October 2nd, 1971
"This casserole is fabulous, Mom," Reichart Elric grinned over his plate at the crowded dinner table in his parents' house. It was always nice to have a good family meal, even if he and Deanna did live just a hill over.
"Fantastic," Urey agreed between bites.
"Well, thanks," Cassie chuckled. "Though if you keep going on about it like this, I'm going to wonder if you've been giving me false compliments about the rest of my cooking your whole lives."
"Not at all," Grandpa Ed shook his head as he refilled his plate. "It just means that you've somehow managed to perfect perfection."
"Oh, I see."
It was definitely a crowded evening in the old Rockbell-Elric house. Not only Reichart and Deanna, but his parents, his three younger brothers and sister, Grandma and Grandpa, and even Great Uncle Alphonse and Great Aunt Elicia, who had stayed in Resembool for a nice long visit after the summer weddings.
Reichart couldn't help glancing next to him at Deanna who was chatting with Grandma Winry and Elicia over the meal, her plate only half eaten. They'd been married since July; a short but wonderful couple of months that had made him happier than he'd dared to hope, but had dared to dream. Settled into their house, content in Resembool, with such a beautiful, amazing….
"Hey, Art!"
Reichart blinked and looked at Ian. His fourteen-year-old brother was grinning wickedly at him.
Ian shook his head. "You could at least pay attention when I'm telling a story about my acting career," he pointed out. "You'll have plenty of time to think about other things later."
"How about you don't worry about what I'm thinking about," Reichart resisted the urge to fling a pat of butter at his little brother. He was too old for that kind of thing now… really. Instead he slathered it on his wheat roll and wisely told himself not to tell Ian he wasn't old enough to think about what Ian obviously assumed Reichart was thinking about. His brother already spent way more time concerning himself with girls than Reichart had at that age. Of course, by fourteen, he'd already had his eyes and heart set towards Deanna, so maybe that wasn't a fair comparison.
Obviously aware that ribbing Reichart would get him nowhere, Ian turned his attention and the rest of his story on Urey and Great Uncle Alphonse.
"Anybody want seconds, or thirds?" Reichart's mother asked as she stood and turned to the casserole dish on the sideboard.
"I do!" Grandpa Ed grinned, holding out his plate.
"Or fourths," Grandma Winry snickered. "No thanks, Cassie."
A chorus of yeses from younger boys was met with refilled plates. "Deanna?" Cassie asked as she turned back around.
"No thank you," Deanna replied, smiling even as she shook her head.
Reichart noted the remaining couple of bites on her plate and while he wasn't surprised, his mother looked concerned.
"You're sure?" Cassie asked her daughter-in-law.
"Yes, I'm full," Deanna assured her.
"All right, then." Cassie served out the few remaining bits to the rest of the boys and put the casserole dish in the sink before returning to the table. "Time for dessert."
Dessert turned out to be warm peach cobbler with fresh local-made vanilla ice cream, made from the milk of the cows at Deanna's folks' dairy to be exact.
Reichart knew he was in for questions when Deanna turned down dessert as well, and politely excused herself to use the rest room.
"Something you'd like to tell us?" Aldon asked pointedly, almost as soon as Deanna left the room. He wasn't the only one giving him curious looks. Every adult in the room was looking at him. Ian just kept on telling his story to Urey and Ted.
Reichart shook his head and stuck his fork in his mouth. "Nope."
"Reichart."
"You can stop glaring," Deanna's voice came from the hallway as she rejoined them, looking just a bit pale. She chuckled. "I made him promise."
Reichart relaxed as all eyes left him and turned to his wife. It was hard keeping anything a secret in this family!
"So we're right then." Grandma Winry was smiling. It wasn't even a question.
Deanna nodded as she came back to the table. "Art told me we couldn't keep it quiet," she admitted with a rueful little smile.
Now they had the attention of the younger folk at the table. Urey, at least, seemed to have picked up on it.
"Keep what quiet?" Ian looked at them suspiciously.
Reichart slipped one arm around his wife's shoulder as Deanna sat down. She replied casually, "I'm pregnant."
"Already?" Ian exclaimed, staring at Reichart. "Wow that didn't take you long, did it?"
"Ian!" Cassie glared at her son.
Reichart had to bite his tongue not to laugh at his mother's expression. Apparently Grandpa Ed had no such compunction, as he started snickering.
His father looked mildly stunned, but it didn't last long. "Congratulations," he said to Reichart as half the table erupted with baby questions, Reichart was happy to let Deanna answer.
The baby was due at the end of April. Yes, they were excited. No, they hadn't come up with any names yet.
"Thanks," Reichart smiled at his father. "There goes our peace and quiet."
"Get used to it," Aldon laughed. "The last time your mother and I had peace and quiet was before Coran was born."
"Funny," Reichart grinned. "But the way that story goes, it wasn't all that quiet at Briggs before Coran either." In fact, since the Larsons had moved into town, Reichart had managed to pry some very interesting stories out of Ollie Larson about his and Aldon's Briggs adventures.
"They were still quieter than a house full of you guys," Aldon replied. "Not that we'd trade it for anything."
Reichart leaned back, sipping his cup of tea. "Good thing," he teased. "I'd hate to think we were all accidents, or the product of unbridled lust."
He had the satisfaction of watching his father's face go blank. The comment earned him a shove in the shoulder a moment later. "And just how are you going to answer that accusation when your brood asks you that in nineteen years?" Aldon asked.
At that moment Reichart had the answer he'd already really known his father would give him. "I love my wife."
October 3rd, 1971
The soft white sand of the southern Aerugean beach seemed to go on forever under the cloudless powder blue sky. A seagull drifted on the air current, seeming to hang in mid-air and only the rustle of the wind through the palms and the slow lapping roar of the waves on the beach were strong enough to cover the sounds of people playing on the shore.
Lounging on a beach chair, Roy Mustang –second in his family to bear that name and the first born to it— admired the view and wondered how his counterparts back in Central were enjoying what was reported to be a wet and chilly fall.
He doubted the guys in his class had the view he did; the swath of beach dotted with sun-tanned barely clad bodies, many of them beautiful woman. Directly in front of him, four played at a game of volleyball. Three were dark as natives from months in the Aerugean sun; and the fourth a lean, graceful blonde in a simple black one-piece suit.
Too bad he was related to every girl on this end of the beach.
"I got it!" Rochelle grinned and jumped in the air as her spike send the ball down sharply between Théa and their mother. She high-fived her team-mate, Grandma Riza, enthusiastically. "We won!"
"Well played," Riza grinned.
"We'll get you next time," Théa chuckled, picking up the ball as they abandoned the net for use by the next group of eager vacationers; a group of college-age coeds. Though several of the guys' eyes clearly went to Théa and Rochelle, sizing up the younger women.
My sisters should not be old enough to wear bikinis.
Not that Théa looked much younger than the college girls now, at fifteen, having inherited the curves of both sides of the family.
Rochelle was only thirteen, but developed enough she was often mistaken for a high school girl. Fortunately her personality was still innocent and childlike enough that the mistake didn't happen often or for long.
If I have to chase any more boys away from my sisters I'm going to use alchemy to do it.
His family had been in Aerugo since summer, and his sisters were fully enjoying a year in the Aerugean schools, though the school they attended was a private school in Bueáire, that accepted the children of diplomats as well as those of important Aerugean families. Roy had been impressed with how well they were getting along, though he remembered that his mother had been in school with his father in Central when her father was ambassador to Amestris years ago.
Roy had come down with Grandma Riza for the fall holiday. Having not come down over the summer, he hadn't seen the rest of his family in months. He didn't mind admitting he had missed them, even if he had learned a lot studying with Edward Elric and Trisha in Resembool.
He wondered what his girlfriend would say if she could see him lounging around on a beach, doing absolutely nothing. Hopefully she'd be here with me. I wouldn't mind seeing Trisha in a bikini.
A brightly colored towel smacked him in the face. "Hey, lazy," Rochelle giggled. "Shouldn't you be training or something?"
Roy snatched the towel, grinning at his little sister. "Not on vacation I shouldn't. Though maybe Dad should." He glanced over at the chair next to him, where his father was passed out under the shade of an umbrella, looking quite relaxed. "He might be permanently attached to that chair by now."
"Oh I don't think so," his mother chuckled softly, leaning over and whispering something into Maes' ear.
Roy managed not to snicker as his father came instantly awake, catching Elena's hand before it could tickle his side. His parents' eyes met, and for a moment Roy was sure the rest of them were forgotten. This time in Aerugo had clearly been good for his parents.
It was the whimpering of one of Riza's dogs that broke the moment. Roy glanced over to his other side, where the four foxy-eared curly tailed dogs were lying in a well behaved line in the shade. His grandmother had refused to leave them behind on this trip. One of the female reds, Yelke, was carrying pups out of the black-and-cream male, Hiko. Hiko and his dark-red sesame sister, Jima, were descendents of his grandmother's first dog, Hayate. Yelke and the other red female, Mora, were newer acquisitions, specifically for breeding purposes. Lucky dog.
"I'd say it's dinner time," Riza commented as she crouched down and gave Yelke a pat on the head, for it was the pregnant female who had whimpered.
"Sounds great to me," Maes chuckled, stretching. "I'm starved."
"After not doing anything all day?" Elena smiled.
"That was some serious relaxation," Maes stood up and kissed her cheek. "Don't worry," he said softly into Elena's ear so softly Roy almost missed it. "You can help me work it off later."
There were some things a seventeen-year-old just didn't need to hear his parents talk about. Though really, Roy would rather hear his parents' flirtations than the fighting that had plagued parts of his earlier childhood. "Dinner sounds good," he agreed, getting up and slipping on the sandals he had worn down to the beach from the resort they were staying at for the holiday. "Tonight's supposed to be that sand-pit pork roast isn't it?"
"And a dance!" Théa grinned as she wrapped a towel around her slim waist. Her long dark hair waved in the strong wind blowing in off the ocean.
"Who cares about that part?" Roy shrugged, though he grinned. He liked tweaking his sister.
"Oh, don't you?" Théa asked. "There are an awful lot of girls at the resort who think you're cute."
"Who wouldn't last two seconds in a fight with Trisha," Roy replied loyally. Yes, there were a lot of very attractive girls vacationing down here, but none of them was his girl. Besides, if he got too close to any of them he wouldn't last two seconds facing down her wrath!
"You just have weird taste in girls." Théa shrugged.
"Well I don't see what you see in that Cretan guy," Roy countered as he picked up the picnic basket they had brought down for lunch.
Maes' eyes went straight to his oldest daughter. "What Cretan guy?"
Roy tried not to look guilty as Théa gave him a dirty look. "Just a guy here with his uncle, Daddy. We were having a nice conversation about the wildlife and the plants here the other day."
"Is that all?" Maes asked suspiciously.
"It's true," Rochelle cut in, backing up her sister. "Nikolaos' uncle is a naturalist. He specializes in jungle and rainforest ecology."
"Sounds fascinating," Elena smiled, planting one hand firmly on Maes' shoulder. "I'm sure he's a very nice boy. Now let's get back up to the hotel and get dressed for dinner."
At times like these, it was so easy for Maes to almost forget that, aside from Elena, his family wasn't native Aerugean. Of course, all three of his children were half-Aerugean, and rather looked the part, tanning much better than he ever did, but watching them so comfortably conversing in both languages, enjoying the food –his daughters very happily wearing the latest in Aerugean fashion- it was like they had lived here for years instead of merely months with the occasional family vacation.
The resort's celebration was set up along the beach, though nearly a half-mile back from where they had been earlier that day, as the resort itself sat at the top of a rocky ridge-line above the beach. When the tide came in, it moved up that far, and tonight it seemed particularly high. The moon only glinted on it from time to time when it peaked through the clouds, but down under the lantern light by the tables, where a live band was playing dance music, no one seemed to mind that it wasn't a starry night.
Stuffed full of amazing pit barbecued pork and tropical fruits and vegetables, Maes was happy to lean back and enjoy crowd watching, grateful he'd gone for a loose, comfortable shirt with a tropical print of orange, red, and green. Besides which, he had Elena beside him, in a lovely sundress of rich wine burgundy, her head resting sleepily against his shoulder as his arm draped around hers. "Tired?" he asked with a soft chuckle.
"Mmmhmm," she nodded, smiling. "We did have a lot of fun today. It's been years since I played beach volleyball."
"Well you looked fabulous doing it," Maes assured her, grateful –as he was often- that his wife still looked fabulous, and certainly younger than their early-forties. Privately, he'd go so far as to say she looked almost young enough to be
Théa's older sister instead of her mother, but the last time he'd told Elena that, she's smiled and told him his eyesight must be going.
Théa was drawing a lot of attention herself, mostly from boys, though Maes was glad to see that she didn't seem to be openly flirting, just holding friendly conversation. Rochelle was giggling with some other vacationing girls her own age. Roy, he noticed, seemed to have positioned himself where he could keep an eye on his sisters, though he was chatting with one of the other guys. Unsurprisingly, he wasn't giving much attention to the girls except to be polite. With Trisha back home, Maes was sure it would be hard to be distracted by the girls here.
It was funnier watching the middle-aged or older men who were here –some with or without female companions- attempting to catch his mother's attention. The only one who had gotten so much as a smile had been the gentleman smart enough to offer a few bites of his pork to the dogs and chatted with Riza for nearly half an hour about them and dogs in general. Apparently he had raised retrievers himself for decades.
Elena shifted on his shoulder. "You always think I look fabulous."
"Because you do," Maes replied matter-of-factly. "Why? Don't you think I look fabulous?"
Elena looked up at him and her mouth quirked into an amused smile. "I think you're starting to look a bit of a scoundrel and a vagabond… a soft one at that," she teased, poking him in the side.
Maes wriggled as her finger tickled him just below the ribs. "Hey! Scoundrel I don't mind," he chuckled, running one hand through his hair. It could probably use a trim, he conceded. "But I object to the rest. Just because I'm the respectable husband of the ambassador from Amestris doesn't mean I've gone soft."
"Okay, softer," Elena conceded. "That's not a bad thing. You seem much more relaxed here. I'm so glad we came."
"Me too." Maes leaned in to kiss her cheek. "I-"
The world lurched with a violent bang that sounded like cannon shot, and suddenly he was catching Elena instead of kissing her. "What was that?" He exclaimed as everyone stopped dead and the beach fell silent.
"I don't…" Elena struggled to sit up. "Was it an earthquake?"
The rumbling had already died away to nothing.
People were helping each other to their feet, babbling now, concerned.
Maes glanced around for his family. He spotted his mother and all three kids quickly. Impressively, they all seemed to have kept their feet and were among those helping others up. He smiled reassuringly at Elena. "Well that was something. At least it's over."
The beach lurched again, just as lightning split the sky.
Out across the ocean –the direction from which the rolling earth seemed to be coming- was a black tower of clouds against the night sky, quickly swallowing the few stars that dared to peak through the softer clouds. Lightning danced across the sky.
"I'm sorry folks," the event coordinator apologized, stepping up on the stage, where the musicians had stopped playing and were righting instruments and stands. "It looks like we'll have to move the rest of tonight's festivities indoors. Please don't panic! We sometimes get little rumbles like this."
"That wasn't a little rumble," Riza commented softly as she joined them, the dogs on her heels looking concerned.
"Still, let's go." Elena was holding firmly on to Maes' arm as they headed towards the cut in the ridge that led to the path back up to the resort on top of the cliff. The children gravitated towards them in the crowd as they moved.
They were less than half way there when a whining siren split the air with a painful scream, and people began to break into a run.
"What's going on?" Rochelle asked, looking around wide-eyed.
"We already know about the storm. They can't be warning people about the quake. It's too late," Roy added as the ground beneath them shuddered again, though not as strongly as before.
"Théa!" a voice Maes didn't recognize shouted over the rising wind and clamoring voices. He glanced sideways as the rain started coming down in fat drops, and spotted a tanned young man with dark hair pushing his way through the crowd towards them.
"Nik!" Théa called back. "Do you know what's going on?"
"Run!" Nikolaos –or so Maes assumed- shouted. "Tsunami!"
Maes' blood ran cold. "Go," He pushed Elena ahead of him as he glanced back. Way out under the stormclouds, in the flash of the light-show above, he caught a glimpse of something oddly reflective…and tall. From that distance it barely appeared to be moving, except that it hadn't been there less than a minute ago. A wall of water moving faster than a man had any hope of running, but they had distance on their side.
They ran like Maes hadn't run in years, though he kept his eyes flitting from one family member to another, keeping track of them in the chaos. If anyone fell, he wasn't about to let them get left behind or half-trampled.
They hit the trail and pelted up it, until a stitch formed in Maes' side and it was all he could do not to double over. They just had to get to the top. The wall wasn't that tall, was it? No, they would be safely inside the resort soon. The top of the ridge would be high enough.
Except that the resort was no longer standing. Or rather, part of the building was there, but in the driving, stinging rain, Maes could see that half of it lay dark, and the quake had collapsed the entire south-west corner. Windows were gone in half the building, and it creaked in the growing wind.
"This way!"
It was that boy again. "Where are we supposed to be going?" Maes snapped. The kid couldn't be more than eighteen.
"They've called for an evacuation of the building," Nikolaos shouted back. "My uncle Engelo knows the evacuation route" He pointed off to the west, left along the cliff. "We go inland there."
"Why are half the people going that way?" Riza asked, gesturing to the others.
"There's two routes," Nikolaos replied. "But this one's faster, and it'll get us up-land faster."
"Isn't the cliff high enough?" Rochelle gasped, locks of soaked hair streaming in her face. The rain was cold, and hard.
The boy's face went stone serious. "Do you want to stand around here waiting to find out? Whole coastline's being evacuated. We have half an hour if we're lucky."
"What about our stuff?" Théa looking longingly at the half destroyed building.
"We can replace it," Maes replied. There wasn't time to stand around debating. The crowd was thinning around them as people were herded towards the escape routes. No one was being allowed back inside. "All right, boy –Nikolaos is it? - lead the way." He just hoped he didn't regret that call.
October 4th, 1971
No amount of coffee could keep yawns from the faces of the Amestrian military officers crammed into General Kane's conference room at six in the morning, but it certainly wasn't needed to get their minds going. The horror of the news coming over the radio and reported on the television in the wee hours of the morning was enough to shake even the worst night-owl from sleep.
The room was crammed with owlishly-blinking officers, sitting around the conference table and crammed in along the walls. The emergency calls had come early. Sara Heimler was just glad she rated a chair near the front. She sat with Kane's seat to her left, and Cal Fischer and Tore Closson to her right.
It had been a long time since she'd looked at a map of Aerugo, but the cities and the layout of the country were still unsettlingly familiar. Only this time, they weren't going to war with the people of Aerugo… just the land.
Kane was holding up a pointer, drawing a circle in the air around the lower plains that covered nearly the bottom quarter of the country. "The earthquakes last night had three major impacts," he was saying, even though it was currently repeating a lot of what they had heard on the radio. "The first was, of course, building damage across the bottom half of the country, where the shock hit hardest from this point," he tapped the shoreline, "and spreading outward. The secondary effect was, of course, the tsunami reported to have hit half an hour later." He went back to circling the plains. "It has proceeded to push inland, flooding the entire southern plain. There has been a mass evacuation of the area already, but they're reporting large numbers of missing and casualties, as well as predicting the destruction of sixty percent of this year's harvest."
"Sixty percent of the crops in that area?" Felix Tringham asked.
"Of the crops for the entire country," Kane replied flatly. "This is their bread basket, if you will."
"Shit."
"Exactly my sentiment Mr. Tringham."
"What about the volcanic eruption?" a voice Sara recognized as one of this year's new alchemists, asked from the back of the room.
"Our third problem," Kane sighed. His pointer came to rest with a hard smack right on top of the resort city of Havah. "Also a result of the earthquakes, or so I'm told, was the pyroclastic eruption of a long-dormant volcano nearly on top of Havah. A large portion of the Eastern side of the city has been destroyed, and the rest is in disarray. There has been mass evacuation from this area as well, and people are still fleeing. There's panic, injuries, deaths, and unfortunately, we can inevitably expecting looting and violence out of this little scenario with the shortages of food and housing, and the desperation that is likely to follow, both realistically and however much it's blown out of proportion in people's heads."
"Sounds like a lousy situation, sir," the new alchemist –Tanner Henson she remembered now- commented.
"That would be an understatement." Kane looked around the room. "President Rehnquist received a call this morning from Bueáire, which is also dealing with severe damage from the earthquakes, thanks to its proximity to the ocean, though it was fortunately too far inland and above sea level to be affected by the tsunami. The Aerugean government has not only declared a full state of emergency, but they are asking for Amestris' aid in their time of crisis."
"What kind of aid?" a female alchemist asked.
"Humanitarian mostly," Kane replied. "They're begging for doctors, engineers and architects and workers who can help clean things up and rebuild what's been knocked down. The people need care, supplies, and comfort. From us," he gestured around the room at the State Alchemists, "They're asking for what we do best; some of everything. The military will be sending small units down to help the Aerugean military and civilian police force keep the peace and discourage looting. We will also be doing a variety of jobs in helping with rebuilding, according to your individual strengths. The Alchemists are not general manual labor, nor will we be used as weapons."
A fact Sara doubted the newer alchemists were capable of fully appreciating. So many of them had joined up after the last war. She sipped her coffee. "So how are we being deployed?"
"In small units, of primarily alchemists, though I have received word that we will be assigned regular soldiers to help with the peacekeeping portion of the job. We are, apparently, too important to be left to fend for ourselves," he smiled at the irony.
"Nice that someone finally noticed," Cal quipped.
Kane did not dignify the sarcasm with a response. "Myself and Brigadier General Heimler will each be in charge of the two main units. Most of you will remain in your usual assigned groups. Twilight," he gave Sara a grim smile. "Feel free to select whoever you feel you need on your team. You're going to Havah. I've been told that I am to take my units to Bueáire."
So the cities were to be salvaged first. That made sense. Sara nodded. "When are we deploying, sir?" Her recent promotion didn't sound nearly so nice when it came with the unpleasant task of heading up what promised to be a very depressing and difficult mission.
"Regular military units are already mobilizing," Kane replied. "We'll be on the trains in five days. If you know anyone in the civilian sector with skills that will be of use who might be willing to help out, talk to them. You know where to send all have until then to inform your families, pack, and be ready. Any further questions?"
He got none.
"Very well. Dismissed."
Sara stood, and stretched until her back popped repeatedly.
"Well if there was ever a place I wasn't interested in seeing again," Cal chuckled beside her.
"You're far too chipper for this early in the morning," Sara grumbled at him. "Especially given I know you don't like mornings."
"I was already up with Charlie when the call came," Cal admitted, referring to his infant son. "Though I wasn't expecting diaper duty to turn into disaster relief."
Tore, at least, looked as tired as Sara felt. he yawned and drained the last of the coffee in his mug. "This wasn't exactly how I wanted to get a vacation in Aerugo."
"Believe me," Sara sighed. "This won't be any kind of a vacation."
"Oh I know that," Tore replied. "I'm not looking forward to telling Charisa I'll be gone for months though. We had plans."
"What kind of plans?" Cal asked with a knowing grin.
"Does it matter?" Sara cut in. "Just get ready. I want both of you with me on this mission, so don't go getting yourselves killed by your wives before it's time to go."
Both smart-asses saluted. "Yes, Ma'am!"
