in the mirror and made sure Al got a solid demonstration.

In all honesty, Ed had enough fingers that he could use them to count how many times he’d actually done this himself.  A bit of uncertainty lingered around using his right hand – it was as deaf to him as AutoMail had been, but without the weight behind it.  All of the insecurities were balanced out though by how much more physically and mentally comfortable he was with it in his right hand.  Shaving was still a little odd to do on his own, but no way in hell was Al going to get a whiff of hesitation now.  He just needed to borrow a bit of that barbershop prowess he’d experienced and voilà.

“How old were you when you started shaving?” Al finally had another question.

“Uh, nineteen?” Ed tried to recall, “I didn’t really shave regularly until I started working at the university.”

The curious wonderment returned to Al’s gaze and he picked up the aftershave bottle again, “Why?”

“They said I could either have a full, well-kept beard like the older men or I needed to be clean shaven.  My beard didn’t look like this back then, so I just went with clean shaven,” that, and how much a beard made him resemble his father kept the blasted thing off Ed’s face.  The last few weeks could only be described as a nightmare.

Cupping his hands under the faucet, Ed leaned down to wash the lingering soap from his face.  When curiosity got the better of Al and he popped the top off the aftershave bottle, the squeak he let out made Ed chuckle.

“It’s not cologne some of the guys in the hotel were wearing in the morning, it's aftershave,” Al winced.

“Yeah, it’s kinda strong.”  Ed toweled his face off, realizing that Al had never had a chance to catch a whiff of the military offices at 8AM.  

“I thought aftershave was a cream or something, but the label says it’s an antiseptic,” Al childishly puzzled over his misunderstanding, “why do you put antiseptic on your face after you shave?”

Examining himself in the mirror, Ed patted himself on the back for the outstanding job he’d done de-aging himself about ten years without a single, obvious cut, “The razor leaves micro cuts on your face,” he took the aftershave bottle from Al and poured it into his hands, “aftershave takes care of the cuts so they don’t get infected and keeps the skin healthy,” he smushed his hands together, then winced when he smoothed them over his cheeks, “and it stings like a son of a bitch.”

Al laughed.

Ed slapped his hands off his cheeks triumphantly and turned to his brother, wiggling his brows high, “So, how’s your big brother look?”

“Like regular you,” Al put his hands on his hips and nodded in approval, “now we just need to get you more sleep like you had yesterday.”

Paling at the thought, Ed abruptly discouraged that idea, “I’d rather not have another day like yesterday, Al.”

“What’d you eat that made you so sick?”

“I don’t know,” Ed grumbled, leading his brother out of the washroom, “fuck Mustang, though.”

“What are you mad at him for now!?” Al’s laugh followed them out into the rest of the suite, “he even came by yesterday to check on you.”

Shaking his head, Ed’s freshly cleaned face soured as he lamented over how he was hungry, but still unconvinced his stomach could handle anything other than water, “Doesn’t matter, just fuck him.”

 


 

Ed swore he was never going to get tired of seeing alchemy texts and periodicals existing normally on a shelf or rack.  Alchemy was just one of the four sciences in any given piece of literature; it was perfect.  Though, the fallout that followed the disgrace of the State Alchemist military program seemed to have put a bit of a bitter taste in some people’s words regarding the science – if the tone of newer publications in this bookstore were any indication.  When people started to seriously screw around with chemistry or biology, those sciences wouldn’t be safe from scorn either.

It wasn’t the science itself that was the problem, it was the scientist behind it. 

Ed glanced over to his brother and the pile of books and magazines he’d amassed, “Al, you’re going to have to carry those for the rest of the day.”

“I know…” he bemoaned.

“And all the way back to Resembool.”

“I know,” Al slumped against the shelf.

Ed’s gaze drifted through the shop.  Damn, did he love the smell of books; he could just stick his nose in a pile, breathe it in, and live off of that scent.  Nothing smelled this good beyond the Gate, “And I thought we were out here to get you new clothes?  Sensei told me those are Fletcher’s shoes.”

“I know.”

As cramped as Sheska’s apartment had been, it smelled fantastic, even if none of the books really interested him, “Sensei put you on a budget today too, don’t forget that.”

“Brother.”

Ed tipped his head over to Al.

The younger Elric’s brow furrowed, “You’re my brother, not my father.  I know.

Shrinking sheepishly into his shirt collar, Ed slinked towards the store’s front door.  He had to be careful with his money anyways.  “I’ll poke around outside.”

“See you in a bit!” Al called.

The air in East City felt significantly more arid than Ed remembered it being.  As he stepped outside, he wondered if that was just one of those small, intangible differences cropping up again.  The differences Al had craned his head around for and made him look at.

Unbuttoning the top of his shirt, Ed shook his collar out as he sauntered slowly down the noon hour street.  Existing in East City like this was beginning to feel like he was experiencing never ending déjà vu – it wasn’t something that Ed felt when he was confined inside the unfamiliar apartment.  Hardly anything had changed in East City since he'd had last seen it.  All of the street names were the same, hardly any new roads had been paved, very few new buildings were going up, none had come down, vehicles were the same, shops were the same, people were dressed the same… everything was like he’d remembered it.  Ed was literally walking through his own memories, memories of a place he’d revisited on occasions in his years away trying to make sure he didn’t forget them.  Now, Ed was rebuffing those memories and it was an unexpectedly uncomfortable experience, even making him shiver on occasion.  

Ed felt weird, like he was out of place. 

A shop window offered his reflection as he drifted by – he recognized his face, he knew his stature, but this version of him had never been seen in this window before.  Edward Elric was shiny and new, but old and rusted at the same time.  Absent for so long and returning full of so many new experiences he could share, Ed felt like a beacon that stood out in the crowd, visibly different from the last time he'd walked these unchanging streets, yet everyone who passed him was oblivious to it.  

Shifting his focus away from his reflection to the exhibit in the shop window, Ed examined the display.  ‘A clothier for the burgeoning young man’ was the store’s tagline.  Al was burgeoning alright, that's why they were here.  Ed hoped he had at least a year left to enjoy this height difference he was relishing before his younger brother over took him again.  Al had a stocky build and was likely going to end up shaped like their father, except come out of puberty retaining the softness in his face of their mother.  Lucky bastard.  Not that Ed hated how he looked, he was just painfully aware which of their parents he resembled more.

Stepping to the edge of the sidewalk’s bustle while Al finished in the bookstore, Ed leaned up against a fire hydrant and peered down the street.  The agony of upheaval in Central City didn’t seem to be affecting anything here.  That was probably for the better, and probably a relief to everyone’s sanity.  

Ed gave himself a distraction from his thoughts and turned his attention across the road. He scanned the hanging signs of businesses and one of them caught his attention.

A silversmith.

Well, it wasn’t called that exactly, but that’s what it was – a dealer who specialized in silver wares.  Silver was a classy metal, in Ed’s opinion.  It could be used as a refined accessory or as a subtle, casual accent.  Sure, gold was the most sought after, but silver was the one he liked.  It carried an allure in that the pure, polished surface that only silver could reflect. 

Ed wanted another pocket watch, though he wanted his next one to be one he chose.  He missed having a chain dangling around his side.  But he didn't want some manufactured market watch, he wanted a craftsman's touch.  

Ugh.  Ed was disgusted with himself.  When did he start getting picky?  He never used to care.  The blasted Europeans must have gotten to him again.  He used to whip that military watch around by its chain like a fidgety child when he was bored.  That felt like an easier time in some ways.  Christ, that watch had to have cost a fortune though.  Ed shuddered at the number of times that chain broke and the watch went flying.

But, see, didn't that also bolstered his point?  Ed nodded to himself.  The craftsmanship behind the military watch helped it survive the abuse like a champ.  Factory produced shit didn't hold up like that.

“What’re you looking at?”

Ed zoned back in.

Al tried to peer out into the street to see what had his brother’s eye, “What were you looking at?”

“Silversmith,” Ed gave a nod over to the shop across the way, “might check that out later.  What’d you get?”

Al offered the narrow paper bag to his brother, “I restrained myself, Dad.”

Ed snatched the package away, “Don’t call me that.”

Al giggled at how his brother angrily rifled through the bag containing one book and several magazines.  “Pull out the Western Digest one!”

Flipping through the bundle, Ed yanked out the magazine and Al encouraged him to flip it open.

“There’s a really neat section in here about 10 hidden gems that are worth checking out in the west!” Al leafed through the pages in his brother’s hands, trying to find the section, “we haven’t really gone west very often, and I thought we’d get more out of it if we went a less traditional route.”

The sun and the sky it warmed began to feel heavy on Ed’s shoulders.

Ed watched his excited little brother find what he was looking for and with his warmest, youngest, most excited grin, he looked up to his brother and explained it further.  This was everything Ed had wanted, in some ways better than he'd dreamed, but compared to Al’s vibrancy, Ed felt ancient, dry, and brittle.  He had wilted somehow.  Where was the energy supposed to come from?  Even now, Ed felt like a leech, just constantly syphoning up Al’s energy to keep going through the day.  This proposed adventure was going to end up draining the both of them – Ed would be the one to suck the life out of his brother and it still wouldn’t be enough. 

Every ounce of energy he had at that moment went into feeding the grin he replied with, “Yeah, keeping out of tourist spots will give us a better feel for what the west is all about.”

“I thought so too!” Al beamed.

Ed wondered when he’d start coming undone in Al’s brilliant headlights.  He was sensing it was coming, like he’d become aware of his impending demise and was trying to find ways of putting it off.  Procrastination at its finest. The idea to do a ‘Brother’s Journey’ was mostly Ed’s – he wanted to find some way to get things right with Al again.  Straighten out the wrinkles.  Reconnect properly.  Just Al and him all over again in the Amestris wilds, surely that would give them the time and space to find a new normal.

A few days later, after the high of the Underground City wore off, the idea only made Ed feel like his limbs were locked in concrete.  Everything was a struggle.

“We’ll go through that in more detail later,” Ed took the magazine back from Al and tucked it back into the bag, “let’s get you some new clothes.”

“Did you want to visit the silversmith first?” Al asked.

Ed firmly pointed to the shop in front of them, “Nah, clothes first, that’s why we’re out here.”

Al put his hand up over his eyes to shield them from the sun as his read the shop sign, “Burgeoning young man, eh?”

“Yeah, we’re gonna get you trousers that’re a size too large so you don’t grow out of them next month and hang’em off you with suspenders,” Ed grinned, re-did the top button of his shirt, and swung his hand around to slap Al on the back as they headed for the door, “c’mon.”

Al followed alongside his brother with a wide grin, “I’m going to look so fresh on the eastern leg of our tour.”

Ed looked up to watch the entry chime dance overhead and the door suddenly felt inexplicably heavy, “Yeah…”

 


 

There must not have been enough foot traffic to warrant a chime for the entryway at the silversmith's.  That, or the painful creak of the door was more than enough of an announcement.  

Escaping the horrendous entrance, Ed strode into the store like he belonged there, but one look around told him he didn’t.  Crap.

Al had encouraged him to check out the store while the seamstress adjusted the length of his new trousers, but Ed might get back before the hems had finished being re-sewn.  This store was a lot nicer inside than the window dressing made it appear.  

The narrow and stout store was far deeper than its width and height combined.  The right hand wall Ed walked by was an ornamental display showcase, decorated with everything from plaques and trophies to armour and weaponry.  The polished silver showpieces shimmered despite the few drab colours they could pick up inside, catching the accents of the overhead lights and the deep shadows created by the drapery on the opposing wall.  The entire length of the left side was lined with waist-high display cases that only served to enhance the posh look the place was going for. 

There were better districts in East City for a store this fancy, Ed thought.

The clap of Ed’s footfalls was deafening in the quiet store and the creak of the floorboards beneath him only made matters worse.  Nobody would stealthily steal anything from this place.  Unbothered by his customer, the shopkeeper remained at his post, busy with a pen and his nose buried in a ledger.  Creeping along, Ed examined the glass displays of housewares and ornaments, then wrist watches and nick knacks, feeling increasingly poor with each item he found. 

Deciding his guest had been in the store long enough that he’d earned the right to be acknowledged, the shopkeeper’s ledger closed with a heavy thump and he stood up as straight as a light post, “Can I help you with something, Sir?”

Ed knew before he asked that he was going to regret this question, “Yes. I’m looking for a pocket watch.”

The man’s black, curling moustache twitched, he adjusted his vest, and gestured for his customers to follow him along the glass display, “This way.”

Following the clerk’s lead to the far end of the store, Ed wanted to let his eyes graze on the watches, but he ended up needing to restrain himself when the price tags nearly put him in his grave.  Holy shit, was a silver watch actually that expensive here?  He knew he hadn’t really needed to worry about price tags with his military bank account, but he couldn’t have been that ignorant about how much things cost before he’d left.  There was no way this was right.  Was it an East City thing?  Maybe he should try again in Rush Valley or somewhere in the south.

“These are nice,” Ed commented nevertheless, hoping the man couldn’t see how his eyes had glazed over while he tried to find some relative price points that allowed him to compare Cens to Pounds and Marks.  Were precious metals actually cheaper on the other side?  Like, significantly cheaper?  What the fu—

“I’ll give you some time to look them over.”

Fuck. 

The dismissive tone gave away how the shopkeeper had seen straight through Ed’s poorness.  Well, it was nice to have goals, even lofty, unaffordable ones.  Like this watch… this nice, circular watch with embossed edging and abstract etching on the lid.  And it’s clean clock face display and simply stylized black arms.  Ed watched the second hand tick away.  Damn that one was nice.  Why did the price tag need to have so many digits?

He sighed inwardly and stepped back from the display, “Thank you.”

The shopkeeper nodded and Ed carried himself towards the door. 

Rather than take a poor man’s walk of shame all the way out, Ed held his head high, clasped his hands neatly behind his back, and let his eyes browse the rest of the displayed wares as he departed.  In reality, the only things he could afford were tie clips and cufflinks, but what the hell did he need cufflinks for?  Cripes, they were gaudy too.  Ed had to question East City fashion choices as he passed them.  The designs on some of these cufflinks seem like they were better suited as hefty earrings than suit accessories.

Oh, hey. 

A thought picked Ed’s head up and he gazed around the store.  From the ornaments on the wall to the suit accessories in the glass cases, and even the housewares they offered, everything in the store was exceedingly masculine. 

The shopkeeper eyed the suspicious pauper still loitering in his store, “Something more I can help you with, Sir?”

“Do you carry any earrings?” Ed asked.

“For the missus?”

Ed blanched, “No missus.”

The shopkeeper clasped his hands and moved away from the counter, “Ah.”

Ah?  AH!? What the hell was ‘ah’ supposed to mean?  He’d just asked a simply question, how did it boil down to ‘Ah’!?  Seriously, Ed didn’t even have gloves on, how hard would it have been to check for a ring before asking that question?  Did this hoity-toity asshole really look at him and assume he was that poor?  Well, maybe at the moment he was, but that wasn't the point!

Stuck somewhere between embarrassed and furious, Ed gave a wary eye to the shopkeeper who approached the display wall and took a firm hold on a latch. 

Ed’s internal conflict was subdued by the curious revelation of a door. 

The shopkeeper unlatched a lock on the wall and a door centring the ornamental display was pulled open, revealing a passageway.  

“Abigail, a customer for you,” the shopkeeper called, then turned to face Ed, “you can find something for the young lady next door.”

What the heck was next door?  Ed hadn’t even bothered to see what other businesses were around – he’d just honed in on this one.  The opened door glowed warmly with welcome and significantly brighter than the one he was currently in.  Ed approached it with trepidation.  Offering his thanks and cautiously crossing the threshold, he managed to get two steps into the other side before his feet glued themselves to the floorboards.

Abort.

An elegantly laid out, white-walled, chandelier lit, ladies jewelry store sparkled in front of him.

“Good day, Sir!”

Ed hardly heard the greeting over the sound of the door behind him banging shut and the excessively loud latch being done to lock him out.  Oh shit.

A neatly dressed, grey-haired woman enjoying the brighter side of sixty approached her anxious customer, “What can we help you with today?”

The expectant smile she gave him made Ed wish he could dissolve into the wall.  “Uhm…”

“Would you like to look around?”

Ed’s eyes started to bulge at the prospect of wandering aimlessly in a place that sparkled with as much extravagant, effeminate charm as this one did.  Why did his wherewithal constantly abandon him at times like this?  He wasn’t some awkward twelve-year-old.  He was twenty-fucking-two.  Ed wrangled his vocabulary and poise back together and rescued himself from standing in the store like a daft pylon, “I’m looking for some earrings.”

“How lovely!  Right this way.”

Robotically following his escort through this foreign land, Ed thankfully wasn’t dragged too deeply into the store before the woman stopped again.  Peering into the display case she offered to him only confirmed Ed’s new fears: everything was priced on par with what he’d seen in the other store.  Then again, everything here not only sparkled with silver, but gold as well, and contained more gems and jewels than he’d ever laid his eyes on in one place. 

“Are you looking for something for your mother or aunt, or for a younger lady?” the clerk asked him.

“A younger lady,” Ed answered.

The elder woman slipped behind the display and Ed watched her pull out a plush covered board from below the counter.  She placed it atop the glass.  Sequences of matched pairs of earrings had been embedded in it, “I find that younger ladies tend to prefer something from this selection.  Our floor displays cater to a more matured woman.”

Well thank goodness for small favours, because the prick next door was right, Ed was a pauper and the displays weren’t an option.  The woman explained some of what he was looking at on the board she’d presented, and the financial concern was thankfully negated with the selection, but an aesthetic hurdle remained.  Everything had dangles, bangles, or some kind of gem stone.  Nothing on this display was what Ed was looking for; he wanted the simplicity of the silver selection next door in earring format.

“Is there anything you think she might like?”

No, not really.  Ed hummed his thoughts as he tried to figure out how to politely word his response, “These are all fine things, but she’s not someone who wears this kind of jewellery.”

“I see,” the elder clerk lay the display board down atop the glass counter and clasped her hands, “what sort of jewellery would she prefer?”

“Just something simple,” it had just been a simple thought that had popped into his head.  It wasn’t meant to be complicated.  “She lost her earrings on a trip we took.  She’d had them since she was a kid, but they weren’t elaborate or anything.  I thought I could replace them before we got home.”

There was something about the way the woman smiled at Ed’s answer that made his toes curl in his shoes.

“I know what she might like.”

 


 

Her finger still held in the air next to her ear, Brigitte waggled it one more time.

Al turned around again.

Brigitte giggled.

Ed frowned and looked at the potential trouble standing next to him, “Are you picking on him?”

“What a rude thing to say,” offended by the accusation, Brigitte stuck her nose in the air, “Al was the one who got all the manners in the family, clearly.”

Like it was a contest to see who could act more offended, Ed’s expression soured, “That’s the fifth time you’ve had him turn around!”

“And he kindly obliged me every time!” Brigitte chirped and gave a nod of approval to Alphonse, “he looks as nicely put together as his manners are.”

Ed returned his attention to his brother standing in the centre of the kitchen, clearly oblivious to the conversation going on around him.  Al had come back in a pair of dark brown slacks, an grassy-green button up shirt, a tri-buttoned vest that was an earthly shade halfway between his slacks and shirt, a new set of loafers, and a white pair of suspenders he was disappointed were hiding under the vest.  When asked why he was bothering with a vest, since it would probably be the first thing he’d grow out of and it hid the suspenders, Al said that he liked how his brother looked with one and Ed let him have his way.

“Brigitte gives you the German stamp of approval,” Ed passed the message along.

Al sighed like he’d been holding his breath in anticipation of the answer, “I’m glad everyone likes it.”

Drawing the curtains on the Alphonse Elric Fashion Show, Ed ushered his company into the chairs around the kitchen table.  There was practical work to accomplish.  Brigitte and Al took their seats across from Ed and the trio gathered around the spread of pencils and papers that had been laid out.

“Are you ready to hear how we’re getting you home?”

A childish joy filled Brigitte’s excited response, “Yes, though I’m still confused.  You spoke a lot of gibberish the other day.”

Ed figured she hadn’t understood.  It sounded like science fiction even to him and he started debating if it was easier to let Brigitte think she’d wound up on another planet than try to convince her of multiple worlds or dimensions or whatever the hell it was the Gate was facilitating. 

Lifting her arms, Brigitte drew an invisible arch around herself as far as the length of her arms would reach, “The doorway you told me about, you called it some kind of shortcut between Germany and here.”

“Yes, I did.  It’s like a portal,” Ed confirmed.

“I don’t understand what a ‘portal’ is,” Brigitte conceded.

Ed searched his mental library for some kind of example to help her with.  Snatching up a pencil and blank sheet of paper, the page was turned lengthwise and Ed drew two circles at opposite ends, he labelled them ‘Amestris’ and ‘Deutschland’.

“Alright, so we’re here and we need to get you over there,” Ed moved the tip of the pencil from one location to the other, “but we can’t go this way,” a jagged, messy line was scratched on the page in between them, “the only way we can get between here and there is to travel like this,” picking up the two ends of the page, Ed folded the page in half, pressing the two drawn circles together, and he stabbed the pencil through them both.  Letting the page hang off the pencil, Ed explained, “The only way to get between our two places is to travel along the pencil, which the Gate lets us do.  That’s what a portal does.”

While the answer in itself did seem to make sense to Brigitte, and she didn’t voice any confusion over the mechanics of the portal Ed had described, issues clearly existed surrounding it.

“Why must I travel like that?  With alchemy symbols drawn on me and you and all around us to call on unholy power?” Brigitte couldn’t wrap her head around all of the white, scratched out space between the two locations, “what's so wrong with the land or sea separating us that we can't use it?  Is there no way we can commission a boat when we get to the ocean?  Surely if we explain the situation to the port authorities they’ll allow me to sail home, no matter how long the journey is.”

Ed tried not to visibly grimace, “It doesn’t work like that.  There’s no ocean to sail that’ll connect us.  There’s no land to walk either.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she couldn’t help but argue, the logic didn’t fit, “the entire world is connected, because it is round.  If we can't go one way, then why not go another?"

Ed fought to keep his hand away from his forehead, he didn’t want Brigitte to think he was exasperated with her.  He wasn’t.  He understood how hard this concept was going to be for her to grasp.  Did she really need to understand it in order to go through with it?  No, but she was at least owed the courtesy.  Ed lit up with an idea, “Have you read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?”

Brigitte nodded, “I have.”

“So, you know how Alice goes down the rabbit hole and ends up in a completely different world, right?  The door you went through is like that rabbit hole, and this is the place on the other side.”

“You mean this place is fictitious?” a flood of wonder widened Brigitte’s eyes, “fabricated in some way!?”

“No, no, no,” Ed waved his hands to dispel the thought, “this world is completely real.”

“But Wonderland is a work of fiction, Edward,” Brigitte again argued against nonsense, “and I’m honestly beginning to think I am stuck in some kind of fictitious Wonderland, because alchemy looks nothing like science and everything like magic.”

“A hundred years ago, chemistry looked like magic too.  It still does to some people,” Ed stubbornly defended his science, even if he was aware that alchemy was mediated by a metaphysical force, “but this world is completely real, it’s just a different one.  It's a different kind of Earth.  It looks similar, but it’s not the same one you live on, so there's no way to walk or sail home.”

Brigitte doubled down in defence of her understanding of the universe and she flashed three fingers at him, “There are only three worlds: Earth, Heaven, and Hell.”

Ed snapped his fingers, “That’s it.”

Straining the serious expression she was trying to wear, Brigitte spread her three fingers as far apart as she could, “What is?”

Fishing out a few clean sheets of paper from the pile, Ed waggled a pencil in his fingers and drew a large circle in the centre of the first sheet, “You only know of three worlds: Earth, where you live,” he wrote ‘Earth’ in the first sheet and grabbed another, “Heaven, where you hope to ascend,” he labeled that sheet and grabbed another’, “and Hell, where you fear to go.”  Lining up the sheets on the table, Ed placed ‘Heaven’ above ‘Earth’ and ‘Hell’ below it.  He connected the three stacked sheets with two straight, vertical lines, “To get into either heaven or hell, or return back to earth, you have to cross through a gate of some kind when you arrive.”  The gap between each sheet was marked, establishing the presence of gates.

Despite what Ed’s view on religion was, or what he knew to be facts of both their worlds in regards to a higher order, Brigitte firmly believed this hierarchy to be so, like most everyone born and raised anywhere in Europe.  In order to get her to understand the extent of her predicament, Ed would modify how she understood it.

Shoving her hands tightly into her lap, Brigitte added a few more crucial points to the growing model, “You also have to pass away and are judged prior to entry.”

“And you did die,” Ed pointed out.

Brigitte pursed her lips and looked down at her clenched hands, “I don’t remember that.”

The eagerness in Ed’s tone and body language eased, “Your mind’s doing you a favour by not letting you remember,” he watched Brigitte start to curl into herself at the kitchen table and diverted back to a less sensitive topic, “but, you do remember the gate you crossed, right?”

“Vaguely,” she admitted, “the more time that passes the less I’m able to remember of it, but I do remember I knew much more about it once… if that makes sense.”

Ed smirked, “Yeah, it does.  But that gate wasn’t the one to heaven or hell,” lining up a sheet directly adjacent to ‘Earth’, Ed connected it with a horizontal line and created his world for her, “it was The Gate to this one.”

A curious, childish wonder began to silently start up the gears in Brigitte’s mind.  Sitting up taller in her seat, she wordlessly looked from the paper, up to Ed, then back to the diagram again.

Ed started putting together the answers to a multitude of questions she wasn’t using words to ask, “There’s no one here to judge you when you arrive, because there’s no reason to go sideways.  The adjacent worlds aren’t anything special like heaven or hell, they’re just the same sort of people rearranged to do a similar kind of living, but in their own unique ways.  When you died on the transmutation circle, an alchemy accident occurred and you went sideways to us, rather than up or down.”

“It’s not some kind of purgatory, is it?” she hesitantly asked.

“No,” Ed drew to connecting lines up to heaven and hell, “and we have many people here too, like Rose, who try their best every day to make sure when they pass away they will awake again in heaven.”

Watching someone’s mind expand was a very unique feeling, Ed discovered.  To witness someone’s eyes process something they’d never conceptualized before and to see how they learned something new from presented information offered a very powerful, intrinsic satisfaction.  It was such a shame it was only a half-truth.  

“You’re implying…” Brigitte paused like she was still trying to process her own words, “that I’ve accidentally been given a second chance.”

“It’s not an implication, it is what happened,” Ed said, “and we’re going to get you back through the Gate to your family so you can enjoy that.”

The feisty, headstrong girl, not matured enough yet to be called a lady, momentarily set aside her strength and looked younger than her age, “Thank you.”

Setting his pencil down, Ed looked over to Al, who’d followed along with yet another game communicated through visual aid and had somewhat figured out what had gone on.  The brothers' exchanged Elric smiles.

“I think she’s got it.”

Al turned his attention back to the humbled figure sitting beside him, whose inadvertent entry into their lives had helped them unravel a mystery they would never have known how to solve on their own.  “I’d say ‘here comes the hard part’, but with you as you are, it’s going to be pretty easy.”

Ed nodded.

“How…” Brigitte started a question and then paused as she gave a second thought to her words, “if this is your home, what were you doing in mine?”

“It was my second chance,” the circumstances around their situations were as different as they could be, and Brigitte’s journey was blissfully shorter than Ed’s, but ultimately it was something they both had in common.  Unable to save himself, Ed was more than happy to use what he’d gained to help someone else, “and I got home, so I’ll make sure you get back too.”

 


 

Ed’s knuckles rattled off Winry’s door.

“Yes?”

He poked his head in, “Hey.”

Emerging from under her table light, Winry looked pointedly at her visitor, “You’re alive.”

The bridge of Ed’s nose creased, “I was out with Al all day.”

“And yesterday you were just out,” Winry laughed, “your face is fresh too.  I guess you’re feeling better?”

“Sure,” Ed walked into the little room.

Eyeing him from head to toe, then back up to his head again to make Ed squirm, Winry put her elbow down on her desk and nestled her chin in her hand.  Throwing one leg over the other she asked, “So, tell Doctor Rockbell what you drank that made you so sick.”

Ed stopped dead in his tracks, “Who said it was something I drank?”

Winry’s teasing grin stretching wide, “Well, I’ve never seen food make you that sick.”

Ed’s right eye twitched and he snarled, “I was poisoned by milk.”

Winry laughed at the lie.

Marching up to her desk, Ed took a rectangular gift box out of his pocket and plunked it down on top of the pile of patents she was working on, “I picked up something for you while we were out.”

Wickedly grinning, Winry straightened herself out neatly in the chair and popped the lid off the box.  Silently holding the lid in her fingers, she tipped it over and gently placed it down on her desk.  The contents of the box was obscured by a layer of cotton and Winry curiously plucked it away, laying it down inside the lid without a word. 

Ed didn’t need to peer in too far to see that she could see the earrings in the box.  Two sets of hoops and a pair of silver studs warmly picked up the desk light shining down on them.  The earrings almost looked gold.  Ed watched Winry’s head crane forwards to put her eyes closer to the box, the streams of hair that framed her face falling onto the desk. 

Well, this was odd.  What was the problem?  One of the earrings was crooked in the display, but they were nicely laid out otherwise.  They were polished.  New.  Ed hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his slacks and tugged on them. 

“You lost your earrings in Germany…”

Winry plucked one of the silver studs out of the cotton bed and turned it around in her fingers.

Ed watched her wordlessly study it, “I thought you could have those to replace them.”

Moving sharply, Winry spun out of her chair and dropped down to her knees on the floor.  Ripping her tool kit out from under the bed, she flipped the case open, snatched her magnifier out, and flew back up into her seat.  Shoving the instrument over her right eye, Winry yanked her desk lamp forwards and examined the little earring under the light.

Confusion began to contort Ed’s face, “The hoops are a little thin, but they didn’t have anything like those thick ones you had.”

Winry plunked her magnifier down on the table and popped the earring in her mouth.

“WINRY!” Ed shrieked.

Rolling the earring around on her tongue, Winry took it out and whipped around in her seat to face him, “Ed, this is silver.”

Ed stared at her horrified, “Yes!”

“Why is this silver!?” she squawked.

“Because I was at a silversmith!”

“My old earrings weren’t silver.”

The creases in Ed’s brow deepened, “I know.”

The tangle in Winry’s frown tightened, “They were made out of scraps from my workroom.”

Unexpectedly annoyed by this conversation, Ed raised his voice a notch, “I know that.”

“They were worthless,” Winry got to her feet in front of Ed and held the little earring up by its clasp, “what in the world possessed you to replace them with silver?”

Ed’s jaw tensed and his shoulders tightened at the question.  Very little thought had been given to her reaction, nothing more than an ‘oh thanks’ or something had crossed his mind.  As long as she seemed happy he would have been content, but he couldn’t figure out why this was an issue.  He didn’t care what the ones he was replacing were worth, he wanted to give her these.  Ed opened his mouth.

“I thought they would look nice on you!”

The confrontation in Winry’s posture retreated.

“Silver’s nice.  It’s subtle and classy.  It can be fancy or casual.  You can wear it with anything,” Ed announced, buckling down in his own defence, “you got silver earrings because that’s what I wanted to give you!”

That was it. 

That was the long and the short of it. 

Ed would have given an emphatic ‘humph’ if it didn’t seem egregiously childish.

The aggressive approach Winry’d taken had completely vanished.  The little silver bit she held on to disappeared into her palm and Winry tucked it away at her side.  She remained silent in front of Ed; stripped of fuel to feed her fire, it left Winry looking a little… defenceless.  Exposed.  Guilty.  A knot formed in her brow and the look in Winry’s eyes withdrew as she glanced down.  Bowing her head a touch, she tightly pressed the seam of her lips into a firm, straight line. 

Coming to life in a wave of blond hair, Winry flew back into her chair, “Go get me a lighter.”

Ed stared blankly at the empty air where she’d once been, “A lighter!?”

“And rubbing alcohol,” her arm flew out, pointing to the door, “Go!”

Leaving as ordered, Ed rifled through one of the kitchen drawers for a lighter and confiscated a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the medical supplies.  Growing more confused by the second over the flammable items he’d been sent to fetch, Ed re-entered her room.

“You’re not going to try and melt them, are you?” Ed put her things on the desk, “I can see if I can take them back if you don’t like them.”

“No,” Winry laughed and suddenly Ed found himself with a square sheet of polished metal in his hands.  “Hold that.”

“What’re you doing?”

Picking up the lighter, Winry held a needle in her fingers and she heated the tip of it with the flame until it glowed blue.  Shifting around in her seat, Winry peered into the reflective surface Ed held and brought the cooling needle to her ear, “It’s been months since I’ve worn earrings.  The holes are closed.”

Oh.  Well, that was a surprisingly logical answer.

The holes in Winry’s ears were poked opened with ease.  Alcohol cleaned them, then cleaned the earring that had been in her mouth.  One by one, the silver studs were inserted, then the hoops followed in each ear.  Winry got up to her feet when she was finished and took the reflective sheet back from Ed.  Studying her reflection, she placed the mirror down on the desk and tucked the hair framing her face behind her ears.

“So?”

Ed watched her hands reveal the ears he’d decorated.  Nothing fancy, not at all complicated, maybe too simplistic compared to what she’d worn before.  Silver complimented the blue in her eyes and stood out against her complexion.  Ed looked at Winry; he was right, she did look nice with them.

“Good.” 

For the first time, Ed won the battle to suppress the red that attempted to invade his face, though the effort made his voice sound stiff.

“They look good on you.”

“Good,” a little bashfully, the guilty look resurfaced on Winry, “Sorry for my ungrateful mouth.  They’re nice, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” as much as he wanted to bask in the glory of someone not named Edward Elric acting like an ass, he’d rather it just be done with, “and don’t worry about it.”

Winry rocked back on her heels, “Speaking of Germany, have you guys decided on a day to send Brigitte home?”

Ed snatched up the change in topic, “We’re looking at the end of the week.”

“I’ve been thinking…” tilting her head in thought, Winry settled her hands on her hips, “you should send a letter back with Brigitte.”

All the trains of thought in Ed’s head were blindsided by the suggestion and blown off their tracks, “What for?”

“So people there know we’re okay.  No one has any idea what happened to us.  We literally vanished.”

Uncomfortably scratching his hand through his hair, Ed wasn’t exactly fond of the suggestion, “I’d rather just put it all behind me, Win.  We can send Brigitte home and move on from all that.”

“That’s not fair,” Winry challenged that sentiment and folded her arms, “after you finally get all these things back, you don’t think that the people who were there for you when things were harder, like Hermann and Tilly, deserve some kind of closure too?”

Ed winced, “That’s not what I —

“You want to keep moving forwards,” Ed’s long-held mantra was put into Winry’s voice and she had a question for it, “but where are you in such a hurry to go now?  What harm is it going to do you to stop for a moment and look around?  Look back?”

Tightening his screws in his jaw, the hesitation on Ed’s face creased the bridge of his nose and wrinkled his brow.  He let his gaze wander to speckles of dust drifting through the lamp light and didn’t answer.

Winry took the opening, “Write a letter to Hermann and Tilly, they are your friends.  Let them know you’re okay.  Give them closure so they can move forwards too, and then everyone can keep going after that with peace of mind.”

Ed sighed, shoved his hands deep in his pockets, and let his head sink into his shirt collar.  Wouldn’t it be something if life really was as simple as it was in his mind, that he could just keep going forwards and put distance between himself and all the things he’d like to move on from.  Just like how he wished that all his efforts would garner equal rewards – ignorant, childish philosophies that willfully ignored the realities around him.  Willful ignorance had never done him any good.  Walking away from the past didn’t prevent it from following them into the future; the disparity between Al’s physical and mental age, the noise in Ed’s head at night, and the permanent damage on Winry’s leg was evidence of that.  Stopping for a bit to look back and address some of it, well, that wasn’t going to kill anyone.  And of all the people back there… Hermann and Tilly… 

A response begrudgingly came out as Ed started skulking towards the bedroom door, “I suppose I could write something.”

“Good,” Winry said.

“Did you want me to put anything in for you?” 

When neither an answer nor any sort of quip came, Ed turned over his shoulder to see Winry settle into her desk chair.  The cotton layer taken from the earring box was put back in and Winry turned the lid over in her fingers, settling it on top.  She set the box aside.  Ed eyed the back of her head while he waited for a reply and found the silver butterfly clips holding the two studs in place atop her ear.  They stood out high above the river of hair flowing around it, the edges picking up the light.  

Winry moved and Ed lost his focus on the clasps, only seeing her turn in a blonde blur.   

“Just thank them for me.  If you want to bring up anything more than that, that's up to you.”

Watching the tail ends of Winry's hair slide off one shoulder while the lamplight poured in over the other, Ed stopped for a moment and looked at the silver lining he'd given her.

“Alright.”

 


 

Propped up by his forearms on the desk, Ed continued facing off against a clean sheet of paper.  Sometimes he had a few sentences on the go, but they sounded like an educational formula had churned them out.  Ed didn’t even know what their fate had been recorded as.  Did Envy and Adolf even know the transmutation circle had been activated?  If they didn’t, would they assume they’d gotten out through the corridor?  Hermann and Tilly might actually end up in a lot of danger if those assholes started investigating Ed’s acquaintances.  There wasn’t anything Ed could do about that as things were, but a warning in the letter might be a good idea. 

Somewhere in this Ed wanted to bring up Al.  Both he and his dad had let people to believe Ed was an only child, at least at the time people knew him, so he wanted to tell them about his younger brother.  The war allowed them to manufacture their falsified back stories and working Al into that wouldn’t be too hard.  It just felt disingenuous to weave his brother into the narrative like that.  Ed existed there as a lie built upon other lies, updating his life story just meant adding more lies to present a few new truths, and he was honestly tired of living the lie.  But, how else was he going to frame it?  It wasn’t like he expected them to believe what was really going on.

Ed sighed and let his head droop forwards.

“Not going so good?” Al caught his brother’s dismay.

Ed let the tips of his bangs sweep over the blank pages on the desk, “Nope.”

From the centre of his messy nest of magazines and maps on the floor, Al offered his brother a way out, “It’s getting late, why not think about it more in the morning?”

Sagging forwards, Ed slumped against the desk and plunked his cheek down atop his ineffective work, “Maybe.”

Al’s perky voice gave his brother another option, “Did you want to flip through the magazines with me and get your mind off of things?”

No, Ed didn’t want to entertain that option either and that was a whole other problem.  Ed rolled his head around until his forehead was glued to the desk.  Stopping and reflecting was permitting him to build a story made up of white lies he wished he didn’t have to keep telling.  But, if he stopped and thought about the present, he was still managing parts of his life that way.  Al wanted trust.  He wanted honesty.  He deserved all that and more and Ed wanted to give it all to him, but…

Honesty felt cruel and unfair in that regard, because Ed couldn’t find the right words that would explain how badly he wanted to be a part of everything Al had the freedom to do.  How excited he was to see and experience it all with his little brother and watch him live and relive years that had been taken away.  What a gift that was.  Al was free to set sail.

But, Ed was reaching a point where he had no choice but to acknowledge his anchor.

“Hey, Al,” Ed flinched when his voice broke free, “can we talk about that trip?”

Al picked up the change in his brother’s tone and the excitement calmed in his voice, “Yeah.”

Cringing as he straightened up, Ed buried his unease behind the curtain of hair protecting his expression.  Collecting the empty sheets on the writing desk in their room into his hands, Ed shimmied them around until the pages straightened, desperately buying time to find his own words.  Setting the thin stack down, Ed hooked his elbow around the back of the chair, felt his heart lurch up into his throat as he turned around, and hoped Al would understand.

“Can we hold off running around the country for a while?”

Al tipped his head curiously, then glanced to the corner of the room with a quick thought, and finally returned to his brother.

“Okay.”

It was the plainest, simplest, most casually delivered response Al could have given. 

“When did you want to go?”

That’s it?  Ed’s heart tumbled back down his throat like it fell through a garbage chute.  He swung completely around in the chair, “You don’t mind?”

Al shrugged his shoulders with an abundance of nonchalance, “No, the country’s not going anywhere.  There’s no big rush.  Was there something you wanted to do instead?”

“No, that’s the thing,” Ed buoyed the crux of the dilemma he was facing with a deep breath, “I don’t want to do anything.  I’m tired.”

Al stared at his brother and weighed what he'd been given, the clarity in his gaze moving off Ed at one point and turning within.  Shifting around to face his older brother straight on, Al crossed his legs, tucked his free hand away in his lap, said nothing, and listened.

The disappointment Ed was dreading he’d find in Al’s face never appeared.  The worry he’d tangled himself up in lost its hold and unchained his words.

“I don’t think I have the energy to do all this and enjoy it.  I thought maybe the energy would turn up if I gave us something to look forward to, but it didn’t.  And I want to enjoy it with you, it sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.  It sounds like how things should have been, but I think I’ve been falling apart a bit lately…”

“That’s fine.”

Ed gazed into a pair of golden eyes that looked like everything he hoped they would be, colour change be damned, “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Al nodded affirmatively, “honestly, you look pretty worn out even without the beard.”

“I look like I’ve had my ass kicked repeatedly,” Ed gave a short laugh to the assessment, “sometimes I feel worse.”

With the swipe of his hand, Al waved his brother’s worries away, “After some rest and relaxation in Resembool you’ll start feeling like yourself again.”

“That’s the plan,” Ed nodded.

That was the plan. 

That was Ed’s plan. 

It wasn’t a plan that he’d deliberately come up with, it wasn’t a goal he’d set out to achieve, but it was what five years of envisioning had become. 

A glorious and triumphant return home had devolved into a victorious testament of his survival, then further whittled down to somehow getting back.  It degraded into just getting there, and finally changed into a simple longing for home and a futile struggle to reach it.  All of the pomp and circumstance had been carved away by the time that forcefully changed him.  Everyone and everything Ed wanted right now was in that plan: the daydream where he lay beneath the Resembool sky, surrounded by the country fields, knowing that the house that waited patiently for him was there to welcome him back and everyone he’d longed to see again was inside.

“Do you have any idea how long you want to stay with Granny, or are you just going to play it by ear and you’ll know when you’re feeling better again?” Al asked.

That was a good question and Ed honestly wasn’t sure of an exact answer, but he had a general idea going on in the back of his mind, “It’s August now, so winter’s coming and the weather’s always shit that time of year.  I was eyeing next spring.”

“That might be a better idea,” the suggestion sent a wave of energy racing through Al, “spring sounds great, we can see everything in bloom and then flourish in summer rather than see everything wither and die now.”

His brother’s perspective gave Ed the freedom to laugh, “Good, we’ll set our sights on spring.”

“Do you mind if I do some running around without you?  I want to see Mrs. Hughes and Elysia after Russell and Fletcher get them back to Central.”

It was the first thing Al had said where Ed picked up hints of hesitation in his voice, and he eradicated the worry as swiftly as Al had taken care of his, “Yeah, go for it.  I’m not going to chain you to the house.”

Grinning his delight, Al started to sweep up his nest of papers, “What the heck are we going to do all winter in Resembool?”

Ed impressed both Al and himself with a practical answer, “I was thinking we could help with the harvest.  Farmers are always looking for hands this time of year.  We can use that to find opportunities through the winter and save up some money for our trip.  Folks aren’t going to offer me the same kind of generosity I used to get when I was a kid.”

Marvelling at the mature approach his brother was taking to his immediate future, Al tucked the pages he’d collected away under his bed and climbed up onto the mattress, “Don’t forget to set some money aside once in a while for a new watch.”

Ed’s head dropped forwards like a sack of bricks had landed on it, “I didn’t know they were that expensive.”

“You know, you could always fix the one you came back with – the one Dad gave you,” Al watched his brother’s head turn with interest, “you brought it out here with us, right?  I could change the emblem so you won’t get in trouble for owning it and you could find a watchmaker to fix it.”

The watch Ed came back with had stopped at the moment Al activated the transmutation circle.  Dormant as it was right now, the arms marked the exact time he and Winry came home.  In his mind, at that moment, the watch became an artifact locked in time.  Its purpose ended there; it stopped being an instrument of time, a reminder of home, and transformed into a bookend.  The remains of the watch came east with them, heck Armstrong had handed him a whole bag filled with everything they’d come back with, but the purpose the watch actually served no longer existed.

“Nah, we’ll leave that one alone,” getting up from the desk, Ed threw his arms above his head and stretched, then made his way over to his bedside, “let’s get some sleep, I’ll give myself a headache over this in the morning.”

Following his brother’s lead, Al tucked the pages he’d collected away under his bed and climbed up onto the mattress.  He unhooked himself from the sling cradling his left arm and started unbuttoning the new shirt.  Dumping it on the floor, his slacks shortly followed, and Al slipped his nightshirt on over his head.

“Pick them up.”

Al’s head popped out from the shirt, “What?”

With an inarguably stern look on his face, Ed pointed to the clothes on the floor, “They’re brand new, Al.”

A pout puckered Al’s face and he reached down for his clothes, “You’re turning into a nag in your old age, Dad.”

“Don’t call me that!” a few frazzled hairs popped onto Ed’s head.

Prancing over to the stool in the corner of their room, Al neatly laid his clothes over the seat, putting on a show for his brother’s light-hearted frown.  

Ed changed for bed as well, both brothers soon crawling under their sheets and settling down for the night.  Reaching over to the lamp on the table between them, Ed turned the knob and put the light out, allowing the moon and city streets to provide the ambient light of the evening.  

“Do you want me to pull the curtains?” Al asked.

“Nah,” Ed laid back on his pillow, craning his head so he could look out the open window and see the night’s sky, “I like the view.”

Al turned onto his shoulder, “What was the view like in your other bedroom?”

Thoughts cast out into the sparkling stars and silver moon overhead, Ed lost himself in sky like he had done on countless nights before this.  Wishing for this.  Wanting nothing more than just this.  The actualization of those nights where he lay in bed just like this, looking out into the dim stars while he talked with the Al in his heart.  His chest grew tight, each breath becoming a little harder to take. 

“Dull," Ed cleared his throat, "there was nothing notable about the view there.  Just brown rooftops and a muted sky.  The sky here is darker.  Richer, I guess, and the stars are brighter.”

“I wonder why that is,” Al wondered aloud, closing his eyes.

“Dunno,” coming inside, Ed focussed on the unlit ceiling overhead, “Al…”

“Hm?”

Ed paused. 

“Good night.”

“Good night, Brother.”

Tonight the gentle voice in a flesh body once again responded to one of the thousand calls of ‘good night’ that had gone unacknowledged on so many nights before and Ed didn't dare close his eyes.  Controlling his breathing while he tried to relax in the sheets, enough time eventually passed that Ed let his head roll on the pillow.  His bangs slipped over his face, brushing over the bridge of his nose as the strands fell, and Ed gazed through golden streams at his brother in the moonlit bed across from him.  He watched Al breathe.  Watched him drift.  Watched the tension leave him.  

Ed watched Al fall asleep.

A wistful smile found its way into Ed as he lay awake in bed holding on to today, not quite ready to give it away to tomorrow.  It was a rare occasion when he was allowed to enjoy a day that was as good to him as this one had been.  

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


 

Notes:

This chapter is a culmination of little ideas I had for Ed that I originally wanted to weave through the narrative of the wind down chapters. But, there was too much of ‘this’ and not enough of everyone else lol, so I took all the ideas and gave Ed his own chapter. There are obviously more pressing issues at hand, but after all of the bad days I’ve written for him, I wanted to write a Good Day chapter for Ed :>

If I got shaving science wrong, I deflect blame to the 1920s era guide I read to help me lol.

Today (Oct 2, 2022) is the 18th anniversary of episode 51 airing in Japan. I can take this show out for a well deserved drink now LOL.

I'll tentatively schedule the next chapter for Oct 30!

Chapter 64: Leaving Wonderland

Summary:

Ed and Al make one final trip to the Gate to send Brigitte home.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Ed elbowed his brother, “Stop that.”

“I can’t,” Al’s giggles got worse, “I’m sorry, it’s just funny.”

An arm’s length behind them, Brigitte stood peering in as the Elrics worked away on the final touches of dinner, still unable to shake the absolutely flabbergasted expression she’d had since Izumi brought her home.

Ed was going to come down with the giggles too if he wasn't careful, “I told her we didn’t need her help.”

Al slipped an oven mitt over his usable hand and scanned the stove and counters filled with fresh baked buns, steamed vegetables, boiled potatoes, roast duck, and a pot of gravy.  He carefully picked up the buns cooling on the counter, “It’s her goodbye dinner, she’s not supposed to help!”

Wide, blue eyes trying to escape Brigitte’s skull followed Al over to the kitchen table where the buns were swept into a wicker basket.  Encroaching on the space he had vacated at Ed's side, Brigitte slipped in to examine what the other brother was doing.

Ed glanced to his shoulder, “You’ll start catching flies if you leave your mouth open like that.”

Brigitte closed her mouth, then promptly re-opened it, “I can’t believe the both of you made all this.”

“What’s not to believe?” Ed transferred a pot of steamed vegetables into a wooden bowl, “you watched us do it.”

Ed’s verbalization of the facts took away Brigitte’s ability to form any sort of retort.  She had indeed just spent the last half hour watching these two cook her goodbye dinner.

“Al too, though,” Brigitte eyeballed the younger Elric like an interrogator as he rearranged the kitchen table, “at his age?  With one arm wounded?”

Ed had to wonder if Al was actually a better cook than Brigitte at the moment.  On top of all the shock and awe, she must have been a bit horrified by that too, “I told you, Izumi taught both Al and I how to cook years ago.”

It was just too baffling for her to comprehend, “Why?”

Collecting an armload of vegetables to add to the kitchen table, Ed replied, “So he can take care of himself.”

The answer didn’t penetrate Brigitte’s confusion, “But, he intends to get married, doesn’t he?”

Snorting at her thought process, Ed humoured the conversation and elbowed his brother at the table, “Al, are you planning on getting married someday?”

Fumbling the dish he was moving, Al firmly placed it on the table and offered eyes the size of saucers to his older brother, “Uh, what?  Yes?  I hope so?  Why?”

Ed turned around to Brigitte, “Yeah, he’ll get married.”

The answer made the baffled expression growing on Brigitte’s face a hundred times worse, “A competent man in a kitchen,” she jawed out her words like she couldn’t believe them even in her own voice, “well, he’s going to make some girl a very happy wife someday.”

Ed finally succumbed to laughter and he walked back to the counter.

Standing at the kitchen table, eyeing the both of them, Al had no idea what was going on, “Are you two making fun of me?”

“Nah,” Ed grinned wickedly, “Brigitte thinks you’re top quality husband material, though.”

“Oh,” Al blinked, “OH,” and he blushed, “Ohh,” and a squiggly grin carved its way into his face.  Picking up the emptied bun tray, Al held himself up proudly and strode back to the kitchen counter.

Brigitte quirked an eyebrow at Al’s behaviour, then lifted the eyebrow higher for the older brother who was very deliberately ignoring her all of a sudden.

An expected knock on the door whisked Al out of the kitchen and he bounded across the front room to answer it.  

“Hey you guys!” he greeted Mustang, Havoc, Hawkeye, and Ross on arrival.

While the trio behind him had turned up with pleasant demeanours, Mustang’s entrance was playfully harsh.  Holding a paper bag in one hand, the index finger of the other was firmly pointed between Al’s eyes, “I thought I told you to keep a low profile and NOT draw attention to yourselves.”

Al backed up to let their dinner guests in, “We are.”

Ed stuck his head into the front room, “What the hell have we done!?”

“We could smell you in the stairwell,” Hawkeye thumbed to the door as Ross shut it, trying to subdue her smile, “you’re going to bring all your neighbours to the door looking for handouts.”

Al laughed, his brother rolled his eyes, and Brigitte bounced into the room.

“Hello, hello!  Welcome!” she put a few English greetings she’d learnt to good use as the party entered.

“Hey pumpkin,” Havoc ruffled Brigitte’s hair as he marched by, drawn to the kitchen by the warm, rich aroma luring everyone in.  He snatched one of the buns off the table.

“HEY!” Ed barked.

Havoc quickly stuffed the bun in his mouth.

“HEY, hey hey hey all of you!” Ed brandished a ladle and swung it around, Havoc’s thievery the least of his worries, “were you all raised in a fucking barn!?  Shoes off at the door!”

The eyebrows of all arriving guests rose and before Mustang could make any quip or snide remark about it Hawkeye had him by the shirt collar and was dragging him back to the front door. 

Kicking his shoes off in the kitchen, Havoc hung the heels off his fingers and resumed his investigation of the dinner table, “We secured a vehicle that’ll handle off-road terrain for tomorrow.  You want to give it a whirl later this evening, make sure you know how to drive it?”

Ed scowled at the shoes in Havoc’s hand, but chose to address the issue he’d raised instead, “Yeah, that’s a good idea.  There are probably some differences I’ll need to wrap my head around.”

Coming back into the kitchen, Al’s smile stretched ear to ear, “I’m so excited to have my brother drive us around.”

“It’s not that exciting, Al,” Ed grinned anyways.

“It is for me,” Al’s smile turned sassy, “now you can drive me around when I’m tired instead of me carrying you around when you’re tired.”

Ed conceded his brother’s point.  Smacking Havoc’s hungry hand with the ladle, he returned to the kitchen counter.

Freshly liberated from his footwear, Mustang swung around the kitchen entry and met Ed at the counter.  A bottle of wine was extracted from the paper bag in his arms and placed between them, “For the occasion.”

Thinking he might get sick just from looking at it, Ed abstained, “I’ll pass, thanks.”

Nodding, Mustang patted him on the shoulder and, to Ed’s surprise, said nothing more about it and walked away.

Quickly filling Mustang’s space, Brigitte caught everyone’s attention when she bounced up next to Ed and picked up the bottle from the counter.

“This looks like wine,” she turned it around in her hands, eyeing the cork.

“That’s because it is,” Ed said.

Brigitte beamed, “I’ve never had my own dinner warrant wine before.”

Giving a hesitant glance to all the eyes watching them in the kitchen, Ed delivered some bad news, “Hate to break it to you, but you aren’t getting any.”

That immediately tarnished Brigitte’s mood, “What?  Why not?  It’s my dinner.”

“The rules are different here,” Ed cringed hearing his own voice repeat a statement his dad had told him several thousand times.

“But I always get a glass of wine on holidays or with fancy dinners,” Brigitte argued.

“Yeah, I know, I did too,” sighing, Ed took the bottle from her hands, put it back on the counter, and repeated himself, “but, the rules are different here and you’re not old enough.”

Growing a little hot, Brigitte continued to protest, “So bend them.  It’s my last day, that’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not fair,” Ed found a firm way to end the discussion, “but that’s life.”

The front door opening a second time saved Ed from arguing with someone who clearly did not like his answer.  The already bustling suite watched Izumi, Rose, and Winry file in to fill it further.

“The ladies are back,” Ed shooed Brigitte away, “go get your clothes from Izumi.”

Brigitte stomped out of the kitchen as Winry and Rose added their presence to the crowd.

“Everything smells amazing,” Rose breathed in the source of the smell filling the hall.

Winry went with a far more direct approach, “I’m starving, someone feed me.”

“Feed me, too,” Havoc popped a fat piece of broccoli into his mouth.

“There’s more than enough for everyone,” Al announced and started to direct traffic, “but the kitchen only has four spots and they’re reserved.  If you want to sit and eat, you gotta find a spot in the main room in a chair or on the floor.”

Ross laughed, “Just like New Year’s dinner at my uncle’s.”

“Does it smell like New Year’s dinner, too?” Hawkeye asked.

Ross paused to think, “It does a bit.”

“New Year’s dinner with the Ross’ this year, folks,” Havoc cheered.  Tossing his shoes towards the door, he joined the crowd filling the front room, hoping to claim a seat ahead of the warm meal teasing all of their stomachs.

 


 

Like it was a campfire everyone had been drawn to as the evening wore on, the crowd in the living room became seated around the coffee table littered with emptied plates and glasses.  While food and drink had been the focal point most of the evening, all eyes were momentarily focussed on the showcase going on by the front door.  

Brigitte turned around atop her tip toes one more time, drawing out a round of applause from her onlookers.  With a curtsey to thank her audience, she scampered back to the plush chair she’d been given the honour of sitting in for the evening.

“This was her school uniform?” Hawkeye asked.

Ed nodded his confirmation, “As close as the tailor could get it to what she remembered."  

“It seems rather basic,” was Mustang’s observation of Brigitte’s outfit for her trip home.

“Clothes are pretty modest compared to here,” Ed shrugged his shoulders, “from Brigitte’s point of view, a lot of what we wear and do makes us look like uncultured heathens.”

“You must have been a handful for everyone under the sun when you turned up on her side,” Ross teased.

Ed's brow flattened while he mumbled, “I guess I had my moments.”

A light murmur of ‘mmhmm’s and half chuckles followed Ed’s comments in the lackadaisical evening chatter.

“So, after Brigitte’s home, when are you all heading back to Resembool?” Hawkeye asked.

“The day after tomorrow,” Al nearly bounced with his answer.

“We pushed back our travel plans until the spring, so we're just going to work the harvest and see what winter brings,” Ed added.

Izumi nodded her approval of the plan and collected the attention of each boy on either side of her, “I think keeping everything simple in Resembool over the next few months is the best decision for the both of you.”

“My brother's going to have to work his butt off so he can pay rent all winter, though,” Al didn't neglect to point out.

Ed plunked his elbow down on the coffee table and slammed his chin into his palm, “Why do I have to pay rent and not Al?”

Izumi’s hand landed high on Ed's back, “You're an adult.”

Havoc held his wine glass up high, “Congratulations!”

Adult Ed sulked like a child.

Izumi gave him a light shake, “And after you two have that galivanting out of your system?”

Ed slumped into the table and buried his face in his hand, "I don't know yet."

“You need to look into a career, Ed,” she patted him firmly between his shoulder blades and turned her attention to Al, “you should also keep one in mind, too.”

“Al’s the alchemist in the family now,” Ed sat back and pointed out the obvious path his brother could take, “all of the opportunities are there for him when he wants them.”

“You’re still incredibly talented alchemist too, Brother!” Al wasn’t going to let Ed just shrug off alchemy that easily, “you absorb knowledge like a sponge!  Just because you can’t do alchemy, doesn’t mean it can’t have a part in the rest of your life.  There’s a lot you can still teach me!”

“Al on the right track,” taking a sip from his wine glass, Mustang offered a solution, “those who can’t do, teach.”

Ed recoiled in disgust of the idea.

Izumi found herself giving Mustang’s suggestion more than a passing thought, “You’ve done a good job teaching Al what you’ve learned.”

“And you educated us on a number of things after you came home,” Hawkeye pointed out, “and I’ve heard you can give very sound explanations when it comes to alchemy.”

“You did work in a school, some of that had to have rubbed off on you while you were there,” Ross added.

Ed’s shoulders started to ride up towards his ears, half mumbling his words, “I really don’t know if that’s a route I want to go.”

Reaching behind his teacher’s back, Al smacked his brother’s arm, realizing exactly why the suggestion was being dismissed. “Brother, don’t be petty.”

Before Ed could argue further, Mustang returned to the conversation with another option, “Alternatively, I’m sure there are numerous positions in various levels of government that could use a well-trained office clerk.”

Ed leaned into the table, scowling across at Mustang, “I don’t need career advice from you.”

“Winry could use a secretary for her new business ventures from what I hear,” Ross offered.

Ed wasn't going to entertain that idea either.

“Don’t turn your nose up at education, Ed,” Hawkeye stepped back in, “it’s a highly respected, well-paying profession, especially if you’re in the sciences.”

Havoc added to the encouragement, “Breda’s got a cousin who’s a history prof, she could probably get you hooked up with some connections.”

Not willing to ruin what had been a fantastic dinner with an argument about a future he hadn’t spent much time thinking over the details on, Ed tossed a loosely tied lifeline to everyone, hoping they would leave him alone, “I’ll think about it.”

Ross flicked the lifeline away with a warm smile, “You can also start thinking about getting on with your life in other ways, like finding a wife and starting a family.”

This time, Ed started to shrink into his collar, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, can everyone stop planning my life for me?”

“At least no one can get on your case about children,” Mustang pointed out. 

The statement hushed the murmur of the gathered dinner crowd, like Mustang had voiced something that should have remained unspoken.  

A bit baffled by everyone’s uneasy reaction, Ed glanced around at the silent group who were all a little uncertain where their eyes should go.  Apparently, the state of things bothered everyone else more than him.

“Yeah, well, there are lots of kids out there who need parents and don’t have them,” Ed said, “and I don't need to contribute biology to one to be a good father.”

The unburdened response loosened the tension of the room and Ed glanced down to the hand Izumi put on his knee.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep the Elric bloodline going,” Al lit up proudly, “I’ll have six kids.”

Izumi’s other hand was used to grab the back of Al’s head and bow him forwards into the coffee table as the room sputtered with laughter.  “You make damn sure to talk that over with the mother of those six kids first, young man.”

“It might not be the best arrangement," all eyes returned to Mustang as he took another sip from his glass, "but as I see it, Ed’s situation does come with an envious perk.”  

Ed was going to hate himself for this.  It was like voluntarily walking into a trap laid by a troll merrily finishing his third glass of wine, but it was a question sitting out in the open that was begging to be asked, “Yeah, what’s that?”

Mustang looked off thoughtfully, “If there’s no risk of getting a girl pregnant, then there’s a lot of enjoyment you can get out of that.”

Havoc spat out his laugh, “That’s cheating!”

“As long as he's not cheating on his lucky ladies, it could shape up to be a great time,” Mustang held up his glass and Havoc clinked his off of it.

Consumed by regret, Ed turtled into his hands as the entire room groaned.  Hawkeye smartly confiscated the wine glasses from the two men she’d arrived with.

“The military really prided itself on its unfixed dogs,” Izumi snarled from the opposite side of the stout table separating them, “can you find a shred of decency to show?  We’re having a meal and there are children in the room.”

“Children?” Mustang looked at Brigitte, who’d sat through the entire conversation and not understood a thing.  He looked at Al who was sitting next to his teacher trying not to giggle.  He searched for any sign of the young ladies who'd vanished after they'd finished their meal, then scanned the ravaged remnants of dinner, and finally looked obstinately back at the woman challenging him.  “Al’s sixteen.”

Al nodded.

“Mentally,” Ross gently added.

Al stopped nodding.

Mustang continued with a very important point he intended to deliver, “Perhaps, but after sixteen years of existence on this earth he should know what to do with it.”

“Can you leave Al out of your horny bullshit!?” Ed barked before Izumi could.

Al put his elbow on his knee and let his face fall into his free hand.

"In fact," the corner of Mustang’s smug grin curled upwards, “I’m confident enough in Al to believe he knows more about sex than you do.”

Ed began sputtering like a strangled garden hose.

Before anyone could stop him, Mustang put an exclamation mark on his claim, “Al spent four years following you around in the military, listening to all sorts of things throughout the night while you slept.  Do you honestly think your brother never investigated the questionable noises he was hearing in the next room?”

Once again, Mustang’s words drove the entire suite into silence.

Izumi was the first to move, putting her eyes in the corners of their sockets to look at Al.  Ed’s head creaked over his shoulder, looking back at his brother.  Mustang peered around Ed and eventually every eye in the room, including Brigitte’s while she unknowingly played along, was placed on Alphonse Elric.

No force on earth was going to pry Al’s face out of his hand, though.

Mustang sighed and mourned the loss of his wine glass, “You never got to be sixteen years old, Fullmetal.”

Already a shade of red powerful enough to challenge the Philosopher’s Stone, Ed howled, “CAN I KICK THIS DRUNK ASSHOLE OUT!?”

Rising to her feet like the stars had aligned just right for her, Izumi cracked her knuckles, “I’ll do it.”

A knock on the front door stole Izumi’s thunder. 

Mustang was spared for a moment and Izumi stepped over Al to answer it.  Aggressively releasing all the locks, she threw the door open for one final guest.

“Vato!  Where have you been?”

“Sorry,” Falman stumbled into the room, clearly out of breath, and he directed his attention to the crowd gathered on the floor, “Sir, there’s a phone call for you.”

Mustang blinked slowly, “Did you take a message?”

“No,” he gasped, putting his hands on his knees.  Falman gave himself a moment to take a few deep breaths before he continued, “It’s Hakuro.  He wants to talk to you.”

The announcement sobered up the room faster than Izumi’s fury would have managed.

 


 

Mustang sat in a creaky wooden chair staring at the receiver waiting for him on the desk.  One leg was hotly slung over the other, his arms were knotted tightly across his chest, and his expression was an angry, wrinkled mess.

Behind him in this white-walled room stained yellow with decades of cigarette smoke, Hawkeye, Havoc, Falman, and Ross had joined him.  

Did their loyalty to him arbitrarily strip them of their ranks, too?  Deprive them of their livelihoods?  The new regime was poised to spit them out that way.  Maybe if he picked up the receiver taunting him on the desk he might learn their fate.

But the last person in the entire world Roy Mustang wanted to talk to right now was Fuhrer Hakuro.

The glossy black receiver oozed the same kind of smug energy Hakuro’s face did every time he got a chance to dance on Bradley’s lap.  He could hear that holier-than-thou tone without picking it up.  Yet, it didn’t make sense that Hakuro had called to gloat – the man was a different sort of petty, Mustang just couldn’t think of another reason why he’d put so much effort into reaching out.  He had his gloves back, why not light the whole desk on fire, get some cathartic release out of that, and call it a day?

“Sir.”

Mustang nearly groaned when Hawkeye addressed him.  Too much time had been spent pissing around in this chair, he supposed.  And she didn’t have to call him ‘Sir’.  He had a name, she could use it.

Like a child being asked to rip off a bandage, the receiver was finally picked up, “Yes?”

“Mustang!”

The bark of Hakuro’s voice nearly caused the phone cord to be ripped from the wall and the entire device thrown out the window, “To what do I owe an audience with our esteemed new Fuhrer at such a harrowing time in his rule.”

Hakuro’s voice crackled through a somewhat stable line, “Took you long enough, what dive did they have to haul your ass out of?”

“My sincerest apologies, Fuhrer Hakuro,” Mustang thought the man’s name was going to corrode his tongue, “I’m no longer on the clock, so I didn’t realize I needed to make myself available to your whims while I was enjoying dinner.”

“Save the theatrics, Mustang.  I don’t want to hear it.”

“Forgive me if I don’t want to hear from you either,” if he never heard from this asshole again, it would still be too soon.

“I’m calling you out of necessity and that’s it.”

“Necessity?” Mustang responded dryly.  That was a preposterous statement, what sort of necessity?  Surely he had enough lackeys coming in on the trains that at some point there’d be enough loyal officers in the region they could communicate by having him arrested.  What the hell sort of necessity put a phone in both their hands well past sundown?  “You have an entire country at your disposal, what can I possibly necessitate?”

Hakuro’s voice tore through the static clogging up the line, “Where’s Dante?”

Mustang’s pupils darted around.  What in the world?  The gears in his head nearly popped off their axles when his thoughts spun into motion.  Was this some kind of joke?  What did he mean ‘where’s Dante?’  Dante was…

Mustang felt a numbing chill rush through his body that put alternate words in his mouth for everyone in the room to hear, “Dante’s exact location is unknown.”

Hakuro didn’t know.

“How familiar did you become with her work?”

The grinding of Hakuro’s voice coming through the receiver was dampened by the weight of Mustang’s mounting thoughts clogging his ears.

Hakuro didn’t know.

No one had told him.

Like a madly built machine barrelling down a race track, precariously held together with spit and gum, Mustang’s mental machine ran, “I have a few decent leads that we suspect may reach a fair way into Dante’s network of activities within the country.”

“I want to know the extent of her operation within the country and I want to know where she retreats to within it,” Hakuro’s orders rang loud and clear above the static, “I want you to flush her out and hang her.”

Regardless of the relevance of the woman's presence, or Hakuro barking instructions like they were orders, Mustang had a personal interest in Dante's network.  He’d only become aware of her existence in the last few months, but Dante's operation had been established for centuries.  The opportunity to get a better grip on the network, investigate it, understand it, dissect it, and fully dismantle it flooded Mustang’s veins with a hungry kind of desire he hadn’t felt in some time.  

The Underground City was a crime like no other.  Even with the waste it had been put to, surely there had to be some way to unravel its tendrils and find out where its channels stretched.  Just how entrenched was Dante in Xenotime?  What horrors remained hidden in a city designed to be wiped off the face of the earth?  How could investigating that shed light on other towns and cities throughout the nation?  Mustang wanted to see inside Pandora's Box.  What secrets were there to find in Central City?  They'd only scratched the surface with Laboratory Five, there had to be more.  How much insight could Nash Tringham’s sons provide?  Nash couldn’t have been the only one forced into the situation.  What loose ends were out there threatening their livelihoods?  Did Dante have any other loyalists to her research similar to Aisa waiting for her return?

What was the actual state of the nation with its boogieman beheaded?  How ugly was this mess she’d left behind?

Mustang cleared his throat and chose his words carefully, “I’d be honoured to assist you in this matter, but I believe I’m still considered a wanted man.  Unless you can talk the newspapers under your thumb away from their desire for my public flogging, I’m not sure how I can help you.”

“Don’t concern yourself with that, just assemble your team and do it quietly.”

Huh, so Xenotime was going to be swept under the rug again.  From the eye of the shit storm Hakuro was navigating in Central City, between the water shortage and earthquake hampering the national takeover, they probably didn’t even have the time or resources to allocate to an investigation if they wanted to.  Roy Mustang and the uproar in Xenotime would become yesterday’s news, buried beneath all the stories of national interest in Central.

If there was one unspoken commonality he and Hakuro might share, it was the belief that Dante and everything involving her needed to be not only kept out of the public eye, it needed to be removed.  Mustang wasn’t fool enough to shed light on centuries old atrocities regardless if Hakuro was in charge or not.  The absolute hell that would cause not just domestically, but internationally was frightening to think about.  The nation of Amestris needed stability in its bedrock, something it hadn’t had for who knows how long, and Mustang could be the one to fortify it.

“What you are asking for, Sir, is a national undertaking requiring funds and resources,” if he told himself he was serving the people of his country and not this man’s personal self-interest, Mustang could convince himself to stomach the situation for a greater good, “am I being reinstated?”

Hakuro had clearly come prepared for that question, “Consider yourself a subcontracted liaison granted specialized authority for this classified field of work.”

Pausing to stop himself from laughing at such a spiteful solution, Mustang sincerely hoped Hakuro could see his malicious grin through the phone, “I’ll send you my rates.”

Hakuro’s tone never wavered, “Your first priority is finding means of disabling her resources and cutting off whatever supply chains she has.”

“Cut off all of the hands that feed it,” Mustang was in no hurry to see the Underground City so soon anyways.  Wrath was sealed down there, if the creature was even alive.  A dressing of false urgency entered his voice, “Very well, I’ll get to work assessing the extent of the network and assigning priority areas.”

Hakuro cemented his words, “Your work on this matter will be a reflection of your patriotism, Mustang.”

Mustang swallowed his scoff – he sure as hell wasn’t doing this for Hakuro’s benefit.  The country came first, even if the asshole got perks from it.

“There will be a coordinating officer arriving in East City by the end of the week, so have your shit organized when he gets there.  He will brief you and your team and establish your framework for the operation.”

“Just one?” Mustang raised a brow, there should be two.

“Just one,” Hakuro confirmed.

Mustang took note to keep an eye on their go-between.  It was easy to make a hand-picked, solo officer vanish if he stepped out of line.  Hakuro was looking a little paranoid about trying to prevent the rest of his staff from thinking he was off his rocker.  Mustang made note of that as well.

“I expect concrete information next time we speak.”

“And I expect a down payment before then too, Sir.”

The sound of the receiver smashing into the cradle rattled through Mustang’s earpiece and it was quickly followed by the dial tone.  Placing the handset down much nicer than he’d picked it up, Mustang leaned back in his chair.  He knotted his arms tightly again, crossed one leg back over the other, and let out a lengthy, thoughtful hum.

“You’re not going to tell him?” Hawkeye asked.

“If I were Hakuro, I’d want to see a body,” Mustang examined the uncertainty surrounding what was going on, “but knowing she has the means to switch bodies might even put that in doubt.”

The crowd standing behind Mustang exchanged glances and it was Havoc’s turn to ask the next question.

“So, what’re you going to do?”

“I want to get my hands on exactly what it was Dante was doing with our country,” Mustang announced, not needing much thought, “and I want to burn it down.” 

There was no punishment suitable for Dante's crimes, but the sentence that the Elric brothers had levied on her wasn’t enough.  To just be expelled from their world and banished to repent in another didn't come close to what was deserved, so Mustang would see to it that her legacy was torn down and completely wiped out.  The ideals she represented, her perversion of alchemy, and every single one of her footprints needed to vanish along with her.  

“Unfortunately, playing nice with Hakuro won’t get anyone very far,” Mustang hooked his arm around the back of his wooden chair and turned a firm, focussed gaze over his shoulder to the men and women at his back.  “Anyone want to play with me instead?”

 


 

Bouncing a coin pouch in one hand and holding onto a notepad in the other, Ed turned his attention to the bedroom door when Izumi finally came out.

“Got it to fit.”

“You did?” Ed raised his brow, wondering how she managed to accomplish that without transmuting it.

“Yeah,” Izumi suddenly scowled, “Winry wore that?”

Ed wanted to laugh again, “Whenever we went out.  Needed something to keep the socks up.”

Izumi’s lip curled and she wrinkled her nose like she had something else to say, but decided against it, “Well, Winry’ll never get back into it.”

Ed watched his teacher walk off shaking her head and Brigitte brought his attention back when she popped her head out of the room. 

“I smell breakfast!”

Ed sniffed the air.  Yup, smelled like breakfast… actually it smelled like coffee and he could definitely use some today, “We got a couple more minutes still.  Are you ready?”

“I hope so,” Brigitte sounded a little uncertain of her answer.

Waving her back into the room, Ed shut the door behind them. 

It was a shame they couldn’t have shown Brigitte something more than months of chaos leading up to a dreary dorm style room in a less than mediocre end of East City, Ed lamented.  The rural atmosphere of Resembool would have been more hospitable and less overwhelming than getting hauled around some of the country’s busiest places.  Ed had voluntarily learned German and he didn’t find it all that difficult to pick up on once he set his mind to it, but he couldn’t imagine the struggles he would have faced if he’d been deposited anywhere other than England.  Brigitte had his sympathy for a kind of plight he’d managed to escape. 

And she’d done a pretty good job with her situation now that it was all said and done.  

“Edward, look at these stockings!”

Ed sat down on the side of her bed as Brigitte hiked her skirt up past her knees.

“These are amazing,” she balanced on one leg and waved around the other above the floorboards, “they cling to my leg and haven't slipped down yet!  I don’t know if I need to clip them in.  I’ve never worn anything like this before.”

A grin pulled Ed’s mouth open, “They’re just long socks.”

Brigitte tossed her skirt from her hands, “I know what socks are Edward.  These are very different.”

Ed chuckled at the simplicity of Brigitte’s excitement and held out the burgundy coin pouch in his hand, “This is for you.”

Brigitte shuffled over to the bedside.

“It’s the money Winry and I had on us when we came back,” Ed put the pouch in her hands, “it should be enough to get you outta there.”

“Thank you,” Brigitte gave a tug on the draw strings to peer inside.

“Don’t reach out to anyone in Munich until February, understand?” Ed reinforced instructions he’d given her earlier, “go all the way home to your mum and dad in Berlin.”

Puckering her lips, then pushing her lower one out into a pout, Brigitte grumbled, “I’m going to be in a world of trouble with them.”

“Trouble’s the price you have to pay for not being dead,” Ed knowingly told her.

“Are you certain I’m going to turn up around the same time I left?” Brigitte clutched the coin pouch with both hands, “and not the months later that I’ve spent here?”

Ed shook his head, “No, you should come back roughly around the same time you died originally.”

Brigitte’s brow began to knot, “What if I come back to a crowd of people and they kidnap me or kill me again?”

“No, you’ll be fine.  No one’ll see you come back – just focus on getting out.”

The worry was valid, though; technically she’d be coming back and re-entering a timeline Ed had already experienced.  Ed didn’t know much about the manipulation of time or time travel, if it was linear or not or just how it would work in their scenario… all of that was well beyond anything he knew, especially with the Gate controlling the process.  But it made sense to him that if Brigitte’s passage through the Gate was relative to her own existence, then she was being sent back to enter events Ed already knew.  Since there was no hubbub about a second transmutation after Winry’s, it was safe to say that no one saw Brigitte come back.

“My house keys are in the pouch,” Ed turned her attention back to what she could do once she was home, “when you manage to get back to Munich in the new year, if our stuff’s still there, if they haven’t changed the locks or burnt the place down, help yourself to anything you want.”

Brigitte seemed hesitant to take Ed up on the offer, “That’s a bit like looting, isn’t it?”

“It’s not looting if you have permission,” Ed paused on that thought to add, “there’s some money in a cookie jar in the kitchen you can grab.”

“A cookie jar?” Brigitte’s brow rose curiously.

Ed shrugged, “I don’t know.  It was my dad’s jar.”

A light went on behind Brigitte’s eyes and the nervous energy fueling her that morning started to wane, “Edward, I meant to ask, where’s your father buried?”

Ed’s actions staggered to a halt.

“I’d like to pay my respects.”

What an odd feeling, Ed thought.  After all that had happened, after everything he, Al, and Winry had gone through, his dad had only died three months ago.  That whole weekend.  That awful New Year’s.  It felt so far away somehow.  Like some kind of disjointed, lucid nightmare Ed could remember forcing himself to walk through.  On its own, the whole thing felt monumental and suffocating, and the weight it carried was an entirely separate beast compared to everything that came to pass after it. 

“I’ll write it down for you,” Ed picked the notebook up off the bed and opened it to a blank page.

Brigitte peered in as he wrote, “Did you want me to bring flowers for you?”

Ed stopped.

“Oh, and for Al too,” Brigitte laughed sheepishly at herself, “I keep forgetting he’s father to both of you.”

The tip of the pen gripped in Ed’s hand dug into the paper and he finished the address.  Tearing the page from the coils of the notebook, he folded it in half and handed it to Brigitte, “Whatever you like.”

She nodded, “I’ll look after him for you.”

Glancing away from her, Ed tugged on the edge of an envelope sticking out from the notebook.  He pulled it out and handed it to Brigitte, “Can you give this to the Oberths for me?”

Brigitte tucked the pouch of money under her arm so she could hold the sealed envelope at both sides.  She skimmed the address that had been written.

“Hand deliver it if you can.  Someone might be watching their mail.”

“Like the men you told me about?” her eyes widening with concern, Brigitte looked up, “Mr. Hess and Mr. Hitler?”

Ed nodded, “Yeah, them.”

Sputtering in disgust, Brigitte squatted down and put the things she’d been given into the satchel Izumi had bought for her, “I honestly thought politicians were made of a more refined sort of cloth.  That they were upper class, sophisticated, well educated, respectable kinds of people!  To think men of that stature are capable of acting no better than petty street thugs and murderous criminals…”

Cautious words of wisdom were offered to her, “People are capable of all sorts of things to get what they want, or what they think they’re entitled to.  You just need to be vigilant, so you know when it’s safe to fight back or avoid them altogether.”

Brigitte abruptly stood up and slung the bag over her shoulder, “I will be vigilant.”

Ed slapped his hands over his knees and rose with her, “Alright, you got your cover story memorized?”

“I do,” she nodded.

“Did you get enough sleep?”

“I did not.”

Ed laughed, “Yeah, me neither.  C’mon, let’s go have breakfast.”

Brigitte grinned her answer from ear to ear, “Okay!”

 


 

Alphonse being the first one out the door was predictable.  Of course the force that kept Ed in line would also be the one to arrive first and on time.  However, Roy’s solo presence alongside the sturdy box of an off-road vehicle came as a surprise to Al.  Havoc was meant to be the one they saw as the noon hour rolled in, not him.

“Sir…” Al slowed his steps as he approached, “is everything okay?”

Internal sighs were becoming a more frequent thing, Roy was finding – he was going to have to find a way to claw 'Sir' out of everyone’s vocabulary.  

“Everything’s fine,” he tapped a knuckle off the side of the rugged four-wheeler he was delivering, “events are being put into motion and I’m not sure I’ll have a window to speak with you again once it’s all going.  I wanted to see you off.”

The kind of wide, vivacious grin that Roy was familiar with on Ed turned up on Al, with not as many sharp edges, but seasoned with youthful joy, “Thank you.”

So much had been going on that the chance never arose for Roy to step out of the environment they were in and honestly see just who Alphonse Elric really was.  He’d gotten familiar with the soul of a child trapped in a cold prison.  He’d only just started to get a grip on the lost variant of that soul who couldn’t remember the cage.  And now Al was leaving before Roy could really see him.  If the last month was any indication, Roy liked what he’d witnessed so far.  A nearly comical urge found its way into his thoughts, one that wanted him to drop a hand on Al’s shoulder, pat it firmly, and say something along the lines of ‘good job, young man’.  Statements like that were reserved for proud parents and mentors, Roy was neither of those things, but he did certainly feel some element of pride knowing the next strides Al took would be firmly grounded ones. 

He was very glad it was over for him, and it was time for both brothers to move on.

“You’re heading out on that assignment, then?” Al asked.

Roy nodded, “Yes.”

The look on Al’s face immediately tightened with signs of reservation, “Are you sure you want to head back to Xenotime so soon?  You’re not a fan favourite there right now.”

“I have been given the best disguise possible,” Roy tapped the corner of the left eye he’d been gifted.

That did nothing to alleviate Al's frown. 

Of course a little bit more effort was going to have to be put into keeping Roy Mustang out of the general public's eye, but every single fiber in him was humming at the prospect of getting back out to Xenotime, “My intuition wants us out there.  We weren’t there long enough to do anything more than scratch the surface of one of Dante’s investments.  I want to dig out her wealth and identify any fringe support she might have had to set up the city to buoy her plan.”

The desire to get to the bottom of everything was something Al understood, “I hope you find something.  I also hope you don’t.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the truth wasn’t constantly an uglier beast than their fears could imagine.

Sliding his hand into his pocket, Roy pulled out a square envelope.  He snapped the flap up, gave the contents a light shake before he leafed through them, and then he pulled out a single photograph from the collection.  A picture that had opened the eyes of a young boy at the beginning of his second journey was returned to him.

Al collected the photograph Mrs. Hughes had given him from Ed's birthday.  The one that showed him a snippet of the life he'd once thought he'd lost.  The one with Nina in it.

Roy still couldn’t form any opinion when he looked at Nina. Thinking about the desecration of Nina's life and after life disgusted him, but the picture evoked no emotions beyond what one might feel looking at any given photo of a random child.  He hadn’t known Nina when she was alive.  No window ever came up where he could meet the version that Dante had stolen.  But it was painfully obvious that her image meant something to Al.  The emotions Roy couldn’t conjure up were showing in him and he sincerely hoped that Al could find a way to disassociate the memory of the bubbly little girl in the photograph from the nightmare that stole her face.

“I’m short on time and can’t address all the odds and ends,” Roy lightened his tone, “would you see that gets back to where it belongs?”

“I will,” Al nodded, tucking it away in the top pocket of his button-up shirt.

As though the winds of a hurricane had blown the building’s door open, Edward and Brigitte emerged in the middle of a verbal quarrel.  What on earth they were all up in arms about was a mystery hidden behind a language Mustang thought sounded increasingly abrasive the more he listened to it, but it ended the moment Ed saw the man waiting for them.

“What the heck are you doing here?”

“Good morning to you too,” Roy responded flatly.

Ed approached with caution, “Something up?”

“I’m here to see you off,” all Roy needed to do was to see the look on Ed’s face to hear him bark ‘bullshit’ without ever opening his mouth, “and to tell you to make sure you come back this time.”

Arriving at his brother's side, a troublesome grin emerged in Ed’s face, “You can’t get rid of me that easily, now.”

Years ago, it had taken some getting used to before Roy had found himself comfortable in the presence of such an odd pair – that massive suit of armour with a squeaky voice and polite demeanor, and that stout boy with a boisterous voice and volatile fuse.  They became normal like that.  It shouldn’t have been normal, but it was.  Looking at Ed and Al now, with the older brother obviously older and marginally better tempered, and that same squeaky voice attached to a body to match his size… this felt like the wrong take.  Time was going to have to work its magic to establish this new normal.

The remaining contents of the envelope Roy held on to were turned over to Brigitte, “For you.”

Brigitte glanced to Ed as though she felt she needed permission to take it, which she apparently received, and she curiously stuck her nose and fingers into it.  The contents of her wallet that Havoc and Breda had taken out months ago, plus all of the photographs she’d arrived with, and even the ones they’d managed to develop, were turned to her.

“Thank you!” she squealed her gratitude for everyone to understand.

Roy turned to Ed, “Can you apologize to her for me?  This was all we were able to keep hold of from things she showed up with.”

The message was relayed and if body language was any indication, Brigitte didn’t mind.  She was far more interested in the few things she had gotten back than what she didn’t. 

“I need to get going,” Roy announced without preamble, he had more than a few things of his own to get back to.

“You’re honestly going to string a guy like Hakuro along with Dante’s ghost?” Ed asked him.

Roy popped a single, curious eyebrow, “I thought you said you weren’t interested in my political games?”

Getting cornered with his own words ruffled a few of Ed’s feathers, “I’m not, but if you play this card wrong, it can go south for you really fast.”

He didn’t show it, but Roy appreciated Ed’s underlying concern, “Unless we march Dante herself to the gallows in front of Hakuro, there’s no way for us to conclusively prove to him that she’s gone.  If the stories of the Gate are to die with us, the option of informing him of what really happened doesn’t exist.  This is the best opportunity we have at the moment to dismantle Dante’s root network and make sure no one steps into her shoes.”

And no one would disagree with him on that.

Ed narrowed his gaze, “Don’t fuck this up.”

“I won’t,” Roy smirked at the fiery spark that turned up in those tired golden eyes, “I’m not hiring you, for starters.”

Nothing gave Roy more pleasure that morning than watching Ed writhe as he struggled to bite his tongue.  As interesting as it might be to bring this updated Edward Elric along and find out how he ticks now, Roy was well aware that he needed to spend some time out of the spotlight.

The moment Ed finished swallowing his words, Roy extended his right hand, “Good luck.”

A bare, flesh hand reached out and shook it, “Thanks.”

“You know how to get in touch with us.”

Ed nodded.

Tightening the grip he had on Ed’s deaf hand, Roy stepped towards him, “And a word of advice that might help you once you’re settled at home.”

Slightly unnerved by the approach and the realization that he didn’t know how much effort needed to be put into reclaiming his right hand, Ed stood his ground and stared back at the man looking him directly in the eye, “Now what?”

“I know from experiences I’d rather forget that alcohol can become a crutch,” Roy didn't allow Ed to hide his physical tension or the uneasy glance he looked away with, “don’t use it at one.”

“I have no intention of doing that,” Ed managed to get words through his clenched jaw.

“Just putting it out there,” for the younger Elric to hear as much as the older one he was facing, just in case it was needed.  Releasing Ed’s hand, Roy patted it firmly down on his shoulder instead, “You will find much more comfort in the arms of a woman in bed.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Ed lurched away and stormed around the vehicle.

“I speak from experience,” Roy cheerfully called.

Ed threw open the driver’s side door, “All those years of experience and you’re still single!”

Roy absorbed the parting shot and everyone flinched when the door slammed.

A lost young lady who’d done very well at keeping herself together in a situation beyond her control was the next to shake Roy’s hand.  For a girl with a bit of fight in her blood, Brigitte had a gentle handshake.  If not for her and all the riddles that came with her, there was no telling where the search for Ed would have taken them.  The last few months would have unfolded in a completely different way and it was doubtful anyone would be sending her home today. 

He picked a word she would understand, “Goodbye.”

Brigitte smiled, “Goodbye.”

Reaching back, Roy opened the back door of the vehicle and ushered her in, then closed it again once she was settled.

And there was Alphonse.  He stood with his hand on his face, still shaking his head like someone’s disappointed mother over the quips Roy had exchanged with his brother.  It was an amusing look for someone who appeared to be so young.

“Good luck,” Roy offered his hand, “and have a safe trip.”

Al firmly shook it, “Thank you.  You too.”

Roy nodded, “Take care and don't let your brother do anything stupid.”

“I heard that!” Ed yelled from inside.

“Don't worry,” Al winked, “I got him under control.”

The younger brother hopped into the passenger’s side seat of the vehicle the older one brought to life.  Roy lifted a hand for the two children who waved, trying not to roll his eyes at the single finger Ed chose to salute him with as their departure got under way.  The engine rumbled, the tires spun, and the trio drove off into the streets of East City.

The last time Roy and Ed had gone their separate ways, it had felt like a permanent farewell.  It felt like an end of something.  It nearly was.  In all honesty, it should have been… yet it wasn’t.  This departure had none of those ear markings.  The heavy weight of finality wasn’t sitting on anyone’s shoulders.  New roads were being opened as others were closing down and Roy was confident that somewhere on this map there would be a road that crossed paths with these Elric brothers once again.

 


 

After a drive of a few hours, the boxy vehicle that had gotten them out to the middle of nowhere had rattled to a stop in what Brigitte thought a desert might look like if it had been deprived of all the sand.  It was a desert where the soil had given up hope and nothing but barren land surrounded them.  There was clearly a reason there were no houses as far as the eye could see.  

The empty visual quietly made Brigitte a little more uneasy.  They’d travelled so far, then walked even farther, just to perform a procedure that seemed to be wracking all their nerves.  Ed could lie all he wanted about how there was nothing to worry about, Brigitte had just spent the last several months learning how to read people.  She could tell something was bothering him.  Wringing her hands around the stem of her parasol, Brigitte tried to not fidget as she waited for Ed and Al to finish.

Watching the Elric brothers wrap up carving out the transmutation circle in the parched earth, Brigitte’s nerves took another whollop when Ed started unbuttoning his shirt.  Throwing her head over her opposite shoulder and looking out into the nothing landscape, she tried her darnedest to keep her eyes off of an open-shirt man… but… but Al was drawing that sigil on him. 

There was one on her too – Izumi had drawn it on her chest before they’d left.  Brigitte vowed to wash the thing off the moment she got home.  It was there to smooth out the trip to the Gate, or she’d been told, but Ed refused to elaborate on what exactly he was smoothing over.

Was this bizarre event really taking place!?  

Brigitte daringly peeked in the brothers’ direction.  Al was finishing up drawing the circle over Ed’s heart like he was being offered as a sacrifice.  This was beginning to feel like madness and blasphemy all rolled into one.  How was engaging a structure that connected entire worlds and had the power to return limbs to a disabled man not complete and utterly madness? 

“That isn’t going to kill you, is it?” Brigitte called, growing pale as her imagination started to wander.

“I’ll be fine, we’re just making sure the doors open without a problem,” Ed answered.

What sort of problem!?  

Brigitte cringed, she wanted to ask, but also didn’t want to know.  For all she knew the answer was part of the deluge of information Ed kept giving her that went in one ear and out the other.  Alchemy was a lot more fun when it seemed like it was just neat circles dreamed up by mad scientists that were being used to play around with the laws of nature. 

“I sincerely hope this process doesn’t condemn me in God's eye,” Brigitte stuck out her lower lip, “I can only imagine how harshly I’ll be judged for playing along with a ritual like this.  I don’t even know what I could say that’ll begin to cover this at confession.”

Walking up to her, Ed finished re-doing the buttons of his shirt, “If God is so fickle that he’d condemn someone at your age for accepting help from people with limited means at their disposal, maybe find another one.”

Brigitte’s jaw dropped, “Pardon!?”

“You don’t really want to hang out with someone that narrow-minded for your entire afterlife,” Ed snapped his shirt straight, “do you?”

Absolutely gobsmacked by the audacity of what he was saying, Brigitte gawked at Edward, unable to come up with a response.

Ed tapped the bottom of her chin to close her mouth, “Ready to go?”

Struggling to get her thoughts back into motion, let alone change gears, Brigitte absently released one of her hands strangling the parasol and reached out to take hold of the hand Ed had extended to her, “As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”

The firm grip of Edward’s left hand offered Brigitte safety and pestered her nerves.  Was there any unspoken motivation fueling this secure hold he’d taken on her?  Or did he normally hold someone's hand this firmly?

Brigitte turned her attention to Al standing in front of the both of them.  A gust of wind picked up his hair and fluttered his shirt as he reminded her to close the parasol.  She was absolutely certain he was struggling to temper all the nerves he had over what they were about to do.  His emotions were worn a bit more clearly on his sleeves than most boys and it took all of Brigitte's strength not to march right off of this transmutation circle they were standing on.

But the nerves and concerns didn’t overpower Al.  Rubbing his sore, bandaged left forearm, he gave a nod to Brigitte and sent her heart soaring when he lifted his hands.  He clapped them lightly to spare his sore arm.  The faint sound of his palms meeting was carried away by the wind blowing through the wide expanse, but the sky could not outshine the glow of the transmutation circle coming to life at their feet.

Brigitte tried to stop herself from gasping in panic.  Over and over again she told herself that everything was okay, there was no reason to run away, these boys knew what they were doing.  Despite her own assurances, Brigitte gripped Ed’s hand with all her might and clenched her eyes when Al put both of his charged hands down on his brother’s chest.

The wind on the barren plain breezed through her body.  It touched every fibre as it passed, like her corporeal presence had momentarily been lost, and the light headed feeling that momentarily struck her was overwhelmed by weight.  Her head felt heavy, painfully so, and control over her thoughts was taken from her.  Her mind and her mind's eye only saw that which was forced upon her so quickly it defied description.  A rush of information that exceeded fast or frantic, but didn't quite reach immediate or instant besieged her.  The worst part wasn't the pressure being exerted on her mind, but how she didn't understand any of the message being conveyed.

And then it stopped.

Brigitte heard nothing.  Not the carefree sound of the wind, not the brushing of dirt, not the telltale signs of life – there was absolutely nothing to hear at all.

Cracking an eye open, the first thing she saw was the concern festering in Al’s face prior to turning away from her.  That did nothing to help her nerves.  The world around them was gone as she’d been told to expect.  The earth beneath their feet and the sky above their head had been replaced by a vast, white nothingness she’d been reminded about.  The absent empty space around them emitted a faint aura that felt, well, ‘large’ was the best way she could describe it.

Brigitte looked beyond Al and saw what had taken his attention.  

There it was.  

That’s right, she’d seen this before – this Gate.  How had she not noticed it until just then?  

The structure towered above them without a shadow, though it very clearly exuded one, and it was the only thing present in the nothingness other than the three of them.  Wait, wasn’t there supposed to be a baby wailing away?  Something in the back of Brigitte’s memories reminded her that noise had been part of the experience last time.

Announced by a creek and a crack, stone began grinding against stone and the Gate came to life.  Brigitte didn’t realize that she was holding onto Ed’s arm for dear life until he was the one tightening his grip.

Magnificent, dark stone doors swung open without creating a breeze.  They rumbled to a stop passively, no echo chamber available to amplify what might have been an unforgettable sound.

Nobody moved. 

Nothing happened. 

Nothing but a black canvas was shown in the open doors. 

Both brothers appeared to be holding their breaths and Brigitte held hers as well, but she was going to end up turning blue if this went on much longer.

“Now what happens?” she interrupted the tension.

Al sighed heavily, physically deflating like the release of air had shrunk him down a size or two, “That worked really well…”

Ed exhaled, though he didn’t ease up nearly as much as his brother did, if the stern look on his face and fierce hold he had on Brigitte’s hand were any indication.  Dipping his head and eyeing the Gate with nothing but contempt written all over him, Ed escorted Brigitte towards the yawning exit.

“So, I just walk through?” Brigitte asked.

“Yup,” Ed nodded, “and, like I said, you should return around the same point in time you left.”

“Okay,” she examined the ominous structure looming over them.

“Get out of there and go back to your parents in Berlin immediately,” Ed reinforced his instructions.

Brigitte swallowed, “I understand.”

Ed let her hand go.

Brigitte flustered at its loss.  This was it, she was leaving.  Her nerves bubbled up to bother her again.  Up until this process had started she had been nothing but excited to get back to everyone and everything that was familiar to her.  She wanted to go home! 

But, that also meant she was never going to see anyone here ever again.

“Thank you for all this,” Brigitte felt like she needed to fill the empty air with something and she shuffled around in front of Ed, “I’d be trapped here for the rest of my life if it weren’t for you, wouldn’t I?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ed brushed away the gratitude, “you should head home.”

“One moment.”

Flying away from Ed, Brigitte ran into Al with so much oomph that he had to take a step back to accept the hug she’d thrown herself into, “And thank you too.”

Al was as familiar to her as Maria had become, but in his own way.  He’d been the first person she'd met outside of the witch's lair, coming in and out of her adventure and creating stories they shared with hardly any common words together.  There would be no one at home she’d ever be able to tell of their adventures.  Everything they’d done together was about to become locked away as part of her greatest secret and Brigitte thought that was a shame.  The bundle of photographs she'd been sent home with only had a picture of Ed amongst them, she wished she could add one of Al too.  It would be up to her memory to remember him for the rest of her life.

Stepping back, Brigitte tried not to laugh at the goofy, lopsided grin Al had plastered on his face.  She held onto his shoulders and passed along her sentiments even if he couldn’t understand them, “I hope you have a wonderful life and find a very lovely wife to cook for and hug all the time.”

Brigitte successfully ignored the chuckles Ed was churning out behind her, though Al seemed to be having a harder time tuning out his brother and it reddened his face holding a wide-stretched smile.

“Good bye, Brigitte.”

What a wonderful boy she was leaving behind, “Good bye.”

Well, there were no more excuses left to her now, Brigitte had to address the ghastly opened door.

The Gate became more ominous the better she centred herself to it.  Somehow, it grew larger than her eyes claimed as she drew closer.  The darkness she approached felt more vast than it initially suggested.  What an awesome structure; her eyes tried to digest it, but the visual wasn’t enough.  The entire thing was projecting a raw power of some kind.  Not electrical power or anything motorized, it was an ethereal power she’d never perceived anywhere else before.  It almost felt like how one would describe something… God-like.  

Oh.  Oh no.  Oh dear.  Oh, she suddenly thought she understood why the brothers didn’t seem comfortable around this thing.  Brigitte’s shoulders fell, did she really have to walk into this?

“Brigitte.”

The call of her name interrupted the nerves she was trying to put together and she turned over her shoulder.

Ed and Al stood together a few paces back from her.  Al looked at his brother like he was trying to encourage him towards something and Ed finally offered a parting thought.

“Do something interesting with your life when you’re home.  Don’t waste this.”

“I will,” Brigitte smiled, “and you as well.”

“I already have.”

The response caught Brigitte off guard and curiosity filled her eyes, “What did you do?”

Sliding his hands into his pockets, Ed shrugged, “I was the FullMetal Alchemist.”

Slowly turning all the way around, Brigitte looked into the endless, bright nothingness as she investigated her thoughts.  What a strange name.  She wondered what it implied.  It seemed to be a title given to an alchemist, but it conjured up visions of a large man made entirely of metal – a stark contrast to Edward’s human physique.  What a foreboding, heavy name for someone to take on.

“I’ve never heard of him,” Brigitte said.

Ed grinned, “You’ve never met him.”

The nonchalant way Edward replied with a riddle caused Brigitte to dream up a thousand questions she wanted to ask him, but had no time left to address.  She shook them all away before they could take form and left them at the Gate’s doorstep.

Swinging around, Brigitte adjusted the strap of her satchel and gripped the parasol firmly with both hands.  She looked into the darkness the Elric brothers had tamed for her, prayed that it would treat her kindly, and walked home.

 


 

To Be Continued...

 


Notes:

Brigitte Schittenhelm was born March 17, 1906 and passed away June 11, 1996. This fic uses 1908 as her birth year, because at the time I started writing her the information about her on the internet stated that the year of her birth was disputed. None of that information is online anymore, the source websites are gone. But, it was alleged that her birth year was changed (from 1908 to 1906) so she could get her first movie role before she turned 18. I'd intended to explain her birthdate discrepancy by sending her across the Gate, but ultimately she didn't stay long enough to warrant it (lucky for her!). That first movie role was as Maria/The Machine Man in the 1927 silent film Metropolis, which is considered one of the most influential sci-fi films ever made.

What the heck am I going to hyperfixate on in my spare time now. I’ve been on this final arc for a year and a half *stares at next chapter* there's one left I....

The next and last post will be November Sometime, it’s ‘sometime’ because 4 things will be posted and I want it to be organized. 65) Final Chapter 66) Epilogue 67) Art Gallery 68) Notes. So my apologies in advance to your inbox if you’re subscribed lol. I'm excited, nervous, and a little sad to finally... finally finally finally set this story completely free.

PS - Al is a good boy who was merely looking out for his neighbours and deeply regrets his discovery.

Chapter 65: Perfect Imperfections

Summary:

Everyone goes home.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The view coming into Resembool station was something people put on postcards.  Rolling green hills and dense pockets of lush greenery throughout the peaks and valleys, barns and houses scattered here and there, all of it capped by a picturesque blue sky streaked with a few thin, white clouds.  It was the visual definition of the middle of nowhere.

Smack dab in the middle of that nowhere, Resembool station was easy to spot once the train had rounded the valley bend.  The locomotive chugged through the hills, eager to drop off more passengers than ever before at this remote station.  

All of the occupants lurched as the breaks began to slow the train for arrival.

Izumi steadied herself and got to her feet, “Grab your things, we don’t want to hold anyone up, we’re late enough.”

Al climbed up on a booth seat to collect his bag from the overhead rack, but it was going to be a lot more cumbersome to get it down than it was to put it up with just one useful arm.  Scanning the train car filled with no one other than the people in their party, Al hopped down and made his way over to the quiet, solitary booth his brother had sequestered himself away in. 

Ed’s chin was in his hand, his elbow propped up by the window’s ledge, his forehead resting against the wooden wall, and his eyes were lost beyond the window.

No, Al corrected himself, his brother wasn’t lost in the scenery, he was completely found.

“Brother?”

Ed brought himself back inside, “Hm?”

Al cleared his throat and gave him ample reason to get mobile, “Can you help me get our bag down, I have one arm and I’m too short.”

By the time the squeal of the breaks had chased all the wildlife away, everyone was ready and waiting by the door.  One final lurch brought motion to a halt and the piercing whistle gave them all the freedom to disembark. 

Izumi’s sandals clapped first on the wooden platform as she stretched under the afternoon sun.  Winry hopped off next, her tool case slung over her shoulder precisely as she’d left with it.  Rose followed and her son made a valiant attempt at escaping his mother’s arms once the freedom of the outdoors was clearly theirs.  Al hopped out after her, squatting down to entertain the fussy child.  Ed was the last one to exit the train, carrying the bag containing the things he, Al, and Winry were returning with over his shoulder.  

“That’s the lot of ya?” the station’s attendant called.

“That’s everyone,” Ed answered.

“Cheers, folks!”

Raising a hand bell high above his head, the chime rang in the air and the locomotive roared back to life – Resembool was only a small blip on the continuing adventure.  Thick plumes of smoke billowed from the coal filled snout, and the gears, joints, and chains connecting each car rattled as the wheels rolled forwards.  It rumbled out of the station with as much haste as it arrived, though not without a wave from the attendant in the caboose to the little one thoroughly excited to see it chug away.

Six people, a patchwork family, stood at Resembool station beneath the quiet mid-day sun as the soundtrack that defined country life resumed playing.

“Oh!  I think we got it!”

Rose’s squeal brought her little bundle of life to everyone’s attention.  Down on her knees, arms outstretched, Rose held her breath watching Al gingerly guided her son by his hands as he patted his feet off the noisy platform boards.  His soft joints wiggled, his bundled backside swung back and forth, and Al directed him towards his mother as two pendulum legs struggled to get coordinated enough to move him forwards.  Al pulled his hands away, Rose reached out, and her growing boy got one step closer on his own and promptly landed on his padded backside. 

Everyone laughed along with the littlest one as Rose scooped him back up.

“Almost got it,” she amended.

“So close,” Al slipped his sore left arm back into the sling around his neck.

Izumi teased a foreboding warning, “Be careful with that.  The moment he’s up on two legs you’ll never get him back down.”

“So I’ve heard,” Rose’s laugh was playfully nervous while struggling with a little one desperately trying to wiggle away from her.

The station bell announced the arrival of three o’clock with a chipper chime. 

Stepping to the edge of the platform, Al looked out into the Resembool hillsides, the train itself lost from sight, but the telltale smoke still visible above the treetops.  The sun teetered on its highest perch overhead, a light wind blew through the greenery to make nature sound alive, and the birds had returned to the station’s eavestroughs to fill out the regular ambience that settled in after the train’s departure. 

Alphonse’s grin stretched his lips, tugging the corners over to his ears – it was a perfect day for a walk.

“Let’s get going,” Izumi ushered everyone into motion.

The procession took its first strides towards home, but as excited as he was for it, Al lingered behind.  He remained on the wooden platform listening to the crowd put distance between them, hearing their footsteps lose their clarity. 

Al looked at his brother.

Ed stood on the platform with him, his toes placed right at the edge of the wooden lip above the tracks, yet again staring off into the Resembool distance.  The sun rained down on him like a hot shower at the end of an exhausting day.  Studying the distant, wistful expression he wore, Al was fairly certain his brother’s thoughts were using the scenery as the backdrop of whatever was playing in his head.

Al had noticed his brother had come down with this wistfulness during the train ride – after the giddy excitement of their initial boarding had subsided, Ed had settled into a content place while he let his thoughts wander out the window.  It was probably the most unlike him behaviour that Al could say he’d witnessed from his brother since getting home, yet there wasn’t anything about it that told him to worry.  He seemed perfectly content doing it.

“Come on, slow poke.  Everyone’s leaving without you.”

Ed blinked slowly, quietly putting a few pieces of himself together, “Sorry, Al.”

“Did you want to hang out in the hills sometime?” Al flashed his free hand to the landscape beyond the tracks and threw the arm wide, “just soaking it all up?”

“That sounds great,” a smile dug into Ed’s face and quickly carved out a wide grin, “we’re gonna get eaten alive out there.”

A curious little thought tickled Al’s mind, “You know, that doesn’t sound like a fair deal for you or the bugs.”

The statement completely stumped Ed, “Yeah, how’s that?”

Al tipped his head one way, “Well, the bug bites you and you get an annoying, itchy bump for a few days,” then tipped it the other, “the bug gets a belly full of blood for a few minutes but then dies of starvation sometime later,” and finally nodded his conclusion, “you really end up itchy for no good reason.”

Ed snorted his laugh, “I’m just here to upset the ecosystem.”

Al tucked his index finger thoughtfully under his chin, “Maybe we should keep you indoors.”

Ed made an attempt at swatting his brother over the back of his head, but Al had already spun away.

The platform boards creaked with every dancing step Al took, “Do you want to stay here for a bit and enjoy the atmosphere?”

Ed’s aggressively aghast look questioned the sanity between Al’s ears.  “Hell no.”

Like the sun had started recharging him, an old, familiar spark flared in both his eyes and Al watched his brother come alive.  He’d missed this person.  Until these little bits and pieces of him resurfaced, Al hadn’t realized they had been so slow to follow Ed home.  The vibrancy, the tenacity, the drive, the joy, the life flooded into his brother.

“We’re going home together!”

For a moment, Al thought he could fly. 

Spurring each other on without a single word, Ed and Al launched into runs.  Without wings, legs were the next best thing to feeling the wind.  The soft soles beneath Al's feet thumped off the wood and the distinct sound of Ed’s polished shoes clapped with each racing stride they made.  Coming around the station house, Al scrambled to stay ahead and reach the stairs before his brother, but the sound of Ed’s pursuit vanished when he jumped off the station’s front deck and landed in the untamed grass.

“What are you two doing?” Izumi barked as one Elric flew by her and another was tearing his own path through the grass towards stable footing.

“I’M GOING TO BEAT YOU,” Al announced for the entire countryside to hear.

“MY LEGS ARE LONGER,” Ed yelled like it guaranteed him victory.

“YOU BOTH SUCK,” Winry screamed, “I CAN’T RUN.”

“I can’t either,” Rose bounced her son on her hip.

“Those two…” Izumi shook her head.

Two brothers who’d taken different routes converged on a single path in the wide open spaces of the middle of nowhere, racing against only each other to see who would be the first to make it home.

 


 

Locking one hand on her hip, Pinako adjusted her glasses and looked up.

Ed shifted his weight.

Taking a long, slow drag from her pipe, Pinako stared at him.

Ed squared himself evenly over both feet.

Pinako took the pipe out of her mouth and exhaled the smoke in a thin, calculated stream.

Ed waited.

“No, send him back.”

“What the hell, Granny,” Ed drooped.

Pinako put the stem of her pipe to her lips, “No one around here has any use for a bean pole.”

Ed squawked like a wounded bird and threw his head back in dismay as everyone around him laughed.

Unwilling to hold her poker face any longer, Pinako chuckled, “Welcome back, Ed.”

“Thank you.”  Ed straightened himself out somewhat respectably.

Moving from one Elric brother to the next, Pinako’s already wrinkled brow creased further, “I hear that arm’s covered in stitches.”

“Yeah,” Al looked down at the limb resting in a fabric cradle, “Wrath chewed on it.”

Pinako’s lip curled in disgust, “Might as well have been gnawed on by a rabid dog.  I’ll have a look at it later tonight, see where we’re at with it.  I’ll take out any stitches you don’t need anymore.”

Al bowed his head sheepishly, “Thanks, Granny.”

Pinako’s next turn brought her to Winry.

There had been a couple times over the last few days where Winry had tried to practice explaining what had happened to her.  It was almost like she was preparing a speech to present to her grandmother and she still didn’t like anything she’d composed.  There hadn’t been an opportunity to get into the details over the phone, since everyone had asked her to be as discreet as possible about events, so all Pinako knew was that her granddaughter was really, really sorry about something they’d talk about ‘later’.  And unless someone brought it up, the jeans she wore delayed having a conversation about the leg she was gingerly walking on until then too.  Winry felt like every breath she took was part of some great big secret she was keeping and she couldn't wait to get it off her chest. 

But it wasn't going to happen just yet, because Winry was going to turn into a blithering mess if she even tried to explain herself right now.  Pinako would have to find out ‘later’ what all the motivation really was behind the tight hug Winry had dropped to her knees to give her.

Pinako hugged her tightly in return and rubbed her granddaughter’s back, “You’re grounded.”

“What?”

“Indefinitely.”

Winry blinked and leaned back, “I’m what?”

Pinako’s brow flattened, delivering her sentence as Winry stood on her knees, “I don’t know what kind of shenanigans you got up to in Central that sent military officers out here to scare the shit out of me, but I don’t care.  You’re not crossing the property line again until I’m damn good and ready to let you.”

What nightmares had her grandmother been sent to bed with this whole time?  Winry was left to wonder.  Dante knew what was going on and she let the chickens run around with their heads cut off anyways.  They ran all the way out to Resembool.  Winry felt awful.  The truth was absolutely nothing like anyone could possibly imagine, but at least Winry would be the one delivering closure.

She washed her hands over her face and accepted her sentence without protest, “I’m so sorry Granny.”

Pinako’s brow eased, “We’ll talk about it later.”

The squawk of Rose’s son as he wiggled his way free from his mother’s arms diffused the unspoken tension. 

“Uh oh,” Pinako grinned with amusement, “do we have a walker, now?”

Rose laughed, letting him hold onto her fingers while his feet patted off the dirt, “He’s trying.  He really liked the noise on the station platform.”

Pinako pointed her pipe to the second floor of her house, “He can play around on the balcony to his heart’s content.  It’s been ages since there’s been little ones stomping around on that.”

“Well, everyone upstairs!” Izumi raised her voice to wrangle the herd, “Pinako’s a busy woman!  We’ll get ourselves sorted so she can finish her day’s work in peace.”

Winry looked up to the second floor of her house where a long-lost bed encased in four familiar walls and a sunrise facing window awaited her.  Excitement was on the verge of tearing her apart – she wanted to scream and dance on her floor and then curl up under her sheets to cry when she was done.  Winry got to her feet and arrived at the bottom step of her porch to discover her triumphant return was stalled behind a clog of humanity in the doorway. 

Waiting just ahead of her, Al glanced back to the front yard.  Winry followed his gaze and found Ed lingering behind all of them, once again standing in silence and staring off into the landscape.

He’d been doing that since they’d boarded their first train.  On most occasions a pensive, quiet Ed would give anyone a reason to worry, but it didn’t strike fear into her heart today.  It was doubtful that anyone could really understand what he was feeling right now and she was certain he didn’t have the words to explain it. 

“Good view?” she called.

He nodded, “Yup.”

Winry smiled, “Miss it?”

Ed hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his slacks and turned towards the house, “Yup.”

Winry quickly glanced into the vacated entryway full of discarded shoes and returned to chirp at him, “You’re going to have to start running through these fields more often so you can keep up with Al.”

Ed scowled and sulked towards the door.

The childish sight made her laugh and Winry climbed the porch steps.

“Hold up.”

Ed’s shoes suddenly clapped off the wooden boards behind her.

Barely able to turn around in time, Winry was blindsided by Ed when he barged right into her.  He secured his arms around her waist and hoisted her off her feet as she shrieked in surprise.

“What are you doing!?”

“Hang on!”

Ed carried Winry the final steps forwards and deposited her on two feet inside the threshold of the front door.

“Got you home.”

The arms Winry had used to hang on to Ed’s shoulders wrapped around his neck and she buried her face in the collar of his shirt.  A space previously reserved for her tears now absorbed her laughter.

“You’re an idiot.”

Winry was so happy for him; the strength of her arms wasn’t enough to convey that, but dammit she’d try.  To simply say ‘I’m happy for you’ was completely inadequate.  Winry knew what he looked like when he was at his lowest; she’d seen that person, she’d been there with him.  The world around Ed had tried so hard to let him experience all kinds of lows, and then it created more just to see if his breaking point was within reach.  Even if he had accepted it all, if he was okay with how things were at the end of the day, Winry would tear him down and put him back together again if it would convince him that he hadn’t deserved any of it. 

Edward Elric deserved this.  

This brother he loved in flesh and blood.  This entire family on the floor above.  This home he longed for.  This vibrant countryside all around him.  He deserved the accolades of an alchemist he could no longer be and have the gaggle of golden-eyed children he could no longer conceive.  He deserved to be forgiven for the past that altered him.  He deserved to be released from the guilt that shaped him.  He deserved to love and be loved by everything he fought to protect, free of guilt and shame, in the future still to come. 

Winry shifted her weight, leaning inside, “Come in.”

Ed stepped over the lip of the door as she dragged him into the house.

Stepping back, feeling the embrace she’d been wrapped in fall away, Winry looked at what had finally arrived.  Ed was a familiar mess that she knew her way around.  The golden walls in his eyes were not the fortresses they used to be.  A few warm lights had come on inside.  The hair hanging in his face was just a ragged old curtain to a window that could be opened. 

Winry popped up onto her toes, used her nose to move the curtain aside, and kissed Ed on the cheek.  She held it for a breath neither of them took and then retreated to the flats of her feet.

“Welcome home.”

A red-faced statue stood planted in the doorway, eyes opened wider than they had been in some time.  There was something to be said for how much younger Ed looked when his face wasn’t strained and tight.  When all of his usual burdens were thoroughly distracted.  The entertaining visual only lasted until Winry realized her own cheeks were a little too warm for her liking and she left Ed to mind those distractions on his own.

“The house is pretty full, so you’ll get whatever room Al picks!”

Winry didn’t hear if he responded as she climbed the stairs to the sanctuary of her bedroom, but she did listen for, and hear, the sound the front door made when Ed eventually closed it behind them.

 


 

A fresh morning sun peeked over the Resembool hills.  It crawled through the grass like orange dye seeping through the seams, overpowering the blue hues the moon had awarded the fields.  The fringes glowing on the bright side of the green blades tricked the eye into thinking the shadows had become darker. 

Idle without wind, the leaves in the trees appeared to stretch towards the light. 

Birds chirped merrily along, picking away at the free buffet in the dirt.

The smell of dew seeped into the air as the day began to warm.

Ed walked in this Resembool sunrise.

He walked a familiar path, one that he’d taken countless times in his daydreams over the years.  Far more than he had in real life.

The morning stroll took him down a dirt path for thirty minutes or so, eventually setting him free in a field of ankle-high grass.  Ed waded through it, listening to the crisp sound of the fresh earth beneath his feet, wondering if the sun would be warm enough to dry his slacks by the time he got back to the house.

Ed stopped in the field. 

He listened to the birds around him unbothered by their human visitor.  He felt the strength of the sun’s rays powering over the horizon.  He smelled the country morning take shape all around him.  He tasted the freshness of the air.  He saw the unchanging visual all around him in a field filled with headstones.

Ed stood at the foot of his mother’s grave.

“I’m home.”

The morning birds serenaded him.

At least one hundred different times before he could finally do it in person, Ed had arrived at his mother’s grave and told her the story of what happened, or what was in the process of happening.  He didn’t feel the need to do it again.

A nervous glance at a place of rest he’d once defiled showed him that someone had smoothed away his crimes.  The earth covering Trisha was as even as everything else around it. 

Ed dipped his hand into his pocket, waded through the grass, and put the silver watch his father had given him on his mother’s headstone.

“Dad’s gone.  This is the only thing left of him.”  He stared at the familiar emblem on the watch.  “He got it for me on my second Christmas while I was moping around.  To give me motivation.”  He picked his eyes up and put them in the leaves of the lone tree someone had planted in this field long before he was born.  “To make sure I didn’t forget who I was or where I came from.”

Filling his lungs with the crisp air, Ed's fingers wrapped around a wooden handle sticking out of his pocket.  He gripped the wood, felt it in his knowing hand, and decided to leave it be for the moment.  He reached down and put his hand in the damp grass instead.  Ed sat down, crossing his legs in front of Trisha’s headstone.

“I guess he thought it was something I was proud of.  He wasn’t entirely wrong about that, at one point it was.”

Ed put his forearms down on his knees and leaned into his shoulders.  Something in the grass had caught the interest of the birds and they chattered excitedly about it.  Ed listened to them, wondering what story it was they were telling.

“Dad passed away a few months back, something from his past caught up with him.”

The tips of his fingers swept through the wet grass, a knot tightening in his chest.

“I had to organize his funeral.  I had to talk at his funeral,” Ed choked on a disparaging laugh, “I don’t even remember half of what happened that week.  I blocked it out somehow.”

A flock of tiny sparrows hiding in the leaves decided it was time to exit the tree.  Their exodus rustled the branches like a child gleefully crushing foil paper, their chirps adding to the rambunctious eruption of morning noise.  Dozens upon dozens of tiny round bodies fled into the sky. 

“I hate what I can remember about it.”

Ed didn't pick his head up to watch the scene.  His hands thoughtlessly raked through the grass.

“I can still remember the week you passed away.  I remember your funeral.”

The stillness that washed the land as the flock faded was far more potent in silence than the birds had achieved with noise.

“I didn’t know what you had arranged for us before you passed away.  All the complicated things that need to get done when someone dies.  You knew it was coming, so you got everything together to make sure it wouldn’t burden us.” 

Thick air struggled to get through twisted lungs.

“You had it all laid out.  You took so much care.  And you did it on your own.  For yourself.  For us.  You planned your own funeral.”

Ed tried to focus on the dew that coated his hands.

“Dad died all of a sudden and I had to figure it out on my own.  I dealt with suits who talked about wills and assets and inheritance and costs and all kinds of shit I’d never heard of before.  I signed papers for a deed to a house I didn’t want.”

He lost them in the water.

“You left us a house I did want and I burnt it down.”

Trisha held up her eldest son, his golden crown pressed against the permanently etched record of the life she’d lived, offering an ear to the agony of lessons in life learned the hard way.

The morning sun slipped free of the hills and tree tops that grasped it.  The redish-orange rays softened to a yellow light to blanket the fields and brighten the blue sky overhead.  As low in the sky as it was, the sun ensured the land was reminded of its power.  For a handful of minutes a thin, white fog developed in the valley as far as the eye could see.  The squirrels chittered and the birds continued to flock, entirely unfazed by the daily process of dew evaporating as the sun cooked it away.

“When dad left, I guess I’d thought it had something to do with him not loving you anymore.  It didn’t make sense any other way.  I mean, why would he leave someone like you, you were perfect.”

The broken family name they all shared was carved in stone in front of him.

“And you didn’t deserve to fall in love with someone who wouldn’t be there to love you back.  You didn’t deserve to feel abandoned and alone.  Screw him for all the shit he must have made you feel, how he left you to raise two kids on your own, and how he wasn’t there when you needed him.”

Ed picked his head up and peered over the headstone, escaping into the stretch of field beyond the grave.

“I still don’t understand him or the kind of guilt he had, but dad loved you.  Whatever the hell was going through his head that walked him out the door, he still loved you after he did it.”

The ridges of the watch lid picked up the morning light, rims glowing just as silver should. 

“I don’t understand how that works, but I suppose I’m glad it does and I hope you knew that,” he smoothed his hands over his knees, “you were always loved.”

The sun’s march into the sky continued to banish what remained of the night’s influence.  The long shadows hundreds of headstones cast on the grass continued to be whittled away by warm light.  Morning was weaving its influence in, preparing the land for the mid-day later to come.

“Al hasn't had a chance to come by yet, huh?”

Ed slowly wrung his hands, testing the grip of the one he couldn’t feel with the help of the other.

“He’s different all over again.  But this is it, we’re not screwing around anymore, I promise.”

Lacing his fingers together, Ed re-settled his forearms over his knees and eased back into his shoulders.

“Al’s bubbling with all kinds of energy, I think he’s tapped into an endless supply of it.  I don’t know if he’ll survive the fall cooped up out here.  He’s going to be vibrating by the middle of winter,” Ed chuckled, “Al’s got himself all put together, mom.  He’s thoughtful, imaginative, adventurous, ambitious, determined, and the good kind of stubborn.”

One of the sparrows harvesting worms popped up on Trisha’s headstone.

“He’s gotten a lot more assertive than he used to be.  Forthright, I guess.  He’s got this voice that he’s been using, and he’s using it on me,” Ed sounded playfully offended, “I kinda deserved it, though.”

He waved the bird away when it picked at one of the links of the watch's chain.  

“My little brother’s not so little anymore,” his smile curled, chuckling to himself, “I’m taller than him, though - a lot taller.  I like it, it's great.  I hope his growth spurt shows up as late as mine did.”

Reaching out for the chain, Ed tugged the watch off the headstone and let it land in his hands.

“Al’s brilliant, mom,” he set the watch down in the grass at his side, “you’d be proud of him.”

Ed wrapped his hand around the wooden handle poking out of his pocket and a small garden trowel was taken out.  He turned it around in his fingers a few times, before securing a firm grip.  In the grass at the base of his mother’s headstone, Ed sunk the blade into the earth.  Embedding it carefully again and again, eventually a circle was carved.  The blade was driven beneath the circle and a layer of grass and dirt was carefully lifted away.  Ed set it down with the trowel and he reached into the earth to claw out a single handful of dirt.

He picked up the silver watch with his clean hand.

Like it was a habit he couldn’t break, his thumb popped the lid open, flashing the sunrise in Ed’s eyes.  Inside the silver case, the broken glass shards that once protected the hands of time had been thrown away.  The watch face looked at him, framed by the jagged glass ridges glowing in the morning light.

Edward stared at it.

The hands of time remained stopped.

A reminder of the worst feeling and most cherished moment.

Ed shut the lid and put the watch into the earth.  Dirt fell from his other hand, sprinkling atop the silver case until it could no longer be seen.  He threw the rest of it away, scattering it in the field.  The grassy cap was pressed neatly back into place. 

Uncoiling his limbs, Ed climbed back to his feet and peeled the damp fabric off his backside.  He shook out his slacks, adjusted his ponytail, and straightened himself out.

“Al and I still have the land you left us, we’ll put it to good use.  A new house or something,”  Ed brushed a few bits of dirt from the corners of her headstone, “Miss you.  Love you.”

Departing the Resembool graveyard, Ed traversed the ankle-high grass of a field alive with bird song, heading through the countryside on a path that would lead him back home.

 


 

Al climbed the hill that marked the farthest reaches of the Rockbell’s property like it was a hike, walking stick in one hand and his shoes and socks tucked into the sling around his neck.  His arm wasn’t using it right now anyways. 

Today, he wanted to feel the grass between his toes.  Today, Al wanted to sense the earth beneath him.  Today he wanted to soak up his connection to the world through his feet. 

The sensation of touch was far louder to him than the constant clatter of the suit of armour had ever been in anyone’s ears.  It wasn’t a measurable sound, but no matter how quietly he could move now, Al was acutely aware of the earth beneath his feet like the volume had been cranked up.  He’d been starved of this connection to everything and now he constantly craved it.  Clothes felt good.  Sheets felt good.  The sun felt good.  And the grass felt good.  He’d roll around naked in the grass if he didn’t think anyone would catch him doing it.  

… unless he snuck out after midnight.

For now, he would have to be content with his naked feet and walking around long enough that he’d burn off yesterday’s dinner. 

The Rockbell’s hill was low compared to some of the others the neighbours had, but it stretched out far enough to swoop down into the Resembool valley behind it. 

Near the apex of the hill’s curving peak, Al leaned over his brother, casting a shadow over his face.  Ed lay on his back, his eyes closed, hair untied, spread out like a starfish in the late-season grass.  This was exactly what Al wanted to do and he was ridiculously jealous his brother beat him to it.

“Are you asleep?” Al lay the walking stick down in the grass.

“Mrph.”

He sat down at his brother’s side, “Is it as good as you remember it?”

“Mmm.”

Al looked out at the scenery around them, the busy world that had once captured them seemingly at a complete stop, “Have you damaged the ecosystem yet?”

“Shut up,” Ed mumbled.

It wasn’t a hard request to oblige. 

Al flopped down on his stomach and put his face in the grass.  Right, this was what grass smelled like – he’d forgotten.  Al smiled against the earth.  A lot of the forgotten sensations that he had been craving weren’t things that the lost version of himself had known to seek out.  Answers lay in that boy’s memories, but not sensations; he’d never had a reason to put his face to the earth and take note about what it smelled like.  He’d never gone to lie in a field and seriously thought about what it felt like to have the sun beat down on his back.  He never appreciated the crispness of his clothes or the softness of his pajamas.  Taking some time to unwind at home was a wise choice for the both of them.  It was so much harder to appreciate these smaller things when they’d been so busy.

Last night and this morning felt surreal.  Al actually didn’t realize how strange it felt to not have ‘something’ hanging over their heads.  They had a rambunctious dinner outback as a family.  They sat around the fire pit well past sundown.  They went to bed without anything to do ‘tomorrow’ and instead of using that freedom to sleep, Ed and Al chatted the night away in their room, talking about absolutely nothing.  Al had a feeling his brother was having the same reservations about going to sleep as he did – would this all be here when they wake up again? 

It was!  And it came with breakfast Izumi had cooked for everyone!  Now there was this lovely day.  It didn't quite seem real.  Yet throughout the morning and into this midday Al couldn’t shake the anxious feeling nagging him, like there was something he was forgetting to do, or that he should go out and do.  He wondered how long it would take for his mind to calm down after all the endless activity they’d endured.

Craning his head back and digging his chin into the ground, Al looked down the slope and spied the house in the distance.

“You wanna roll down the hill?” it was the first thought that came to mind.

“’Kay.”

Ed came alive in a swift motion, propelling his body around lengthwise across the hill’s slope, and he was on his way like a rolling pin through the grass.

“I DIDN’T SAY GO!!” Al screamed from his hands and knees.

Unhooking the sling from around his neck, Al pitched his bundle of shoes down the hill at his rolling brother.  Throwing his body over his shoulder for momentum, Al tumbled head over heels a few times before managing to straighten himself out.  He rolled down the hill and collided with Ed where the slope flattened out.  Both brothers lay in the field, covered in grass and earthly stains, and laughed.

But also ‘ow’; Al had momentarily forgotten he had a damaged left arm and it angrily reminded him of its wounded state.

“Alphonse!”

The distant sound of Al’s name being called filtered in.

“A L P H O N S E!!”

“Winry?” climbing up onto his knees, Al brought both hands over his eyes and squinted at the house, “W H A T!?”

“T E L E P H O N E!!”

“Telephone!?” Al’s hands dropped away.

“Who’d you give the house number out to?” Ed shook his head, trying to get the grass out of his hair.

Al could only shrug and he rose to his feet, “The brigadier general has the number.  And maybe Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong?  Russell and Fletcher too, I think.”

Intrigue brought Ed up as well and he followed Al on his trek back to the house, “You know, Mustang’s not a brigadier general anymore, he’s just Mustang.”

“Special Agent Mustang,” Al corrected.

Ed adjusted the title, “Consultant Mustang.”

“I’m pretty sure he said it was Special Agent.”

“In his dreams, maybe.  He’s a consultant.”

The debate over how to address Mustang persisted all the way to the house where Winry waited to provide a change in topics.

“Who’s calling for me?” Al asked.

She popped a hip out, “A girl.”

Ed’s brow shot up high, “You got a girl calling you?”

“She sounds super cute,” Winry sang.

“Al…” Ed leaned a lecherous grin in on his brother.

Al started to blush and scampered up the front steps, “I don’t remember giving the house number to any girls.”

“Well, don’t tell her that,” was Winry’s advice as she let Al pass, “where are your shoes?  And your sling thing?”

“In the field.”

Winry sighed as Al made a quick attempt at wiping his feet on the mat before continuing to track dirt inside like he was Den.

Picking up the telephone receiver sitting on the table, Al watched Winry swoop in and pretend to make herself look busy, but sighed when Ed merrily sat down at the table and put his chin in his hand to listen in.  

Al rolled his eyes at the both of them and put the receiver to his ear, “Hello?”

“Al!”

A light went on in Al’s eyes, “Elysia!”

Ed’s hand slapped the table and he cackled.

“Winry said you were rolling down a grassy hill!  Was it fun?” the tiny, chipper voice on the other end asked.

Al stuck his tongue out at Winry giggling behind his brother, “Yes, it was fun.”

“Were you careful of the thistle bushes?  I rolled down a hill at our country home and got prickles.”

“Well, that’s no good,” Al put his shoulder against the wall, “did your mom help you get them out?”

“Yes, she did.”

“Are you back in your city home, now?” Al asked.

“Yes, I am!” excitement flooded Elysia’s voice, “I missed my toys and my bed a whole lot.”

“I’m sure they missed you too,” Al couldn’t help but marvel at the blissful relief the phone call came with.  The last few pieces were falling back in place, “Is your mom with you?”

“Yes!”

“May I talk to her?”

Elysia’s voice drifted away from the receiver, “Mummy, Al wants to talk to you.”

The lost little boy who’d lived an alternate adventure, who’d been sleeping in Al’s heart, unexpectedly woke up.  There was no reason for him to feel nervous about talking to Mrs. Hughes, yet that was the predominant emotion he felt.  The old anxieties butted heads with his bubbling excitement over getting to talk to her again.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Hughes!” Al pitched his voice so sharply that it cracked.

“Al!” Gracia’s voice was soft and smooth, “it’s so good to hear you again.”

Again. 

It felt kind of like the first time in some ways.  Only incomplete versions had ever been through the Hughes’ household and now Al felt like an entirely new person compared to when the journey started.  His old nerves were easily put to bed, because this was the Alphonse Elric who should be talking to Gracia Hughes.  This was who he was and Al wanted to show off this completed version of himself to absolutely everyone who’d met him along the way. 

Well, as ‘complete’ as he could claim to be before mother nature had her say.

A simple conversation unfolded with a wonderful woman that touched on everyone’s wellbeing and the relief that brought them.  Some of the things Al wanted to get off his chest, some of the story Gracia already knew parts of, were saved for another day.  It didn’t seem fair to go into too much detail over the phone.  Some conversations were just better to have in person.  Al preferred to have them in person.  Al wanted the personal touch of interacting with the people he was talking to.  

The phone was passed off to his brother for a bit, then transferred to Winry, and the call ended with a chorus of goodbyes that Ed, Winry, and Elysia joined in on.  As the chime of the receiver settling on the cradle faded, Al folded his arms and pressed his back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling in thought.

“What?” Winry asked the obviously thinking Elric.

Al’s thoughts put a frown on his face and a hum in his voice, “I need to get that back to her.”

“Get what back to who?” Ed asked.

Al shifted his eyes in the direction of his bedroom, “That photo I showed you from your birthday.”

“Granny’s got some document envelopes in her office,” Winry tapped her finger off her chin, “I’m sure she won’t mind if you used one to mail it back.”

Sucking his lower lip into his teeth, the frown creasing his brow tightened.  Al wrung his hands together uncomfortably, feeling his own anxious tension rise as parts of his family watched him squirm.  Nervous excitement and untamed energy distorted his posture and Al looked at his brother, prying his grit teeth apart to voice what he really wanted to do. 

 


 

One Week Later

 

“Are you two sure?” Al asked for the hundredth time.

“Yes!” Ed and Rose cried yet again.

Rubbing the back of his head, Al pulled his hand around and washed it over his mouth.  He looked at the crowd staring at him, “I don’t need an escort, though.”

Izumi scowled, “Tough.”

Al withered, “We just got back…”

Ed threw his hands in the air, “This was your idea, Al!”

“I know I know I know, but I’m thinking about you!” he protested with a kind of a half plea half whine that his young voice amplified.

“Don’t worry about me!” Ed growled, “don’t hold yourself back on my account.  I’ll be fine.  I got nothing else to do.  I can play uncle for a few weeks, it’s not a problem.”

“We won’t be gone a few weeks,” Al flashed his hands around, “I’m sure we can get this done in two weeks, tops!”

Ed rolled his eyes, unconvinced of the claim.

Rose put a hand on Al’s shoulder, “Don’t stress yourself out too much about the time frame, Al.  We don’t know what kind of hurdles we’ll run into with transport.”

Widening his eyes, dressing himself in the most emphatic puppy dog ones he could muster, Al looked pleadingly at Rose, “You really don’t need to escort me to Central.”

“Yes, she does!” the crowd on the train platform overruled the young Elric.

Rose smiled, “Yes, I do.  Your arm’s still healing and honestly I don’t mind.  It’s an equivalent exchange, right?  I escort you through Central, you escort me through Lior on the way back, and we both come home here together.  Everything’s fine, and besides…”

Al eyed the playful tease that entered Rose’s smile.

“We have a dinner date to keep.”

“You’re gonna need one of those index card holders for all these girls in your life, Al,” Ed quipped.

Al nearly melted through the platform boards, “Brother…” 

Rose giggled and Izumi swatted Ed over the back of the head on behalf of his brother.

Whatever chill was left in Al’s cold feet was forced to find a way to get warm on its own when Izumi put an end to his fuss by handing the boy his train ticket, “It’s been paid for.”

If Al had puppy ears to go along with his eyes, they would have drooped.  “Fine,” he begrudgingly took the paper slip and peeked over his shoulder at the open door to the train car waiting behind him, “as long as everyone’s okay with it.”

“Stop worrying about us and start thinking about what you want a little more,” Ed folded his arms, “you want to see Mrs. Hughes and there’s a lot you want to talk to her about, so go do that!”

It was a relief to hear that coming from his brother, but how many times was Ed going to have to repeat himself before Al stopped feeling like he needed to be fussy about everything?  No one wanted to keep him grounded.  Everyone was pushing him to take off.  Maybe he was trying to find a reason, or someone would give him a reason, to play down how high and how far he really wanted to soar. 

“Give yourself some leeway, but don’t dawdle too much,” Izumi outlined her only limitations for his trip, “I want you all out in Dublith at the end of September for the autumn festival.”

Ed’s arms untangled, “Oh shit, we’ve never done that.”

“No, we haven’t,” Izumi put a hand on Ed’s shoulder, “this might be the best year to make up for that.”

Ed and Al nodded.

Izumi’s brow promptly furrowed with a new concern, “I have a husband I haven't seen in months... what is the hold up with this train?”

The searching eyes of the Resembool party on the platform had the mystery quickly solved by the ornery station attendant marching towards them. 

“Can one of you get the girl out of the engine!?  We have a schedule to keep!”

Throwing his head towards the front of the train, Ed stormed down the platform, “WINRY!!! GET OUT OF THE BLOODY ENGINE!!”

While his brother dealt with the clog in the motor, Al returned his attention to his teacher, “If you all are okay with us loosening up our travel time, would you like us to come down to Dublith with you for a few days?”

The offer softened Izumi's posture, “That’s up to you,” she looked at Rose, “and you.”

“I don’t mind,” Rose’s brow rose thoughtfully, “I’ve never seen Dublith before.  But, I don’t want to trouble Ed, Winry, and Pinako by staying away for too long.”

“That’s understandable.” Izumi had opened her mouth to continue her sentiments, but was interrupted by the sound of the train roaring back to life.

The travellers on the platform looked at the two who would remain behind: Ed with a scowl on his face and hands drilled into his pockets, stomping along next to Winry in her overalls, mucked up with black soot and grease everywhere, but grinning ear to ear.

“Sorry!!”

“No you’re not,” Al laughed at an apology too cheerful to be honest, “did you have fun?”

Winry dusted her hands off as she re-joined the crowd, “It was very educational!  Best grounding reprieve ever, thanks Al.”

Al skittered back when Winry reached out to hug him, “No, you’re filthy!  Don’t get me dirty before I go.”

Wrinkling her nose, Winry folded her arms instead, “Fine, Mr. Fussypants.”

Ed’s wicked sneer stretched from ear to ear, “Now who’s the gross one.”

The heel of Winry’s boot crushed down on Ed’s good toes and she sent him withering away.

The train whistle pierced the air, punching shoulders up to ears as listeners flinched.  A deep, booming voice commanded ‘all aboard!’ to usher their passengers into their seats.  Rose and Al headed in, but Izumi hesitated and turned back.  She walked up to Ed.

Ed hooked his thumbs into the corners of his pockets, “Have a safe trip, Sensei.”

Izumi sighed, shook her head, and stepped forwards to hug him, “Take care of yourself.”

Caught off guard by the unprompted gesture, it took Ed a moment before he eased and hugged her back, “Same to you.”

Izumi stepped back from Ed as Rose lifted a window and popped her head out into the sunshine.

“Thank you two so much for doing this.”

“You’re welcome!” Winry scampered up to her, “it’s absolutely no problem.”

"I hope he doesn't give you too much trouble," Rose apologized for the burden she was asking of them, "he's just figured out how to walk."

"Yeah and we'll have him running by the time you're back!" Ed grinned proudly.

The nerves in Rose's laugh were loud and clear, "Please don't."

Ed waved his hands to try and quell her worries, “Don’t worry about anything, Rose.  It’s been a while since you’ve been home.  Focus on that and enjoy it.”

The tension in Rose’s expression was eased by a sentiment Ed was most familiar with, “Same to you.”

Al slumped out of the window next to her like a wet rag, “Brother.”

“Don’t you dare start bitching,” Ed’s brow flattened, “shut up, have a damn good time, and say ‘hi’ to Gracia for me.” 

Al stuck out his lower lip, "I will, I will, I will."

Ed folded his arms tightly, “And I’ll be here for you when you get back.”

The proclamation put an end to Al’s bellyaching.  They were safe, they were home, and they would be there for each other when they needed it – Al really didn’t have to worry about him so much, did he?  

Once again the train whistle sounded, not to be out done by the roaming station attendant ringing his own bell above his head, and the abrasive mess of noise put the train into motion.  Izumi’s return to Dublith commenced and Al and Rose’s jaunt to Central and back again was launched.  

Al hung out the window waving to his brother and Winry on the platform, masking his laugh when Izumi hooked her finger into the belt loop of his trousers, like she was afraid he’d fall out the window.  Gaining speed in the countryside, the breeze lifted the hair from Alphonse’s head.  Al watched his brother and Winry fade in the distance, going from clear figures to familiar silhouettes to little blips in the distance.  

From a misguided act of love, through a struggle to reclaim the physical parts of themselves they’d lost, to bridging an insurmountable gap in order to simply exist in one world together again, the goals the Elric brothers’ had for each other changed with every new hurdle.  In the end, what they had obtained was perfect imperfection. 

All of these trees flying by were happy and healthy, but none of them could claim to be a perfect tree.  Branches grew as the tree aged.  Storms ripped them off.  Time healed the wounds and allowed for new branches to sprout.  Trees were resilient that way.

Ed dutifully carried around the baggage that dogged him, at peace with the imperfect state of his existence simply because he was able to have it.  Al's immature body would forever remain out of sync with his mind, but he knew eventually he would reach an age where that wouldn’t matter any longer.  Ed had gifted Al his life, and in turn Al had salvaged Ed’s, so if this was what ‘regaining their bodies’ had come to be, then these imperfections were fine.  They were perfect.  Both brothers recognized and understood what worse looked like, and they knew what it felt like to have their branches ripped off in a storm, so Al wouldn’t change this for anything.  Time would sort out the rest and new branches would begin to grow.  The Elric brothers were resilient that way.  

Reasons no longer existed to avoid the future; Al turned and looked in the direction they were headed.  The immediate future consisted of two or three weeks of travelling without fear.  Without the dread.  Al had never experienced that before.  He'd never gone anywhere for leisure.  And Alphonse Elric had never, ever gotten on a train and gone anywhere knowing that his brother, of all people, would be at home waiting to hear all about it.  Everything he would experience from here on out would be a new first.

Al leaned out the window a little farther, feeling Izumi’s hold on his belt loop strengthen.  He stuck his face in the wind, felt how it pulled the hair off his head, ran up his nose, and blew by his ears.  Al closed his eyes and imagined flying felt something like this.

 


 

At some point Ed had stopped watching the train roll off into the countryside and began just admiring the view.  There had been a few times where he had stood at a train station somewhere on continental Europe and could claim it had an aesthetically pleasing view.  Technically the view was nice, except it looked like someone had washed a bucket of dirty water over the canvas.  Nature was starved of its vibrancy and the world looked like it was on the verge of becoming a corpse.  Ed didn’t know when that sickly-grey visual had begun to look normal.  He wanted to believe he could always see the difference no matter how much time had passed, that he could remember the warmth of home, that he hadn’t become clouded too, but in reality that wasn’t the case.  

Time had dulled the memory and he could see that now.  Every single window showed it to him.  Every single day he could see it.  He was looking at it right now.  The countryside made it undeniably apparent and it was hard to take his eyes off of.

It was one of the many small, everyday things Ed had tried to delude himself about over there.  He’d been thinking about that more and more lately.  Maybe that’s why he wasn’t keen about taking time to reflect when Winry had told him to – he had a hunch about what he’d find.  Maybe that’s why it was so hard to stomach the changes that Al had unmasked – he hadn’t wanted to believe it.

Maybe that’s why he should be extra thankful for both of them.

“Let’s get going,” Winry tugged on his arm, “we have babysitting duty this afternoon and I want to get back to the house before Granny chains me to it.”

Winry’s shoes clapped off the platform, one after another like an audible guide, and Ed followed it.  Letting his eyes take one last snapshot of the sights as they left the station, his lens caught the payphone. 

Ed stopped.  He stared at the ancient thing tucked under an overhang that wouldn’t protect it from rain most of the time.  Glancing out into the radiant Resembool fields, an idea started to form in Ed’s mind.  The idea sent his hand fishing around in his pockets to see what he could find – he had a single thousand cens bill and a bunch of loose coins.  He could make a call from the payphone…

“Ed!”

Winry nearly made him jump.  You know what?  It was probably a bad idea.  Ed talked himself out of it.

Ed got his legs in gear and caught up with Winry as she playfully bobbled down the station steps.  Hopping off the last one, she scuffed the dirt path with soles of her shoes and spun around with her hands on her hips to tease her impatience.  Ed watched the long ponytail on the back of her head sail as she moved, dancing behind her while the strands that framed her face softly settled.  Winry swept her loose bangs away, smudging coal soot across her forehead.  Ed slowed atop of the stairs, his eyes catching the highest bit of silver mounted on her ear flickering in the daylight.  He stopped and looked at her on the walk way.

Winry’s brow tightened enough to put a few creases in the skin and the frown she gave him picked up a hint of confusion.  “What?”

Ed redirected his gaze down the dirt path towards town and buried his hands deep inside the pockets of his slacks.  He felt the thousand cens bill and fished around in the coins like he was sifting through his thoughts.  A five cens coin found its way into his fingers. 

Just because it might be a bad idea didn’t mean it couldn’t be a good idea.  He didn’t know if it was a bad idea until he tried and found out for sure.  Ed talked himself back into it.

“Hang on.”

Ed turned completely around and he marched back onto the train platform.  The station payphone was approached like he was walking into battle and Ed plucked the earpiece out of the cradle.  Five cens was fed into the slot and his fingers whipped the rotary dial around.  The phone started to ring.

“Good morning, Rockbell AutoMail.”

“Hey Granny, it’s Ed,” he glanced out to see if anything of the train was left to be seen, but even the smoke had drifted away, “calling to let you know that the train’s departed.”

“Alright, thank you.”

Ed stared at the telephone dial, “I was thinking about popping into town for a bit before heading back.”

Pinako’s tone perked at the idea, “Good, head into the post office and see what job postings are up.”

“Yeah, I will,” Ed’s free hand scratched through his bangs and he braved her wrath, “is it okay if Winry comes?”

“Winry’s grounded.”

Ed cringed, “I know, but I’m wondering if you can lift that for another hour or so?”

“This isn’t supposed to be how grounding works, Ed,” Pinako’s tone told him she’d probably have flattened him if he’d asked in person, “what does Winry want in town?”

“Nothing,” Ed’s eyes dipped in and out of each numbered finger well on the dial, “I’m just asking.”

“What for?” she insisted on an explanation.

He clawed his bangs up onto the top of his head, “Lunch.”

Pinako didn’t respond.

Swallowing hard and running his free hand anxiously over the back of his neck, Ed strained into the earpiece, trying to pick up if Pinako was actually stewing in silence or if the line had mercifully gone dead.

“Its nice out,” Ed tested for some kind of response and finally heard breathing on the other end of the line… the kind of breathing someone heard when air was being forced in and out of nostrils in frustration.  Shit.  Oh shit.  Well, if he’d signed his death certificate before walking in the door, he may as well make it worth his while.  Ed pressed his point, “We’re halfway there.  I’ll check in at the post office, we’ll have lunch, come home, and wear out the kid in the afternoon.”

The sound of Winry’s footsteps on the station platform distracted Ed from Pinako’s wordlessness.  Crap, he had one angry Rockbell on the phone and the other walking straight towards him.

Pinako was the first to reach him, “Be home by two.”

The crass sound of the receiver being dropped on the cradle caused Ed to yank the phone away from his ear.  The empty dial tone cried out steadily in the air afterwards.

Ed blinked, put the earpiece down, and stepped back to look up at the station clock.  It was 11:35.  Huh.  Okay.  Well, shit, that actually worked!  Ed straightened up triumphantly.

“Who were you calling?”

“Granny,” Ed answered.

Winry gawked at him, “What for?”

“Parole,” putting his smirk on display, Ed retreated from the platform, “I got you two and a half hours of parole.”

Looking between the telephone and the Elric walking away from her, Winry didn’t budge, “Bullshit.”

“Call her back if you don’t believe me!”

Winry patted her pockets of her overalls, nothing but tools in any of them, and she chased after Ed hastily making his get-away, “I’ll kill you if you got me in trouble with my grandmother!  Why do I need more parole?”

“You’re not in trouble!” hopping off the station steps and onto the dirt pathway of the countryside, Ed turned around to see Winry stop at the exit of the station platform and fold her arms in protest of not receiving a decent answer.  He gave her one, “I thought we could have lunch in town.”

“Lunch?” Winry’s expression blanked, “Like this!? I look like I’ve been crawling around in a dirty pipe!”

Ed shrugged, “We’re only going into town, everyone knows you, you’re fine.”

“I didn’t bring my bag,” she patted her pockets, “I don’t have any money.”

“My treat, Win.”

Winry quickly bobbled her way down the stairs, “It’s been your treat for months.  I don’t want to be a leech at home, too.”

“You’re not a leech,” Ed tried to dismiss her concerns, “I got you covered, don’t worry about it.”

“You’re unemployed, I’m not,” Winry was having none of this offer, “what did you say we had?  Two hours?”

Ed saw her look in the direction of the house, “No.”

“And a half?”

“No.”

She turned, “That’s more than enough time.”

Ed’s hand flew out, “Winry, no!”

Grabbing Winry by the elbow, Ed pulled her back around.  Winry returned to face him with an ornery expression and fire in her eyes. 

Dammit, Ed didn’t want a fight or a hole in his skull.  It was so much easier to go out for food with Winry in Germany – it was simple, they just went.  This felt like a blasted obstacle course and Ed wanted lunch with her without all this fuss.

He didn’t think she realized it, but Winry had been right.  On a miserable new year’s night Ed wished he could forget, Winry had been right; when they’d finally get home, they wouldn’t be able to ‘leave this behind’.  Those months they’d endured together would never be completely behind them.  

But, that night Winry had also been wrong; she had already figured out everything Ed needed her to be to help him stay strong.  She’d been doing it for some time and continued to do it even if all she did was just be there.  Winry didn’t realize it and Ed wasn’t looking for it, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t see it when he looked back.  See that he’d valued it, that he’d needed it, that he’d wanted it: the companionship.  Her company.  Winry was the only good thing in the baggage he came back with.  The fear of nearly losing her to something that could see her importance still haunted him at night, but there was nothing and no one trying to control his waking hours anymore.  For the first time in far, far too long, Ed was in control of his life.

Taking a deep breath, Ed washed his hands over his face and drove his fingers up into his bangs, dragging them over the top of his head.  He walked himself around in a circle scratching his hands through his hair.  Linking his fingers and resting them behind his neck, Ed caught Winry glance from side to side, puzzled over why he was shuffling about.

Crap.  Just because he was in control didn’t mean he had a damn clue how to drive.  He staggered up to Winry.

Ed let his hands slide from his neck and he wiped the sweat off on his slacks.  Disarming Winry by collecting her fists from her hips, he tucked his hands into hers as they fell open.  Ed inhaled a deep breath and tried to find that clear, unobstructed way Winry would look at him when there was something she had to say.  He attempted to use it.

“I want to take you out for lunch.”

Winry’s eyes rounded, they grew wide, and her mouth popped open like a spring had sprung, “Okay.”

Ed thought his entire body was going to deflate like an untied balloon, “Good.”

Her eyes became even rounder, “Yes.”

“Good.”

“Yes.”

“Good.  So, don’t worry about it.”

“Yes.  No.  No, no I’m not worrying.”

“Good,” Ed tightened the corners of his lips and firmed his jaw, “good.”

Winry cleared her throat and swung their arms lightly, tossing her head in the direction of town, “I guess you can pick where we eat.”

Ed felt his arms sway and he tried to stop his eyes from buggering off into the scenery, “Yeah.  My budget’s a little tight though.”

“Well, whatever we eat, at least it’ll taste good,” Winry rocked from her heels to her toes and back again, “do you remember that huge parfait you bought me after I got to Germany?”

“Yeah,” a smirk started crawling into Ed’s face, “You didn’t believe me.”

“Of all the things I ate there, that was the most disappointing.”

“I warned you,” Ed took great pleasure in his next words, “I told you so.”

“It was so decorative and tasted like wrapping paper,” Winry sighed.

Ed narrowed an eye, “Why do you know what wrapping paper tastes like?”

She shrugged, “Kids are stupid.”

He barked his laugh, “You still ate the whole thing!”

“I didn’t want to be rude!”

“So many pointless calories.”

“This temple destroys pointless calories,” her hands still locked with his, Winry stretched Ed’s arms out to his sides, “you need more pointless calories.  I mean, look at you!  What makes you think you can just hop into field work like this?  You need all the calories you can get to build up more muscle or the bales will crush you.”

Ed's initial ornery reaction was dismissed by devilish intent that entered his eyes, “You know, last I checked,” the flex in his arms was repurposed as strength; Ed tightened his grip on her hands, locked his arms, and yanked Winry towards him, “I can throw you over my shoulder just fine.”

Winry dug her heels into the dirt path to no avail.  Every squirrel in the countryside heard her shriek, “Edward Elric, don’t you dare!!”

Releasing his steeled grip when Winry collided with his chest, Ed made a half-assed attempt at grabbing her, but let her worm away in a squealing fit.  Standing on the dusty walkway and laughing as she scrambled back, Ed watched Winry’s hands frantically fish around for weaponry in her pockets, but she’d come down with the contagious laughter by the time the wrench ended up in her hand. 

Antics quietted on a decades old dirt path that guided people from a basic rural train station into an unremarkable little township in the middle of nowhere, southeast Amestris.  Ed tried to brush the soot he’d picked up off his shirt, but only ended up creating larger, grey streaks he could do nothing about.  Walking up to a playfully angry, rosy face, he didn’t flinch when Winry brandished the wrench like she was pointing a sword.  Ed grabbed the blunt blade and took it from her, filling her emptied hand with his.

“Come on, let’s go for lunch.”

As much of a stranger on this path as any wayward traveller, Ed walked through the Resembool countryside as a shell of the person he’d been before.  The Fullmetal Alchemist was no more.  Equivalent exchange had lost its meaning.  The sins of his youth had been put to bed. 

The voids those losses created within Ed hollowed him out and what he would allow in to fill his life would redefine him.

The new definition started with his brother in his life; finally living the life he’d deserved, Al had embarked on his next journey and began to establish his new future.  It was a story Ed was excited to see unfold, anticipated the magnitude of, and eagerly imagined what tales they’d get to tell when the time came for them to do it together.

It continued with Winry at his side; free of the shackles and wounds that tried to damage her, she had a future she was setting herself up to conquer.  In the safety of their own world Ed walked hand in hand with her, enjoying the ease of good company, and a little curious about what they would do together now that they were home. 

It moved forwards to a future Ed had never allowed himself to think about until recently.  He didn’t have a damn clue what life had in store for him – what kind of career he’d embark on, or what sort of family he’d make, or even what tomorrow would bring.  Yet, he clearly understood who he was starting out as today. 

Today he was Edward Elric. 

After confidently seeing his brother off, he would walk into his home town with Winry in hand.  He would pluck a few wanted ads from the corkboard in the Resembool post office and debate which ones interested him.  He would sit down to a simple lunch and enjoy the company.  After that he would walk back home through the bountiful country fields ready to put the pen down on a new chapter of his life, free to choose whatever he would do next.

 


 

- FIN -

 


Notes:

18 years, 1 month, and 7 days later, this fanfic is finally finished.

 

HOLY SHIT I FINISHED IT. HOLY SHIT.

IT’S FINISHED. HEY 2004 ME, WE DID IT.

This is a weird feeling. This story’s been with me for so long and now it’s… done. I got this monster finished. Wow. I am emotions.

I finally put FIN ;A;

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has ever dropped by to read this over the years. Thank you to everyone who dropped a review on FFN between 2012 and 2020 reminding me that this story was still out there waiting for me... I did want to get here. I'm so floored that I finally got here. Wow.

There’s an epilogue, so make sure to head to that! And a couple of appendix 'chapters'.

Chapter 66: Epilogue: Metropolis

Summary:

Hermann and Tilly Oberth visit the UFA film studios in Berlin.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It was fascinating.  A little uncanny.  A wee bit terrifying, if one was being completely honest.  But fascinating.­  A metallic head designed with the earmarkings of a human face, though it remained distinctly unhuman.

“May I touch it?” Tilly asked.

Fritz paused like he had to negotiate with himself over allowing a guest to touch his precious things.  His gaze flickered over to Hermann standing at his shoulder, “I don’t see the harm.”

Tilly got the distinct impression that he would have said no if Hermann hadn't been there.  She poked the metal head with her fingernail.  Oh, it wasn’t metal at all.  It appeared to be metal, but this material was somewhat dull.  She patted the tips of her fingers off it with childish fascination.

“It’s worn like a helmet, I take it?” Hermann asked.

“Yes!” Fritz emphatically confirmed, “the entire Futura costume is put together much like a suit of armour, built around a mould we had made of Miss. Helm’s body.”

“It appears metal, but it’s clearly not.  What’s it made out of?” Tilly needed to know.

“It’s a plaster concoction of plastic and wood, then varnished with a mix of silver and bronze to give it the metallic look you see.”

Hermann’s head began to bob, quietly complimenting the artistic trickery.  

“It’s a pain in the ass to get her in and out of, even more cumbersome to manoeuver in, but the visual it creates is stunning,” Fritz clenched his jaw and looked to the ceiling with a wistful sigh, “absolutely stunning.”

If her lipstick hadn’t been fresh, Tilly would have licked her lips before asking, “May I try it on?”

“No.”

Ornery bastard.  There were a million different ways of telling someone no and this man picked the rudest sounding one.  Tilly was starting to get the impression he was trying to hide how much of a devil he was to work with.

“As I mentioned, it's custom fitted, so it isn’t something that can be worn by just anyone,” Fritz tried to bury his rudeness with a few easy sounding words.

“I see,” straightening up from the table presenting the faux metal head, Tilly adjusted her purse strap over her shoulder, “did you find it hard to translate your wife’s written work into a visual medium?”

Folding his arms proudly, Fritz resumed being much more cordial when the conversation went back to talking about things rather than touching them, “Not too terribly hard.  Thea has always had a fabulous imagination, it’s just a shame that there’s no easier way of extracting one’s visions from the mind.  She worked with an artist who helped visualize her ideas for me.”

Sauntering back to Hermann, Tilly attached herself to his arm, “Well, I’d like you to know that both my husband and I loved the written version immensely.  We’re looking forward to the theatrical interpretation.”

“I am honoured to know that the scientific community hasn’t absolutely lambasted me quite yet,” Fritz laughed.

“I don’t think you should be using me as a measuring stick for the scientific community,” laughing along with him, Hermann liked to believe he was a bit more open minded than a number of his contemporaries, “but I do think science requires imagination or it would be stagnant.  And there’s something liberating about combining science and fiction to an unattainable standard that I find very entertaining.”

Tilly looked out into the married stage of science and fiction being dressed to trick the mind and the eye into believing the story it had to tell.  The crew of workers had left the set and conglomerated off to the side, in a dimmed space where the lights weren’t pointed.  They chatted away with a few young women who’d arrived through side doors, giving the men ample reason for a distraction.  Gosh, the women were dressed so fine in their hat and coats, shoes and purses – they must be actresses.  What an incredible, glamorous life to lead.

“You know,” Fritz paused, like he was checking his words, “it was the imagination of one of your associates, I believe, who stoked a bit of the fire in my wife’s mind years ago.”

Hermann’s brow rose in surprise, “Who?”

“I have no idea what the chap’s name was, but we met him at a dinner in Munich a few years back,” lighting up like the child in his mind had received a brand new toy, Fritz held up his right arm, “with all the research Thea and I have done to get this project going, we still can’t fathom how he managed it, but that young man had a mechanical arm that moved at his will.”

As the crowd dispersed and a clatter of women’s high heeled shoes echoed throughout the stage, Tilly’s fingernails dug into the twill of her husband’s suit jacket, “Oh, Edward.”

“Was that his name?” Fritz asked.

“Yes,” Hermann confirmed, hanging his free thumb from his jacket pocket, “Edward Elric.  He did have that arm for a time.”

Fritz eyed his guest curiously, “For a time?”

Hermann grit his teeth at the memory, “Poor man was robbed of it.  Thugs ripped it right off his body.”

The ghastly feeling low in Tilly’s stomach and the doldrums the topic brought here were distracted by a set of eyes belonging to one of the young women not so discreetly loitering by a lighting platform.  They were being watched.

Shaking out his shoulders, Fritz cringed, “Poor bastard.  The contraption was brilliant though, utterly brilliant.”

“He was a brilliant scientist,” Hermann nodded.

“Well, if you can get him out here, I’d love to see him again and pick his brain, because none of the other brains I’ve picked at can figure out how the hell he did it.  No one can wrap their head around a mechanical arm let alone our vision of an entirely mechanical body,” turning over his shoulder, Fritz threw his arm to the film set behind them, idle for the time being except for a few stagehands re-dressing it, “I’d like to know what he thinks of Futura!”

Tilly uncomfortably straightened her coat, unsettled by this woman making absolutely no attempt to conceal that she was staring at them.

Reaching across his chest, Hermann put his free hand down on one of his wife’s hands digging into his sleeve, “Unfortunately, Edward passed on a few years back.”

Fritz wheeled around, “Did he!?  He was young, what happened?”

“A house fire,” Hermann smoothed his thumb over the back of Tilly’s hand, “fire razed the whole block.  Terrible way for anyone to go.”

Tilly glanced down to the comfort of her husband’s touch and her ears picked up the clear sound of a single pair of heeled shoes moving out of her field of vision and circling around behind them.

Snapping his fingers in disappointment, Fritz shook his head, “That’s a damn shame.”

“Indeed it is,” Hermann bowed his head.

Clapping his hands and brightening his disposition, Fritz made an attempt at dispelling the solemn mood, “Well, nothing can be done about the dead.  There’s still plenty more to get to around here!”

Tilly knew how shoes worked and the owner of the feet toiling behind them was deliberately clacking her heels as loudly as possible.

“Or perhaps I’ll bring more to us,” raising his hand above his head, Fritz started snapping his fingers, “Miss Helm!”

The noisy shoes scampered right up behind Hermann and Tilly and then danced around to the director’s side, “Good morning, Fritz!  Who are you showing off for today?”

“Showing off,” the man sputtered and threw his arms towards the set, “child, I am showing this off.”

“Which is exactly how you show off,” with a playful, curling smile, the young lady looked at Tilly, “I am only ever ‘Miss Helm’ when I’m being shown off, too.”

Wait a minute.  

Tilly blinked and stared at the young woman who had been eyeing her moments ago.  Short blonde locks billowed wildly out from under her hat, like her chosen style that morning was to release them from the curlers and let them roam free.  She’d shown up without makeup, arriving as a blank canvas for someone to paint, which only made it more apparent that this ‘woman’ had a strikingly young face. 

But that wasn’t it.  Tilly racked her brain – something about her baby face seemed familiar.

“This insolent, precocious thing is our Maria!” Fritz announced with a laugh as he commenced with introductions, “Brigitte Helm.  Brigitte, I’d like you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Oberth, an esteemed name in the science community!”

Though she was dressed like she was attempting to be older, Brigitte’s smile was as young as her looks.  She offered a hand to Hermann, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Oberth.  Would you believe me if I told you I’m familiar with your work?”

“Are you?” Hermann shook her hand.

“What in God’s name do you know about the sciences, Brigitte?” Fritz sputtered accusingly.

Brigitte paused her greetings to stuff a verbal sock in the director’s mouth, “I have both education and literacy skills, Fritz, and I can use them as I see fit.  Mr. Oberth is a man of both mathematics and physics - he believes it’s possible to travel into outer space!  A few years back he wrote ‘The Rocket into Planetary Space’, which was published after his doctoral thesis on the subject was rejected by a crowd of crusty old men,” Brigitte smiled sweetly at Hermann, “correct?”

Hermann cocked a very intrigued eyebrow, “Yes, ma’am.  Quite correct.”

Profoundly surprised by the extent of her knowledge, Tilly shook the hand Brigitte finally offered to her and tried to place how on earth she might find a woman like this familiar.  There were no actresses in the family or among her acquaintances.  Was she the date of someone they’d met at a conference?

Brigitte clasped her hands neatly at her stomach, “Well, I must say it’s an honour to have you visit our studio,” she glanced over her shoulder to the table with the metallic head, “I assume Fritz has already introduced you to my full metal doppelganger.”

Hermann laughed, “Yes, it’s quite a thing to see in person.  I’d read the book of course, but seeing the creator’s vision as it was meant to be, rather than what my mind conjured up, is absolutely fascinating.”

Stepping back and reaching for the table, Brigitte plucked the head off the table.

Fritz flinched as Brigitte bobbled it around in her hands, “It’s not a toy, dear.”

“Of course not, it’s a costume,” Brigitte laughed and held it up next to her head with a smile, “a costume built to fit only me.  See any resemblance?”

Tilly overlooked the entertaining sight of Fritz attempting to restrain himself for his guests, remaining absorbed with this woman she still couldn’t place.  The sensation was only getting worse!  This young lady had been observing them, and she knew about her husband’s accolades, so clearly there was some kind of familiarity… what was missing?

“Have you been enjoying your tour thus far?” Brigitte asked.

Hermann nodded, “Yes, it’s our first time visiting a film studio.”

“Is it!?” Brigitte gawked like the actress she was, “well, before Fritz whisks you off into the wonders of other worlds, would you like to see the dressing rooms of the stars?”

Fritz scoffed at the offer, “Sweetheart, that’s not something that would interest a man of science like Hermann here.”

“I would love to see them,” Tilly eagerly snatched the offer out of the air, “wouldn’t you?”

An energetic response was a little harder to draw out of Hermann, “I don’t really have any interest in seeing them, but if you want to browse and enjoy the glamour a bit,” he looked at Fritz, “I see no problem in that, do you?”

Waving his hands dismissively, Fritz buddied himself up next to Hermann, “You ladies go enjoy yourselves, play with the powder and wardrobe, get all dolled up and have fun.  When you’re done doing your womanly things, you’re welcome to join us again,” he emphatically pointed at Brigitte with an order, “and leave that here.”

Tilly momentarily wished she had a newspaper to roll up and smack over the back of this man’s head.  That’d get her in hot water though and her husband was enjoying himself, even if he was acting stoic about it.  More importantly, Tilly could now pick this young lady’s brain in private.  Brigitte put the head down as ordered and Tilly matched the noisy clack of her shoes, following her into a sporadically lit hallway.

No words were exchanged between the two women marching away, the only communication came from the echo of their shoes on the floor.  Neither put their voice to use until a dimmed corner was turned and Brigitte finally piped up.

“He didn’t get on your nerves much, did he?”

Tilly tried to restrain her smile from how on the nose the question was, “I got the distinct impression he was attempting to be on his best behaviour.”

Brigitte hummed through her head nod and spoke with her company like she’d known her forever, “I think some days he’s turned on more by men of science than his wife.”

Biting her tongue to keep from laughing out loud, Tilly struggled to clear her throat, “Well, I hope he knows where to keep his hands.  I don’t want to turn Thea into a widow.”

Brigitte made no attempt at stifling her laughter and she let it echo in the rafters.

Opening a door, Brigitte led Tilly into a brightly lit hall.  Lined with racks of clothes, brilliant bulbs hung by strings overhead lit the doors decorated by artistic marquees proudly displaying an actor’s name.  A few men and women scurried about with clipboards and armloads of clothes, rushing through the chaotic glamour.  It literally sparkled and Tilly was drawn to it like a child standing at the precipice of a toy land.

To her absolute disappointment, they didn’t venture down the hall.  The pair of women stopped at the first door on their left.  Tilly read the actress’ name decorating the door: Brigitte Helm.  That’s what Fritz had said, but seeing it in print was no help.  Again Tilly was stumped – she didn’t know any ‘Helm’s.

Popping the door open with her hip, Brigitte flipped on a switch and brought life to a tiny dressing room full of lights and absolutely clogged with stuff.

“Sorry about the mess,” Brigitte dug her foot in under a pile of costumes on the floor and heaved it aside, “I think they want their storage room back.”

A colossal mess or not, it was a fascinating sight.  A coat rack stood by the door, the short right wall had a busy dressing table with a stool and a mirror like she’d seen in magazines, and decorated in bright lights.  There was a cushioned chair shoved off to the left side, a modest little table next to it with books and magazines.  And then there were the clothing racks and boxes shoved up against the back wall, buried in wardrobes that were either hung from hangers or just tossed haphazardly over the bar.  Everything from rags to riches hung out at the back of Brigitte’s dressing room, or was just left in heaps on the floor.

“This is incredible,” Tilly wandered into the wilds of a theatrical wardrobe.

“It’s a pig sty!” Brigitte sputtered, setting her purse down on her dressing table, “I’m going to have to start going around batting my eyelashes at people again,” she threw her coat over the coat rack, unbuckled the straps of her shoes and kicked them off without care, lastly tossing her hat into the soft chair, “You can take your coat off, if you’d like.”

Tilly was already eyeballs deep in the fantastical menagerie that was this ‘pig sty’.  Her hands swept over a soft, glistening fabric that was part of a dressy ensemble and turned over her shoulder to look at her host.  Unbundled from her outing attire, Brigitte presented herself in an outfit that looked like she’d studied the women’s fashion catalogues for Spring 1926.  But then there was all that curly blonde hair framing a familiar baby face.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” the question raced out of Tilly’s mouth, like she’d lost the reins to her voice.

“Yes, you do,” Brigitte answered without pause.

Perhaps this was what Hermann felt like when a breakthrough had been reached – a relieving weight just lifts off one’s shoulders.

“I’m dying to know, dear,” Tilly honestly couldn’t take this anymore, “where on earth do we know each other from?”

The smile Brigitte answered with made her look like she was the cat who’d captured the canary, “You and your husband were talking about Edward Elric earlier, if I heard right.”

What on earth?  Tilly felt a little pale.  

“Grumpy bastard full of mad science,” Brigitte put her hands on her hips.

What did Edward, of all people, have to do with this?  The mention of his name was blindsiding and Tilly had to shake her head to get her marbles back in place, “Yes, of course.”

With the content grin that came after the canary was swallowed, the mystery was unravelled, “We met at his house before.  You freed me from school and took me shopping once several years ago,” she offered her hand to shake for a proper greeting, “Brigitte Schittenhelm.”

Practically feeling the clicks in her head when every wayward question snapped into alignment with another, the memory struck her, “It’s you!”

Brigitte bounced her head foolishly, conveying ‘yes, of course’ without saying it.

“You’re okay!” Tilly’s hands fluttered around, uncertain what to do with herself, and she settled on grabbing Brigitte’s shoulders, “where did you get off to!?  I contacted your school when you didn’t show up and they said they couldn’t find you!”

Rolling her eyes back emphatically, Brigitte groaned, “Ah, yes, that.  I needed to take a hasty trip back to Berlin to see my parents and the school got its wires crossed about my whereabouts.  It was a nasty kerfuffle.”

Her upper body sagging in relief, Tilly didn’t know what on earth she was supposed to think.  She felt a little guilty, if she were being perfectly honest – Brigitte, an upstart child she’d hardly known for a week or so had vanished and ended up vanishing from her mind as well.  Other things became more important, but that didn’t stop Tilly from wanting to kick herself for not following up with the school one more time.

“Well, I’m glad nothing happened to you and I hope nothing too serious went on at home, either.”

Brigitte’s smile curled, “Everything was fine, nothing serious in the end.”  

Tilly wished she could shrug the guilt off as easily as Brigitte was.  She took a few deep breaths hoping her thoughts would settle down, “Helm, though?  You can’t be married yet.”

“Oh Lord no!” Brigitte laughed, “‘Brigitte Schittenhelm’ was too long for the marquee and I was told to shorten it.  ‘Helm’ is my stage name now, I suppose,” she tossed her head playfully, “like a burlesque dancer.”

Well, that was a quirk of the industry Tilly had never considered before.

“I actually made an attempt to see you long before now, Mrs. Oberth,” Brigitte readdressed the mystery that connected them again, “but once I’d managed to get myself back to Munich I discovered you’d moved.”

Sometimes people move for their careers, sometimes for marriage, sometimes for politics, and occasionally people move because they just don’t want to be in a spot anymore.  The move Tilly and her husband had made in the summer of 1922 was the latter. 

“Oh yes, well, we needed to shake things up a bit,” she wrung her hands together, “there was a cloud hanging over our lives and we decided on something more drastic to move on from that.”

“A cloud named Edward?” Brigitte asked.

It was a very ugly cloud and Tilly didn’t need to have the deductive mind of a scientist to know the equation was wrong, “Such a shame.”

Glancing over her shoulder, Brigitte shuffled over to her single plush chair and tossed her hat from the seat.  Rushing to Tilly, she collected the woman by her elbow and led her to it.  The stool from her dressing table was dragged over as Tilly settled into the cushions.  Sitting down on the stool in front of her long lost guest, Brigitte crossed her legs and grabbed her high knee with both hands.

“What if I told you he was alive somewhere?”

Tilly’s thoughts derailed, abandoning her without a response.

“That some miserable, spiteful bastards burnt what remained of Edward’s life to the ground to make sure nobody looked their way.”

If emotions and memories had flesh form, Brigitte’s words were the sword that pierced them.  Why would anyone concoct a scenario like that? “That’s a cruel thing to say, my dear.”

“It’s true!”

Spinning off her stool, Brigitte skittered over to her dressing table, snatched her purse up, and unceremoniously dumped the contents of it out on the floor.  The tiny drawers on the front of her table were ripped open until she found the one she wanted and a petit pair of needle point scissors were mounted on her fingers.  Brigitte sat back down in front of Tilly again with the scissors and empty purse in hand. 

Watching Brigitte whisk herself around the room with so much carefree whimsy honestly made Tilly a little angry.  They were talking about the unfortunate death of a young man and young woman who Brigitte was now around the age of, and she was behaving far too disrespectfully for the severity of the situation.  First to claim the fabrication of Edward’s death, and then to parade around like it was some kind of fanciful game wasn’t sitting well with her at all.  She questioned if the behaviour was a reflection of her age or simply… what on earth was she doing!? 

Tilly stared at Brigitte snipping open the seam of the inside lining of her purse.

Digging her fingers into the little hole she’d cut, Brigitte pried it open wider with a few tugs and a couple more snips, and she extracted an absolutely ragged looking envelope.

“Sorry about the condition, I’ve had it on me for ages and needed to hide it somewhere my parents wouldn’t know to look.”

The envelope was handed to Tilly.  Taking it in two hands, holding it by both beaten up edges, she stared at that old Munich address written on the sealed flap.

“It’s from Edward.”

Tilly’s eyes traced the handwriting, unable to recall what Edward’s looked like.

“He wrote it after he escaped.”

Thoughts wouldn’t come to her.

“Men associated with the death of Professor Hohenheim came after them.  They got away by the skin of their teeth and are off hiding somewhere now.”

What was she listening to?  Tilly couldn’t process the words entering her ears to fill the void her thoughts had left behind.

“He passed me on his journey and asked that I deliver this to you in person.”

There had always been doubt.  If Professor Hohenheim hadn’t been murdered like he was, then maybe the fire that destroyed everything else wouldn’t have felt questionable.  And if the fire hadn’t left only the bones of his son not even a month after his passing, then she wouldn’t have felt so uneasy.  And if the police hadn’t shrugged it off as an accident and refused every plea of investigation, then she wouldn’t have felt so unsafe.

“I went…” there had never been a moment where Tilly hadn’t grieved that event, but she had never entertained any delusion of Edward’s miraculous survival, “I went to their funeral.  They have gravestones,” Tilly couldn’t rationalize the letter in her hands, “I’ve put flowers on them.”

The energy in Brigitte’s words tempered, “I know, I have too.  I was supposed to get this letter to you a long time ago, I was just unable to reach you.  I guess I had to wait for fate to bring you to me.”

Tilly dearly wished her thoughts would tell her what to do, but her mind was of no use.  She wanted to dig her fingernails into this envelope’s seams, rip it open, and examine every pen stroke.  She also wanted to crumple the offensive thing up in her hands and throw it out because it felt so cruel.  Was she supposed to laugh?  Cry?  Her feelings confounded her.

Tilly turned the envelope over in her hands and looked at the old stains and fingerprints it had gathered over time.  “You saw Edward after the fire?”

“I did, and Winry briefly – a boisterous woman with aggressively long blonde hair.”

Listening to Brigitte identify someone she’d never been in Munich to meet made Tilly’s body feel numb.  There weren’t even pictures of Winry left behind.

“I’m sure Edward explains the situation in the letter much better than I can.”

The dirty, ragged envelope was placed neatly on Tilly’s thighs.  Her elbows landed on her knees and face fell into her hands.  She didn’t know what to think.  Edward was alive?  Four years had passed since they’d last spoken.  The four of them had gone out to purchase a pretty green dress and coat Winry would wear for a fancy event that Edward wasn’t keen on attending.  They did go, but Tilly never found out if they’d enjoyed it.  What Brigitte was proposing went beyond what she had ever been prepared to believe.  If someone had come to her with new evidence to say that, yes, Edward Elric had indeed been murdered – that was something she would accept.  But that he had escaped an attack, gone on the run, and was off somewhere now living a quiet, secretive life was the sort of fanciful tales books told, because reality wasn’t that kind.  The house was burned out of spite?  Whose remains did investigators find? 

Tilly dipped her chin into her chest, resting her forehead in her hands, and she stared at the envelope.  Reading this letter now would put her in a state.  She needed to calm down.  Actually, she needed to run out of the room with the letter in one hand and this girl in the other and turn both of them over to Hermann for study.

Pursing her lips and slowly exhaling, Tilly straightened her posture, “Where did you meet him?”

“Here in Berlin, purely by chance,” her purse already set aside, Brigitte neatly crossing one leg back over the other and hooked her hands around her high knee again, “he was getting his business in order and didn’t tell me where he was headed exactly, but mentioned he was looking forward to going home.”

Tilly tried to swallow a sharp laugh and ended up sputtering through it.  Was this finally a hole in this unbelievable story? “Edward doesn’t care for his ‘home’.”

“He had a particular home in mind,” Brigitte had an answer to dispel the doubt, “I believe it was Winry’s.”

Oh Lord, Tilly never did find out where in the world that girl even came from.  It was like she’d appeared out of thin air, arriving unannounced like that and robbed of her possessions.  “Did they need help when you saw them?” she asked, “they must have been floundering around on their own trying to leave in secrecy.”

Of all the questions Tilly had asked so far, that was the first one that caused Brigitte to pause.  It was the only answer she didn’t have ready on the tip of her tongue.  Tilly aggressively studied this girl thinking over her words.

“Well, there was a boy who helped them.”

“A boy?” Tilly’s brow rose.

“Named Alphonse.  Ten years Edward’s junior, but sharp as a tack,” ringing her hands around her kneecap, Brigitte put her eyes in the corner of the room and clicked her tongue with a smile, “probably a damn handsome bugger by now too, made up of all the good manners Edward lacked.”

If Tilly had worn glasses, they would have slipped down her nose.

Brigitte started to giggle, “Just like my sister and I, total opposites.  I didn’t get too many details, but he was brilliant and they both were very happy to have him along.”

That was a very bizarre element to add to such a dramatic story.  Tilly wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it.  Smoothing her hands over the envelope, her focus landed back in her lap, entranced by the ragged letter all over again, “I don’t know if this is something I can read right now.”

“Oh no, of course not, read it at your leisure!” Brigitte assured her, waving her hands, “it’s certainly not something you have to read right here, right now, in my presence.  I’m just the messenger.”

Tilly wasn’t sure she’d ever have the stomach for a letter from beyond the grave.  Hermann should be the one to read it first anyways… he could give her a summary before she read it.  Or they could read it together.  Who knows.

“Maybe we could head out for some coffee or tea, would you be interested?” Brigitte suggested, “clear our heads with a bit of fresh air and have an early lunch.”

Taking her eyes off the envelope, Tilly gazed around the room.  The chaotic sparkle and glamour that had captured her eye had evaporated.  Her downtrodden mood had banished the magic, “Yes, I think that’s a fine idea.”

Tilly climbed out of the chair and Brigitte swept over to her coat rack, plucking a shawl off a rung and gathering her shoes with her toes.  Unable to detach her thoughts from the envelope Tilly turned it over a few more times, rotating the mucked up revelation around in her hands.  What were they doing now?  What a strange thought to allow herself to entertain – instead of mourning the human potential lost to death as she’d always done, Tilly found herself contemplating the human potential lost to secrecy.  

Following Brigitte out into the hall, disinterested in the spectacle around her, Tilly’s thoughts attempted to recompose a man’s life.  If Edward were hiding then he couldn’t draw attention to himself for his brilliance, what would he do instead?  He didn’t seem to have any interests or hobbies beyond the science that brought them together.  And what would Winry do?  She seemed brilliant in her own right – she built Edward an entire leg on her own, a phenomenal feat, but the name she could make for herself was forced into secrecy as well.  The whole proposal seemed quite sad.  Of course she wished for their good health, successful careers, and stable family life, but…

“Do you suppose they’re happy?” Tilly wondered.

Brigitte raised her brow.

“Edward and Winry,” Tilly’s thumbs rubbed the edges of the envelope secured in both her hands, “it would be a shame if they were forced into a life they didn’t want and were unable to find happiness in it.”

Beneath the hallway lights a charmed, beautiful smile rounded Brigitte’s cheeks, glowing brighter than all the glamour around her, “Yes.  I am confident they are perfectly happy right now.”

Reaching for the purse hanging from her shoulder, Tilly opened the clasp and tucked the letter inside.  Securing it with a snap, she put on her best face for the young lady oozing confidence with every hopeful word.  As they walked through the hall sparkling with all its decorative charm, Tilly wished with all her heart that Brigitte’s beliefs were a reflection of the reality that now had them.

“I certainly hope they are.”


 

- FIN -

 


 

 

Notes:

In chapter 4, Herman and Tilly haul Ed out of the house and to a social dinner where he meets Fritz Lang and his wife, Thea von Harbeau, who the Oberths are socially acquainted with.  Fritz tells Ed about the Homunculus film that leads to Ed meeting Brigitte.  Brigitte goes on to work with Fritz later on Metropolis, and because Fritz knows the Oberths, she’s reunited with Herman and Tilly.  I set this reunion up for myself 18 years ago with a few vague open ends and a “I’ll figure it out how it’ll go when I get there… and if I never get there, no one’ll know!” LOL.  Now you know and writing it was a treat!

Chapter 67: Appendix: Art Gallery

Chapter Text


 

Welcome to the Art Gallery

 


First off, the lovely lovely pieces I've gotten. I hope the original artists know how much I love these XD (I loved them so much that I've kept them since 2005).

 

Art from Zrana


Al with the picture he received from Gracia of Ed's birthday


The octopus cloud from Resembool Verses lol

 

Sketches by Shizu (who has changed her handle a few times since these and I've lost track of her ;A;)


XD self explanatory


That phone call Ed answered in German XD

 


Al and Brigitte charades

 

Art by Basserist


The picture of Ed that Brigitte took.

 

Art gifted from Destari


 

One of the hardest things about this fic was that I saw it visually.  I could see it in film language and I needed to convert it to story format.  I tried to draw scenes when I first started out but I couldn't translate what was in my head into pictures.  But dammit I tried lol.  And then I started acquiring educated drawing skills!  And now I have... an obscene amount of art that I've drawn for myself over the last 18 years. 

Here's some of it!

 


These are the first three designs I did for Winry, Al, and Brigitte early in 2005! Winry's coat is actually wrong, my small brain searched for 1920s clothes and the results I got were things for the back half of the 20s, where as 1921 is still holding onto styles for the end of the 1910s. It's also a little too summer-y. The current version of the fic has Winry's wardrobe updated to reflect the time period corrections, but all of the old art between 2005 and 2011 uses this coat.

 


More stuff from 2005:


^ I really wanted Ed to resemble his mother more ;A; wish fulfillment art

 


 

From 2006:



looolll these are way too elaborate


From 2007 (my first tablet :')

Learning how to draw crossed arms is a very helpful thing to learn as an artist lol.  Roy's arms are so funky :''')


From 2010 (after my first hiatus):


^ Chapter 25

^ Chapter 26

^ Chapter 27
I redrew that left one later on but LMAO THAT RIGHT ONE. I had this phase where I desperately wanted Ed to be long and more lean (because in my brain he inherited a leaner frame from Trisha... but this is a little too much LOL)


From 2011:



A very terrible new years



And the aftermath



I DREW ALBRECHT. I'd totally forgotten until I dug up this pic



A handfull of sketchy bits for the opening section in Bad Witch. The last thing before the big break (Oct 2011).


From my 2021 resurrection:




^ redesigns for Ed and Winry's Eurotrip




^ It took me 17 years to acquire the skill to draw Al and Winry fighting over that paper towel roll LOL.  It's one of my favourites drawings, because there's a moment in that section where, if it was animated, that the camera would cut to them and the shot would look exactly like that.  I've always had that shot in my head.

 

I revisited those way too elaborate outfits XD;. Also Ed and Hohenheim is a redraw of of one of the 2010 drawings.  

^ Chapter 53


^ Lastly I'm going to toss in this Brigitte redraw, from her original 2005 art to a 2022 glow up :>

 

I have Tilly and Hermann drawn somewhere, and when I find them I'll toss them in too!

Chapter 68: Appendix: Story Notes

Chapter Text

Character References

 

Hermann Oberth (1894/06/25 – 1989/12/28) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Oberth   

Brigitte Schittenhelm (1906/03/12 – 1996/06/11) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Helm

Rudolf Hess/Heß (1894/04/26 – 1987/08/17) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Hess

Albrecht Haushofer (1903/01/07 – 1945/04/26) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_Haushofer  

Karl Haushofer (1869/08/27 – 1946/03/10) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Haushofer

Charles Wilson (1882/11/10 – 1977/04/12)  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wilson,_1st_Baron_Moran

 


 

Original Posting Dates

 

EP51 - 2004/10/02 - JP air date


Act I

CH01 - 2004/10/13 - Trains in Opposite Directions - 9,726 words
CH02 - 2004/11/16 - A Stranger's Face - 9,427
CH03 - 2004/11/29 - Those Who Watch Over Him - 9,270
CH04 - 2004/12/08 - In Honour of a Memory - 10,301
CH05 - 2004/12/22 - Media of Suspicion - 10,135
CH06 - 2004/12/24 - Father's Christmas - 6,403
CH07 - 2005/01/02 - Violation of Soul - 9,824
CH08 - 2005/01/12 - Replacements - 8,687
CH09 - 2005/01/16 - The Warmth Of... - 9,158
CH10 - 2005/01/28 - The Hermaphrodite Child of the God of Boundaries - 10,519 
CH11 - 2005/02/25 - An Omnipresent Void - 9,176
CH12 - 2005/03/11 - From Beyond the Looking Glass - 9,778
CH13 - 2005/03/28 - Contrast Blue - 10,906
CH14 - 2005/04/09 - Flow of Changeover - 10,654
CH15 - 2005/05/01 - Façade - 11,869
CH16 - 2005/06/23 - The Devil’s Mask - 10,028
*COS - 2005/07/23 - Conqueror of Shamballa JP theatre release
CH17 - 2005/07/31 - Returned to Parent - 10,027
CH18 - 2005/08/07 - Resembool Verses - 10,270

Act II

CH19 - 2005/10/07 - Existence Revisited - 10,918
CH20 - 2005/12/04 - Eyes on the World's Other Side - 9,565
CH21 - 2006/01/03 - Delirium Ghosts - 10,501
CH22 - 2006/02/10 - Upon the Doorstep of Revolution - 9,776 
*COS - 2006/09/12 - Conqueror of Shamballa EN release
CH23 - 2007/02/12 - Puppetmaster - 10,676
CH24 - 2007/08/27 - Nobody's Heroine - 10,050
CH25 - 2010/05/24 - In Lieu of Armistice - 10,198
*FMA - 2010/06/11 - Chapter 108 (Finale) 
CH26 - 2010/06/12 - The Theory of Beyond the Gate - 11,224
CH27 - 2010/07/03 - Rebellious Ignorant - 10,530
CH28 - 2010/07/20 - At Crossroads - 10,084
CH29 - 2010/08/09 - The Orchestra's Conductor - 8,595
FMAB - 2010/08/25 - Episode 64 (Finale)
CH30 - 2010/09/03 - The Dual Tandem - 8,526
CH31 - 2010/09/24 - Pieces of Family - 9,577
CH32 - 2010/10/19 - Envy - 9,888
CH33 - 2010/10/29 - Der gute Kamerad - 8,650
CH34 - 2010/11/27 - The Cataclysm's Catalyst - 10,067
CH35 - 2010/12/17 - Atrophy of Mankind - 9,764
CH36 - 2011/02/25 - Social Augmentation - 11,087
CH37 - 2011/03/14 - Pages in the Journeyman's Voyage - 10,020
CH38 - 2011/04/10 - The Crimson Charm - Part 1 - 12,115
CH39 - 2011/04/16 - The Crimson Charm - Part 2 - 12,003
CH40 - 2011/05/12 - The Crimson Charm - Part 3 - 11,187
CH41 - 2011/07/23 - From Sunset to Horizon - 9,625

Act III

CH42 - 2011/09/04 - Second Chances - 9,447
CH43 - 2011/11/12 - Bad Witch - 10,327
CH44 - 2021/06/20 - The Xenotime Gambit - 10,504 
CH45 - 2021/06/27 - Pushback - 9,663
CH46 - 2021/07/04 - Lesson Plan - 11,633
CH47 - 2021/07/11 - What Lies Between - 10,030
CH48 - 2021/07/18 - Before the Calm Storm - 11,386
CH49 - 2021/07/25 - Caution Signs - 11,090
CH50 - 2021/08/15 - Best Laid Plans - 9,538
CH51 - 2021/09/05 - The Games People Play - 9,788
CH52 - 2021/09/19 - The Trembling Foundations - 10,076
CH53 - 2021/10/03 - Dante’s Labyrinth - 8,569
CH54 - 2021/10/24 - Firestone - 9,688
CH55 - 2021/11/14 - Dichotomy of the Two - 11,108
CH56 - 2021/12/12 - Worn Fragments - 10,517
CH57 - 2022/01/09 - Fractures - 9,435
CH58 - 2022/02/06 - The Trail of Breadcrumbs - 9,448
CH59 - 2022/03/20 - Inequivalent Exchange - Part 1 - 11,247
CH60 - 2022/04/24 - Inequivalent Exchange - Part 2 - 10,345
CH61 - 2022/07/22 - Inequivalent Exchange - Part 3 - 14,146
CH62 - 2022/09/10 - The Wounded Earth - 12,347
CH63 - 2022/10/02 - Silversmith - 11,259
CH64 - 2022/10/29 - Leaving Wonderland - 10,822
CH65 - 2022/11/20 - Perfect Imperfections - 11,652
CH66 - 2022/11/20 - Epilogue: Metropolis - 5,297

 


 

Closing Thoughts

(this is me rambling on about the fic… a lot)

 

This is it.  This is my headcanon.  I have lived here since the very last episode.  When it was announced at the end of ep 51 that the series would be finished in a movie I was devastated!  I thought they needed another 50 episodes worth… or 65, apparently… so I wrote my own ending.  I didn't have the patience to wait for a movie.  Though, I had no idea it would turn into something like this .  I’m happy to have brought anyone who needed/wanted it along on this ride with me.

This story may already be older than some of its readers and that’s amazing on so many levels.  I hope FMA, especially this version, keeps on giving.  It’s obviously very dear to me lol and it plays a very important role in anime history.

At the time I started, wikipedia was a baby and so were resources on the internet.  Offline materials didn’t have little details that I was looking for (everything was very factual).  If I’d known at the time that Hermann and Tilly had 2 kids already (they go on to have 4), and that Charles Wilson was married (no kids yet though), I would have included them.  What fun that would have been to have Ed and Winry interact with Hermann’s two young kids (while Ed may be socially antagonistic in this story, he’s actually very good with kids.  It would have been really eye opening for everyone, it's a shame I never had a chance to insert it).  Dr. Wilson’s wife would have been a fun addition to the dynamic as well. 

I had a few teenagers in mind to fill the Brigitte-type role (I don’t remember who they all were anymore), but I picked Brigitte because the year of her birth was disputed (1906 vs 1908 - this fic uses 1908).  I remember reading on baby wikipedia that the reason it was disputed was because there was suspicion her birth year had been falsified as 1906 so she could get the role of Maria in Metropolis.  I did my due diligence (because, you know, wikipedia lol) and checked sources to confirm and was satisfied.  That allowed me to take Brigitte for however long I needed, because she would return around the same point in time she’d left, but be slightly older and thus validate the age change depending on how long she stayed in Amestris, because I hadn’t decided on how or when I’d get her home again.  That age discrepancy information doesn’t exist online anymore.  There’s a lot of information wikipedia doesn’t have about her anymore, like mention of her sister Heidi.  I’m assuming that’s because the sites that were once used in 2004/05 as reference have simply gone offline over the years (and the info can’t be on wikipedia without a source… at least it shouldn’t lol)

The fic was written with an evergreen outline - it developed with the characters.  I had a rough plan in my head of significant events and milestones that needed to happen, but letting the characters write themselves on the go and dictate how some things went allowed me to be organic with them and explore them.  FMA is as much about the characters as it is the story.  I felt it made everyone more human that way, rather than having them perfectly planned and outlined (the more I outline, the more contrived my writing feels to me).  With one significant exception (I’ll get to that later) everything stayed on a general course, only a few things veered off: 

- Al getting his memories back was never supposed to happen.  He was only supposed to receive the revelation that Aisa had the Philosopher’s Stone inside of her because it resonated with him.  I didn’t decide to give Al his memories back until he woke up in front of the Gate again after touching Aisa.  Originally I had him drawing a transmutation circle in the black ‘tar’ of the Gate and activating it before it faded, but his logic process for figuring it out was too smart and convenient for where his character was at.  It lacked drama too.  I thought ‘damn, wouldn’t it be cool if Al clapped his hands and saved Ed’, but Al didn’t know that the handclap alchemy skill was acquired by going to the Gate.  The option was there for me to let him use if he discovered it, but he wasn’t just going to magically figure it out.  Al with his memories solved all the problems I had - he knew a lot , and he would have enough wherewithal to put all the other missing pieces together to solve what was going on without frustrating me too much, so he got them back LOL.  I’m really glad I did that :) he’s a much stronger character afterwards.  

- Ed and Winry… just wrote themselves together really well .  I have no other explanation for that LOL.  When this fic started and when I sent her over there, it was meant to be a platonic as they come.  Winry was not that popular of a character in the mid-2000s and Ed/Winry did not have the popularity it has today (in 2004/05 Winry was still very underdeveloped even in the manga - lots of the classic EdWin content we look back at now hasn't been drawn yet).  Once I added her she was actually really easy to write and I wanted to develop her character, and I wanted to do it without turning her into Ed’s love interest (because Ed doesn’t have time to worry about girls, or love, or hormones, none of that – he’s focussed on Al and on going home).  I wanted the both of them to develop their strengths, and discover the strengths they had with each other, without resorting to coupling troupes.  Once they were home, I figured they’d earned their way out of pure hands-off platonic and into a more interactive, interpersonal relationship.

 


I would like you to meet Alphonse.  This is my very first USB stick from 2004.  Behold that whopping 512MB of space.  On it is the first 18 chapters and all the early workings and brainstorming of the fic.  I lost it in my school library once.  I left it plugged into a school computer and forgot to take it out when I left.  I was more worried about my fic (and someone reading it) than I was the homework LOL.  Someone kindly turned it into the library staff and I got it back (the Al dangle was very helpful in that too lol).  The matching Ed dangle was on my cell phone for years… I don’t know where it went, sadly :(

I have a huge notes document on the stick from Dec '04/Jan '05 and the first line is Hitler = Envy.  Goes on to give details of Hitler’s activities in 1920/21, plus details on Karl & Albrecht Haushofer, Rudolf Hess, the Thule Society, plus other political figures that might have been relevant for the end of 1921 and how they all related to each other.  I have some detailed notes on Walter Riehl, though I never used him.  I also wrote out how a rebound works according to series lore and then tried to work that into the functionality of the circle etched on the Thule floor to explain how its deliberate rebound was meant to function (and ultimately get Ed home).  I’m rather impressed with myself that I actually had this all worked out by chapter 7… even if it took me another 6½ years to actually stick Al there to execute it.

I’d forgotten I’d done this, but for all of part 1 and 2 I’d kept Ed and Al’s sides in separate documents and then combined them to finalize the chapters.

The first chapter that actually feels like what this fic is about is Father’s Christmas.  That was the first chapter I wrote where I went “ahhh… that’s what this story feels like”.  The original takes of 1-5 are me trying to learn how to be a fic writer (and they suffered for it looollll x.x).  Hopefully the originals are nowhere to be found on the internet now LOL (though, I do have a binder with printouts of them that I made in 2005 haha.  I had to be a real ninja at school to brave printing off a story from FFN and snatch it from the printer before anyone saw what I was up to).

In that Christmas chapter I introduced Thomas and his sister Julie.  I actually had a bit of a backstory worked up for Julie and Ed for his first two years beyond the Gate, but I never had the opportunity to bring it up in the story.  She was one of the few people Ed tollerated.  She was observant and intelligent at a young age in a way the rest of the world wasn't, because she was blind.  Ed thought she was an interesting person.  They got along fairly well and she was one of the few people who took the time to poke holes in Ed and Hohenheim's backstories lol (which Ed quietly gave her credit for, because nobody else had bothered to put effort into it).  When Ed was in Rome, but before Patricia & Thomas had Margaret, Julie died of the flu.  Ed didn't find out until sometime later and he felt pretty bad about that.

One of the early scenes I remember writing that’s always stuck with me was the scene at Gracia’s where Winry and Al have the paper towel roll and have to take turns talking (and fail miserably).  They got to act like themselves for a bit, they got to act their ages for a bit, and it was just fun.

Right after the series ended, the idea of doing AU versions of the characters wasn’t a thing, and there was also no indication of Ed’s age or any details to how he ended up in Munich 1921 of all places.  For a short while it was up to fanfic writers to make that up and fill in the blanks *raises hand*.  And then Alfons was revealed, then later a lot more of the characters, and the general scope of CoS.  I wanted to stay away from doing the CoS thing of introducing AU versions of characters into the narrative.  I had told readers very early on that it wouldn’t happen.  One day my brain went “but how about Patricia?” and I went to war with myself over whether or not to a) include her after I said I wouldn’t b) do that to poor Ed LOL.  

I did that to poor Ed :’’)

While Ed and Winry were in Europe, my outline kept track of every calendar day that passed for them.  Whenever an actual date is referred to, it’s the accurate date for the passage of time & events from my outline, including if its a Monday or a Friday.  I kept a 1921/22 calendar handy to manage the days of the week.  It helped me keep track of how much time had passed on the Amestris side, since Europe was moving faster (or if I needed to speed up Amestris, I could adjust Ed’s events accordingly).  There were no set dates though for when things were going to happen.  The date Hohenheim died and the date Ed and Winry went home were just simply the days where the events landed, then the chapter contents accommodated the time of year.  The most coordinated date is Hohenheim’s passing landing between Christmas and New Years.  When I realized it was going to happen around Christmas, I made sure it was after Christmas.  I also made sure Ed was in Germany for his birthday. 

I wanted positive experiences for Ed, Winry, and Hohenheim before he died, so I gave them a nice Christmas chapter.  I didn’t want Ed feeling regret or animosity over an altercation with his dad before he died, so that he didn’t have anything easy to hide behind when he was faced with his emotional crisis.  The couple chapters before he died, Ed and Hohenheim were on their best terms.

Since we’re on that topic: Hohenheim was always scheduled to die.  Other than reuniting the boys as the obvious end game, that was this story’s first plot point LOL.  Hohenheim never had any aspirations to get home, because he had accepted he would die in that world.  I remember reading a review someone left on the chapter he died in that was along the lines of “did you foreshadow this when he stated he wouldn’t be going home with Ed??” ya darn right I did :’’’).  Ed was always meant to reach a point with his father where he would be faced with an emotional crisis when he dies.  For some reason (in the initial fic vision I daydreamed up) Winry was there to console him.  I didn't know why she was there, so I figured out how to get her there as I wrote the first few chapters.  It’s quite possible I threw her across the Gate just so she could be there to hug Ed when his dad died LOL.  The endcap image in Der gute Kamerad is the oldest mental image I have of the fic.  

When I wrote Der gute Kamerad, I had a teeerrrrible time trying to start it.  I struggled so hard.  I didn’t want to do it lol.  One of my guiltiest pleasures writing this fic was writing Ed and Hohenheim… and it was time to end that ;A;.  I solved the block by writing Hohenheim’s obituary at the opening of the chapter to make it official in my head.  I wrote the paragraph, made myself cry (it's very hard to type and cry at the same time), and then I got the cry out of my system, proceeded to make Ed absolutely miserable, and deleted the obituary when the chapter was finished.  

I specifically remember writing the section where Ed had to return to the empty house for the first time.  It’s written with a different style approach than the rest of the fic.  It’s very robotic and done in larger paragraphs.  It was meant to help convey how Ed was (or wasn’t) functioning to get through it.  

I didn’t directly note the date in the fic, but I put Ed’s birthday on January 17th.  They went home 8 days later on January 25th.  I know the fanon accepted date is Feb 3 for Ed’s birthday now, but at the time of writing there was no general consensus other than Jan/Feb range.  The Feb 3 date didn't pop up until sometime in the mid-2010s(???) when I wasn’t paying attention lol. 

I wrote all 3 Crimson Charm chapters over a 4-day Easter weekend 2011 :’) I lived in the corner of my couch with my laptop and that’s all I did that weekend (I had to rewrite pt 3 though, too much writing at that point and it didn’t land).  My neck hurt like hell when I was done LMAO.  I had a great time.  Ed and Winry’s side in the Crimson Charm was meticulously planned out.  Al’s wasn’t.  I had a few scarce notes for Al and just had a blanket “Al figures it out” to go by LOL.  It worked :’)

I should find something more to say about Al’s side of the story, but the Amestris side feels much more straightforward.  It was already well established, I was just playing around with it and expanding on what was there.  Al’s side got the plot, Ed’s side got the angst.

Using Nina’s body for Dante to hop into felt like cruel, easy pickings lol.  It feels sort of foolish for Dante to not change Nina’s name, but if I’d given her a new one it would be really hard as a reader (without visual aid or constant reminding) to keep in mind that she was using Nina’s face.  Nina’s name is brought up and you will always get the right mental picture.

In Chapter 64, Leaving Neverland, Mustang wonders “Did Dante have any other loyalists to her research similar to Aisa waiting for her return?”.  The answer is YES, there are two.  At the beginning of the fic I actually had bigger plans for Aisa and her type of role at Dante’s side.  There was supposed to be three of her type (clearly not with Gluttony’s stomach, but willing red water study participants).  Aisa, also known as Atropos (which I used for her original last name), was one of the three Greek goddesses of fate, the others being Clotho and Lachesis.  Dante had run out of sins all at once and since she was experimenting with something gross and new, I wanted to use that as an opportunity for her to try on a new naming scheme.  There’s a note on Chapter 11 that I’ve always kept about Aisa’s name appearing Japanese, but having an alternate language source, and it’s referring to this.  It’s Greek lol.  There was too much going on and I couldn’t figure out how to insert this idea, so I scrapped it at some point before the first act was done.  Maybe Mustang’ll find the Clotho and Lachesis volunteers while he’s out and about.  Oh that’s an interesting idea…

I was hesitant to add the Tringham boys when I did, I wasn’t sure about writing them, but they were handy to have around.  I liked having Russell ruffle Mustang’s feathers in a different way than Ed did.  

Mustang’s eyepatch was such a crime I’m so glad I got rid of it.

I didn’t really have an end game plan for Mustang for quite a while.  He was recuperating and got caught in the nonsense, then he decided ‘screw it, I’ll try and take over this shitshow again’.  But I never really wanted him to actually get the top job.  Seemed too easy.  Much of the character paths in the story include not necessarily getting *exactly* what you want, coming to terms/finding peace with the hand that’s been dealt.  I didn’t know what kind of middle ground I wanted to give Mustang, but I felt REALLY BAD screwing everything up for him like I did.  He deserved better, so when I realized I’d set Hakuro up for Max Paranoia, I was like “oh hoh!  There’s Mustang’s new gig: tearing the underbelly of the country apart.”  It’s a really ugly underbelly and it’ll be a long, eye opening venture for him.  He better be careful though, because Hakuro really is out there with Maximum Paranoia in his head lol.

 


 

Okay, so, many paragraphs ago I mentioned a huge exception that changed in the story…

Ed sacrificing his alchemy to get home in the Crimson Charm chapters was meant to be the original climactic ending, with a few bells and whistles tied in to address Dante (though, not nearly as significant as what I ultimately did to him).  Ed had already adjusted to a life without alchemy and it was something he was willing to let the Gate confiscate so he could get home, because he had things in his life that were more important (returning to Al, saving Winry, desire to get home).  The fic went on hiatus for a few years shortly after I started Act 2 because I came down with Life, but the approaching climax of FMAB and the manga (they were wrapping up almost concurrently in 2010) brought me back to the fic and I worked up the outline details that would get me to that ending.  Just as I started posting chapters again Arakawa had Ed sacrifice his alchemy for Al to wrap up the manga LOL.  At the time, the fic ending would have happened soon after manga/brotherhood finished and now it would look like a manga cop-out.  The fic ending I was so proud of suddenly felt extremely anti-climactic.  Interestingly, Arakawa has said (in the FMA 20th anniversary exhibits in Japan) that Ed giving up his alchemy in the manga wasn’t her original ending.  She’s said Ed’s sacrifice used to be much darker/sadder (implying that her original ending was Ed’s sacrifice similar to the 03 anime) and she talked herself into a happier ending when it came time to do it.  

For the fic though, I didn’t want to look like I ripped off the manga ending, but I also didn’t know what else to do. I kept writing with the original climax in mind, but I was looking for a way to get out of it.  I ran into an issue with Al and Dante at the Gate: Al has very little motivation to get his brother back with Dante there, so I solved that by using Hohenheim’s death to send her away and that moved me away from my original ending.  Dante was originally meant to be addressed at the Gate when Ed crossed back.  Giving Al his memories back also gave him the mental and emotional strength he needed to figure out what to do on his own (and ultimately the rest of the fic) from that point forwards.

I loved how the Crimson Charm turned out, this version much better than the nonsense I had originally planned (I don’t really remember it very well anymore and I’m not going to open an old document to remind me LOL).  But I’d written myself into a corner.  I couldn’t figure out a way to write the ending (which needed Ed to goad Dante into attempting to transmute him) without Ed coming off as a colossal asshole to everyone or his behaviour tipping Dante off.  I needed to have Al included, but there was no sensible reason for him to go along with anything I (or Ed) was thinking up.  I also needed to separate Winry from the action without hurting her anymore.  I think I had them being ambushed on their way up north at one point and it was all just BLEH.  I couldn’t figure out how to get it done and everything came out horribly contrived and too convenient.  Nothing gets handed to these characters, they have to work for them.  I wrote to a point where I had to settle on a plot direction and I hated all of them, so the fic stopped.

For a long time :’)

A very very very long time :’’’)

I tried something in 2017 but it ultimately went nowhere.   

When I picked the story again at the start of 2021, the first thing that got axed was the chapter restriction (51 at the time).  It was holding me back and I had to write a whole arc to address Dante.

The first chapter I came back to write in 2021 was The Xenotime Gambit.  The original title was The Xenotime Sorcerers, because there was going to be a larger focus on Russel and Fletcher’s rescue attempt of everyone (in both the 2012 and 2017 versions of that chapter).  The only rough writing from that chapter that I hung on to for the 2021 revival was how Russel and Fletcher come in to save Maria.  Brigitte was too smart in those original chapter takes… I’m glad I never posted that.

One of the big problems I had was that I couldn’t actually write what was going on from Ed’s PoV anymore without spoiling what he was up to, so I had to switch to a neutral or an Al-focus.  The story is predominantly Ed’s, so I hadn’t ever considered flipping to Al to get around things before.  Al used to be difficult for me to write (maybe because he used to be mentally much younger and I was dialled into an Ed-focus).  He wasn’t for this 2021 attempt, which made things so much easier! 

Wrath’s trance-like behaviour around Ed was really what helped me get the ball rolling again on the story though.  I was still trying to find a way to springboard the first three return chapters and that did it.  It created an element of mystery that the story lacked and once I added it (and rearranged story elements in the outline for it), the outline started to fall into place.

Roy vs Aisa was a milestone I had established very early on and I was really looking forward to getting to that.  Sending Izumi out to Xenotime was something that developed later and I was able to switch neatly between Roy v Aisa and Izumi v Dante.  I hope Dante getting her hand blown off was as rewarding for you to read as it was for me to write XD;;;;

The section in the underground tunnel system where Izumi and Roy have their yelling match was originally written as an information exchange section and it was very basic.  Obviously the reader could figure out who was coming in through the tunnel, so the nervous setup was bland.  I didn’t really give much thought to the dullness, but along came a shower thought after I’d completely written it that went “lol k so instead, what if I have them get into an argument like they’re angry divorced parents who care about their kids a whole lot, but they’re getting to their wits ends and fuck you in particular.”  I laughed all the way out of the shower and over to the computer.  It made things much more interesting :’).  It’s a very heated argument that still makes me laugh.

Winry was sidelined because her climactic event had passed (and Dante isn’t relevant to her like she is to Ed and Al), so she’d earned a reprieve from the bullshit.  Putting her aside (as well as Roy and Izumi winding down after Aisa as well) opened up the story for Ed and Al to sort themselves out (which was important, it’s a story about two brothers trying to not just reunite, but reconcile and reconnect).

The Trail of Breadcrumbs chapter put a HUGE WRENCH in my writing schedule.  It was originally two chapters.  There’s a full chapter worth of work that I wrote and completely scrapped.  The original version was finished for over a month, then I read it before I was supposed to post it and went “this is SO BORING… it’s the climax, shit is supposed to be moving”.  I smashed two completed chapters together to make that one and it set me back like six weeks D: (which was my entire writing buffer).

The events in the Underground City and battle with Dante were the reconciling and reconnecting point with Ed and Al (obvi).  Ed coming home was the reunion, but Ed had been out of sync with Al (and knowingly deceiving him, so there’s worry and guilt worked in there too).  Ed’s actually more in sync with Winry, because she’s been with him the last while and gotten to know the person he’d become beyond the Gate.  Ed didn’t want Al to see the shell of himself he thought he’d become (welp), Ed wanted Al to see the ideal version of himself he’d tried to uphold.  The battle with Dante also included Ed acknowledging what he was doing and to start trying to re-learn how to rely on Al.  The details over how that unfolded changed over time, but the overarching point of it was for the boys to get over their differences and work together to defeat Dante.  Everyone else got sidelined slowly to achieve that. 

Of all of the vices Dante embodied, her downfall was ultimately greed, which I think is fitting since Greed was the homunculus she didn’t have under her control.  And how greed is self-destructive. 

Writing climactic battle is hard… just throwing that one out there lol.  The Inequivalent Exchange trio were exhausting.  There’s very little character introspection.  There’s no worldbuilding.  There’s no observation.  There’s no growth.  It’s all facts and reveals and solving and solutions and straightforwardness lol.  It was hard for me to write.  Everything from Trail of Breadcrumbs to the end of Inequivalent Exchange was a slog.  Inequivalent Exchange pt3 alone took me 3-4 months to write even knowing what I would do, it was just hard to nail down to be juuuust right.  I wrote Leaving Wonderland in 4 days and barely edited it LOL.

Ed was always set up to send Dante beyond the Gate, but how exactly I wanted that to play out has been revised a million times.

Post series I want Ed to go into teaching, but it might actually be really hard on him.  Ed has scientific genius and he can see alchemy and other sciences in a way the average person can’t.  It’s hard for someone who’s never struggled with a subject to teach it, because a genius can’t see things from the perspective of someone struggling to learn it unintuitively.  It might be a huge struggle for him to actually figure out how to dumb down his knowledge, or even deconstruct his thought process and see/present things from a student’s perspective.  He’d either have to teach at a very high academic level or write advanced text books.

Roy’s not wrong that Ed will be much happier with a woman than a bottle.  Not that Ed was really going the way of drowning his miseries in alcohol, but it wasn’t the first time he gravitated that way.  Being his own type of disaster, Roy picked up on it after Ed was back and before everything went bonkers, catching him being in a ‘wrong’ sort of state.  Ed was drinking alone and was jumpy when he was approached, and that set off some warning bells in Roy’s head.  Roy diffused that incident and refocussed Ed.  After the story settles back down and he gets a moment with Ed again, Ed’s visually showing signs of his problems.  Roy gets Ed to drink with him in a monitored setting where he can figure out the state this Disaster Elric is in and got most of, if not all of, his questions answered.  Whether or not Ed remembers everything he said is a secret for Roy to keep.

Al isn’t a basketcase like his brother is and he’s the least damaged of the Resembool Trio LOL.  Definitely went out at midnight to roll around in the grass naked.

 


 

Time for a bit on Ed and Winry.

I have a feeling some readers wanted something more official for Ed and Winry at the end, but Ed falling in love wasn’t part of his character path in this story.  He has too much other baggage to deal with first.  What was important to his character was how he opened up with Winry, let her in, and then wanted her to stay (whereas before he’d always pushed her away).  Ed grows his trust zone beyond Al - Al is his moral compass, Winry becomes his emotional compass.  His motivation with her wasn’t typical boy-girl love, it was the value of her companionship (which is so high that he couldn’t put a price on it when threatened) and he wants to keep, protect, and cherish that.  They can develop couple-y love properly later, Ed just has to address his mountain of baggage first, and Winry will help him deal with it. 

Ed hadn't been open to Winry's desire to cry for him in the series, because he was pretty broken even before the other world came into play.  So, when Winry runs to him to bawl her eyes out for herself after she screwed up in London, Ed finally experiences the cathartic release she'd tried to offer him, and there's a great amount of his own sadness, stress, disappointment, and agony that he quietly shares with her.  He 'completely understood' because he was listening and holding onto a bundle of emotions he could feel in himself, but couldn't articulate.  It's a key moment in their relationship.  Up until that point, they'd been bumbling around with each other - Winry trying to adjust to her surroundings, Ed trying to adjust to the change, and they weren't on the same page.  Then Ed gets kidnapped and he retreats into his own private darkness as he deals.  Right before Winry gets lost, as Ed's coming out of it, he's walking home with her and realizes he's enjoying his time with her.  For a bit, things don't seem so bad, and he asks for it to continue.  Immediately after this Winry disappears.  So when he gets her back, Ed acts almost out of character, but he's emoting with her.  Winry comes crying to him for support on an outpouring of emotion he's intimately familiar with, but he's very limited with what he can offer, so Ed puts his guards down to try and take care of her.  He holds her without being awkward or protesting.  He rubs Winry's back to comfort her and that's something Winry focusses on, because until that point she hadn't known him as someone who could express physical comfort.  The hand he comforts her with comes from Hohenheim, who would rub Ed's back to calm him when he had pneumonia, and as much as he absolutely hated it, it was a comfort and he remembered that, so he extends it to her.  Ed stays with her for as long as she needs, and actually falls asleep.  I wasn't sure if letting him fall asleep with Winry so close was something he could do at that point, but he's far more spent than she is.  Ed's emotional mess was greater than his awkward tenancies, so once Winry's asleep Ed gives himself permission to rest with her.  After, neither one of them address it.  Winry because she's embarrassed and humbled and Ed because he showed her a side of himself he doesn't know what to do with.  But it does calm them both down and they start existing on the same page, and Ed opens the door that allows Winry to become his support mechanism (which becomes important later when Hohenheim dies).  For an event where Ed could have been angry or frustrated with her and allowed it to linger, it was the complete opposite.  I suppose the big take away you can get from that is that Ed gave Winry what he needed, but would never ever ask for, and got some cathartic healing in return.  Equivalent Exchange.

I could, and have, written essays on the importance of Der gute Kamerad for the two of them (both as individuals and for their relationship).  I think I'll leave this one alone though.  Ed acknowledging in the last chapter that he'd heard Winry that night, rather than doing his usual by filing away the bad memories and moving on, is important growth for him.

After Hohenheim dies, Ed starts to change how he interacts with Winry.  Ed gradually starts shortening her name to “Win”, that one’s the most apparent change (Al picks up on it once they’re home too).  Also, if they’re ever standing or walking together Ed makes sure Winry is on his left side, because that’s the side his good arm is on and he can protect her with it.  Even after he gets his right arm back, he’ll still use his left hand/arm/side with her, because that’s his tactile side.  And Ed starts physically interacting with Winry.  He’ll put his arm around her shoulders a couple of times, once after the street fight and again in the Thule Hall when Hess is circling.  He starts taking her hand before they return home too.  First when they’re running through the streets in “Atrophy of Mankind” – instead of grabbing her by the wrist or elbow like he normally would, he grabs her hand and hangs on.  Winry notices he does that and because of the circumstances it adds to her fear because Ed’s never done it before.  A few chapters later Ed figures out how to be a gentleman and holds Winry’s hand back to their seats at the concert. 

The chapters between Hohenheim’s death and their return home, Winry is pretty much all Ed has left.  Al is out of reach.  His dad’s been murdered.  His sense of self is a mess.  The worst people in the world are looking his way.  Envy’s licking his lips and Ed can’t figure out how to get home.  He's starting to understand that he doesn't have the power to get home, but he's ignoring it and hoping he can find a way no one else has thought of yet – it’s why he’s documenting the Thule Hall even though he’s already made it known it’s not something he wants to toy with.  He’s going to take this BS anyways and find some way to make this abomination work in his favour.  He even starts turning away from rocket science because after reading the Theory of Beyond the Gate knows it’s not going to help him (Hermann is really confused why Ed doesn’t jump all over an invite to a science conference).  

He tries to be more open with her; Winry scolds him for not telling her about Envy, but Ed didn’t deny her the information because he was trying to shelter her, he just simply couldn’t find a way to relay the bad news.  He’s unsuccessful in this instance, but he was still trying, and he does manage to communicate his failed thought process, which was important.

Everything that goes down in the Thule Hall is Ed’s worst nightmare, and the source of his later nightmares.  When Ed picks Winry up to try and salvage what little he has left (their lives) he knows when they step off the circle he’ll lose his chance of getting home.  When they stop to look at the doll and chalk transmutation circle on the floor, Ed tells Winry ‘it’s a charm that makes wishes come true’, he's realized he's not getting home.  By fighting to stay alive he loses the fight to get home and see Al again, and all he can do is wish… which Al grants him.

So, when he gets home, Ed’s suffering from some severe emotional whiplash and he’s really protective of Winry because he came thiiiis close to losing her.  He’s an absolute mess, but he keeps trying anyway, even if it's poorly.  My favourite disaster :’)

Ed would have done anything at the Gate to get home, so when Winry’s panicking that Ed’s going to hurt himself doing it, she’s right to think so.  Ed and Winry’s definitions of ‘okay’ are different, but the ground they meet on is that Ed makes it clear he wants to get home and live out his life at home. Whatever the Gate’s conditions are for getting there, he’ll take it, so long as he gets back in as much of one piece as possible.

For the record, in the universe where I write a version of the story where Al doesn’t save them and they run down the hall, they would have come out in a train yard on the other side, stowed away in a box car, gone wherever it took them, and eventually made their way back to London where Ed takes Patti up on the Scotland suggestion.  At some point the bullets in Winry’s leg are addressed, but not while they’re in Munich (they ditch everything and get out of there as fast as possible).  They live quiet lives, eventually find happiness in each other, and they never go home :(

 


 

Hmmmm, random thoughts!

I want to give a huge shout out to AmunRa, who beta'd chapters 8-43.  At around chapter 6 or 7 she reached out and offered to beta for me.  I didn’t know what a beta was at the time and had to ask someone lol.  I was too shy to ask anyone to proofread for me, so I was really flattered that one of my readers would volunteer.  I’ve done a lot of revising of chapters 1-7 because they continue to suffer from unbeta’d pain, but when I went to touch up chapter 8 it was NOTICEABLY better lol.  The power of your beta.  She was amazing, made me and this story better, and she wasn’t afraid to tell me when I’d botched something either.  I will always be incredibly grateful for all her help.  I reached out to her in 2017 when I was thinking about the fic again, and like, the moment I did, life went 'lol no fun for you' and I fell off the internet again.  That was a rough year... and so was the next year =A=.  I didn’t reach out to her for this last revival.  It had been a really long time, and covid was really stressful on everyone everywhere, and I didn’t want to trouble her.  Me resurfacing years later like ‘lol hey you wanna go back to betaing 10K chapters in the middle of a plague?’ felt pretty rude.  I also didn't know if life was going to continue doing the 'lol no fun for you' and put a stop to things again.  I was using the fic to deal with (or not deal with) my own IRL troubles and I just wanted to keep all that to myself.  I hid in this story to ignore my problems LOL.  Also sometimes I get lazy if I know there’s someone around to critique me, so I kinda liked the idea of adding the challenge of being my own worst critic.  I HOPE YOU'RE DOING WELL, AMUNRA!!  Folks, if you’re into Bleach or Yugioh, go check out her stuff over on FFN!

The story parts seem to exist to comfort me in stressful times.  Part 1 was written during my Educational Crisis (school’s hard y'all), Part 2 is mostly during my Professional Crisis (when I realized I was on the wrong career path and wanted to bail oops), and Part 3 is how I dealt with my Covid Crisis.  No more life crises for me I guess lol.  Though I have to give a special shout out to my old library, where I wrote Part 1.  I think I spent more time there in 2005 with my dad’s hand-me-down laptop than I did at home.  I had one spot in the library where the good vibe was and got kicked out at closing more than once LOL.

I really like how I wrote in 2010/11, there’s something loose and free that I feel when I re-read it.  I tried to capture that when I started up again, but I feel like I was a little stiff and stale sometimes (mostly because it was very heavily outlined).  I'm not sure if that was just me or the rust I was feeling, but hopefully it wasn’t too rigid.  

Ed picked up one minor speech habit beyond the Gate that he’s maintained the whole fic (or at least I tried to maintain *squints*).  When referring to himself and another he almost always says “Al and I” or “Winry and I” whereas other characters will say “me and Al” or “me and Winry”.  That’s me inserting how my dad made me correct and repeat all my sentences as a kid to make sure I “use the queen’s English” when I spoke lmaoooo.  Considering the trouble I got in for minor English infractions, Ed probably got all sorts of grief for how he spoke.  Unfortunately for him, that one stuck.

The segment PoVs are generally reserved for the series cast + Brigitte, but there are two exceptions for OCs: Rudolf Hess gets a PoV in ‘Der gute Kamerad’, which is the last time he’s seen acting without Envy’s influence.  Hermann Oberth gets a PoV in ‘Pages in the Journeyman's Voyage’, which is the last time he ever sees Ed and Winry.  It’s Tilly’s PoV in the epilogue because I introduced her in Chapter 1 and I thought that rounded things out nicely.

Something I did with both Winry and Brigitte early on was have their presence reflect the palette difference that was being used in the Beyond the Gate scenes in the series.  The Germany colours are notably muted compared to the Amestris colours, so when Brigitte arrives she finds everything so visually bright she struggles with it.  To her, everything is too bright and too warm.  Winry’s the opposite, everything for her is dull and too cold.  Early on, the German characters were describing Winry as radiant and some attributed it to beauty - that was the leftover vibrancy radiating off of her from the brightness of Amestris.  I was actually surprised when I found out that people thought I was using it to make Winry extra beautiful and Ed just wasn’t noticing it LOL. 

Also on that note, Winry constantly complained it was too cold.  I had people point out at some point that damn I made 1921 have the worst winter ever.  On one hand, yes my small, very northern Canadian brain did botch the climate, even if I’d thought I’d compensated haha, but the world was actually not that cold.  Winry wasn’t used to the chill and perceived everything as MUCH colder than it actually was. At the time I likened it to a Girl Guide camp I went to as a teenager.  It was summer, +22-ish outside, we were all in swimsuits and going out to the lake, and the Jamaican Girl Guides who came up for the camp as part of an exchange were so cold in our hot weather that they wore their hoodies and sweats the whole time.  We thought it was so nice out we needed to go jump in the lake, but these girls were so cold in my kind of hot they were having none of this adventure.  Winry’s impression of the weather is like that.  Also, I just like a snow/winter aesthetic XD;;;.

Something I tried to enforce while Ed was in Europe was the world and people he was surrounded by weren’t as bad as he made them out to be.  Winry noticed that and tried to point it out, but the problem was Ed *wanted* to hate his experience, which is a flaw he’s written with.  Ed doesn’t want to get comfortable there, he doesn’t want to enjoy himself there, he doesn’t want to be happy, he doesn’t want to like anyone, he wants to hone what little positive energy he has into getting home.  He doesn’t want to miss anything about the place when he goes home.  He hurts himself by doing that.  The people around him (and even those who ended up with a more sinister history later on in their lives) were just run of the mill people for their age, experiences, and time period.

If I have one regret, or maybe a thing I could change, it’s taking away the feeling in Ed’s arm and leg.  I’d give it back to him, the manner he’s bound to the Gate is enough.  At the time I took it away it was more justified.  He must learn to live with his own mistakes, plus mine too :’’).  There’s a way worked into the story for him to get it back, it’s actually fairly easy to do, but after all these boys have been through and learnt, there’s NO way they’d chance it.  It goes against their lessons and character development.  Sorry Ed… at least you’re not dead.

If you read this story prior to my 2021 restart, you might notice that I got rid of all the Nazi references and replaces them with another term or NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - the actual name of Hitler’s party).  ‘Nazi’ wasn’t used to refer to the party until the back-half of the 1920s (before that, ‘Nazi’ had other meanings) and was rarely used to refer to them internally within Germany.  It was the world outside of Germany in the 1930s that transformed the word ‘Nazi’ into what we recognize it as today.   

 


 

I get to date myself at the end here, but I remember when I ‘joined’ the FMA fandom – back then it was the day you join your first series-themed community or forum.  By joining, you had arrived!  The day I joined was the day FUNi announced they’d licensed the series and all hell broke loose on the internet LOL (licensing was very devastating news in 2004).  I showed up to a dumpsterfire and it was a memorable introduction to a fandom.  It was also episode 31 of the Japanese broadcast (which was what I’d actually shown up to talk about lol).  There was something about living through this series on a weekly basis without any idea what was going to come and absolutely nothing else to compare it to that really hit hard.  The manga was already heading in a different direction, but was still very young for story progression, so we were all flying by the seats of our pants on this wild ride.  London?  AU Ed?  Ed getting zeppelin’d?  Ed getting impaled by Envy like that?  Wild wild trauma ride with no safety nets.  This fic was my coping mechanism.  I have now coped LOL.

A very big thank you to anyone who has ever read this very, very, very long fanfic.  I’m always shocked when someone voluntarily reads this knowing how many words they have to get through LOL.  Thank you for doing that.  I wrote this nonsense for myself, because I saw big things for the open ended FMA03 series timeline.  I hope you enjoyed what I did with it :) and thank you for spending so much of your time in my imagination with me!