So this is a half oneshot, half continuous thing. If updated at all, it will be a long, sporadic process.
Working an A Very Long Distance Phone Call at this very moment.
It was truly coincidence that four mothers died so young.
"Where am I?" Trisha had asked, her eyes misty and glazed over.
When Truth had not appeared as he usually did to send her to the other side, two young women peering into a glassy pool had looked up from where they sat in the infinite white nothingness. The blonde one rose first, her long blonde hair in a braid and powder blue dress – framed with lace and at least a decade out of style – rustling under a clean white apron. She was followed by a young Xingese woman in a dark green dress.
"You're at the Gate. Are you aware that you are dead?"
Trisha's face paled. "What will happen to Ed and Al? I was ready to die, but now as I'm here…"
The two women shared a knowing glance. They had seen this before.
"We're sorry. I felt this way too, you know, but there's no going back. My name is Qiu, and this is Elizabeth," the Xingese woman said softly. She had a light tint of an accent as well, just enough to make her voice foreign and unfamiliar.
"My name is Trisha Elric. I'm pleased to meet you, but I wish the circumstances were better."
Elizabeth smiled sadly. "Likewise, Trisha." She paused at glanced around again. "Usually the Truth explains this part, but I've been here since 1891 - I really know the speech by heart. Qiu and I watch the pool. Through it we can see our children and whomever we choose. You are free to cross to the other world yourself, but know that you will lose your memories and even your name. If you choose to watch with us, you will stay until someone fills your place, and you will watch whomever you wish to but be unable to do anything. Slowly you will fade – that leads you to nothing but more emptiness than what you see now."
Trisha's eyes misted over again. "I can watch my sons?"
They nodded, and Qiu stepped in. "It can be painful, Trisha. You can't help them, kiss them good night or save them from mistakes. You're watching as if through a glass wall. Nothing you say will get through."
Trisha looked at the dead women, then down at her own hands. "I would hate myself in the other world if I didn't learn what happened to my boys. I want to watch."
"Then come on. We've been here for nearly thirteen years now. I died when my Riza was four."
"My little Roy was six."
"Edward is five, Alphonse is four. Pinako, Sara, and Urey will take them in, I'm sure. At least until my husband comes back." Trisha followed her new companions to the pool they had been watching before and sat in an empty spot next to Elizabeth.
The surface rippled and immediately showed two young, golden-haired boys crying over a limp figure wrapped in a bedsheet. Trisha paled and felt sick. "Is that…me?"
All Elizabeth and Qiu could do was wrap a comforting arm around the dead woman and nod sadly. Trisha finally began to cry.
Qiu sighed. "I had forgotten how painful it is, that first time…"
They were watchers. Suspended somewhere between dead and alive, they watched their children grow and live while never growing tired, hungry or restless. They were mothers, wrenched away from their blossoming families too early.
By the age of seven, Elizabeth's daughter Riza could not remember her mother's face without the aid of a photograph. Roy could never quite place why seeing Xingese women with ribbons entwined in their hair made his heart ache either, or why he wanted to cry "Mama!" whenever he saw them.
There were happier times, too. Roy, by some twist of fate, had ended up apprenticed to Elizabeth's husband. To watch them bond had been uplifting for Qiu and Elizabeth. Only a month after Trisha arrived, however, they were denied this as Roy left to join the military. Shortly afterward, Elizabeth hid her face as her husband carved out the secrets of flame alchemy onto her daughter's back in blood colored ink.
Watching Roy at the Academy was generally something the three enjoyed. Qiu had predicted as her son walked through the gates behind someone with black hair, green eyes and glasses that something good had to come of her son pursuing this path.
It was awkward to call Roy a man – "Not quite," Qiu would exclaim. "He's almost there, but not quite. Soon, trust me." – but he was more than a boy. When he finally stood up for an Ishvalan classmate and befriended the black haired, green eyed boy with glasses, Qiu smiled triumphantly.
"Now all he needs is a wife!"
"Well, I really think we all know how that's going to work, Qiu!" Trisha laughed happily. "It'll be Riza!"
Their happiness was always a mask, hiding the grief at not seeing their children from their own standpoints and embrace them during hard times.
They watched others do it instead.
"Master Hawkeye!" Elizabeth did not cry as her husband's eyes went blank and rolled back into his head. She breathed in sharply, surprised his end was now. When she saw her daughter's face in the doorway and Roy's panic-stricken eyes met Riza's amber ones, Elizabeth stood up. Qiu and Trisha looked at their friend knowingly, pitying the young woman.
Mere seconds afterward, a figure materialized in front of the Door. Berthold Hawkeye, his dirty blonde hair long and limp with grease and his eyes slowly blinking out madness stood there now.
"Berthold," was all Elizabeth said. His head swiveled in the direction of the voice, and his eyes widened as he saw his wife march up to him.
"Elizabeth…"
"How DARE you do that to my baby girl? How DARE you think that flame alchemy is so important as to hinder your own daughter for her entire life?" She raised her hand to strike her husband before lowering it again.
"I'm sorry, Elizabeth. It will keep my apprentice closer, I'm sure." He lowered his head shamefully, his voice tight.
Qiu sighed. "They're already in love."
Berthold looked at the tiny Xingese woman in surprise. "Really? Are they?"
"Idiot," stated Elizabeth, fondness creeping back into her voice. "You really only had her best interests at heart, I know you did. Just… Do you have any idea how painful that was for me to watch?"
Berthold embraced his long-dead wife. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth, for everything."
"It's my fault, really," she murmured, her voice muffled by his shirt. "I went and died, didn't I?"
"It's not your fault, Elizabeth. It really isn't your fault." He kissed her on the cheek, then dropped his arms. "I love you."
Elizabeth watched her husband fade with a smile on his face. She smiled back, allowing him one last comfort in hopes of his mistakes not being the last thing on his mind as he crossed over.
"He's a fool, and a crazy one at that," she said as she dried her tears. "How is it, then, that I still love him?"
Trisha blinked back tears yet again.
"It's only forbidden because no one's done it right yet."
"They're going to try, aren't they? They're going to try to bring me back."
Her words would prove true, but not for several years.
Qiu looked sadly downwards, clutching the hands of Elizabeth and Trisha as her son first saw the secrets of flame alchemy.
"Riza…What the hell? What did he do to you? No, this isn't right, I can't learn flame alchemy this way, no, no, n-"
"Roy," Elizabeth heard her daughter say as Riza turned around to face her best friend. "Please. I went through the pain for a reason – don't let it be worthless. Learn it. There's a reason I showed you. I believe in that naïve dream of yours – I want to be a part of it." The mothers held back tears as he kissed her gently and held her close, his face pressed into her hair.
He didn't learn flame alchemy that day.
"I'll make you proud, Riza. You're not regretting this decision, I promise," he vowed as they said goodbye. Riza only smiled and waved goodbye as he left the house for the last time.
"What is Riza doing? She can't join the military! No, my father's in the military, he'll recognize her in an instant!" Elizabeth cried out as
Trisha looked over at the distraught woman in shock. "Why would that be a problem?"
Elizabeth paused. "Well, I suppose now that my mother's dead, he's not so controlled anymore, but they disowned me when I married Berthold. My mother was Ishvalan – she didn't approve of alchemy."
Qiu cocked her head to one side. "Was that the woman you hid from – the one with her hand all…"
Elizabeth nodded. "That was my mother."
Many days it was too much for all of them.
"Oh my god." Qiu, her normally good-natured grin gone from her face, looked as if she was about to throw up.
"They've done it. Order 3066 is sending state alchemists into Ishval. My little Roy…"
"Oh no…" Elizabeth murmured, tears gathering in her eyes. "Oh, Qiu, he'll be okay, I'm sure he will."
"It's going to be okay, Qiu. Sara and Urey – my friends from Resembool – they're being sent in too, as doctors. Really, they'll all be fine. I'm sure they will. They have to be." Trisha's voice was unsteady and high, unnerving instead of the calm it was supposed to be.
Behind them, Truth only grinned.
Elizabeth was the first to notice the sudden appearance of Truth, drying tears and standing to face it. "Who do you think you are, anyway?"
The grin vanished from Truth's face as the being thought. "There are some who call me God, or the Universe, one or all, I suppose." The grin reappeared. "I am everyone."
Elizabeth's face twisted in rage. "Oh, well then, that's all very well and good, I'm sure, but what is it that gives you the right to ruin the lives of those who dwell on the earth?"
The figure managed to look bemused. "Weren't you listening, Elizabeth Grumman?"
"Don't you dare call me that, you fraud. I'm done being a Grumman. What is it with you and making the world miserable?" spat the irate young woman, scowling at the all-powerful god of the world.
The white outline remained still. "You were born a Grumman. I do not heed your silly human customs."
Her eyes narrowed and her scowl deepened. "Silly, are they? What exactly makes you better than us?"
"I am Truth. I can do anything I wish, and there is nothing that hinders me. I am the perfect being."
"How, I wonder, can you be perfect when it is painfully obvious that you have no soul, the very thing that strives for perfection?"
Qiu sighed and touched her friend's arm. "Elizabeth, you'll get nowhere trying to argue with him. Besides, there's something you need to see."
Elizabeth, still furious, allowed her friend to lead her over to the pool
"Cadet Hawkeye."
"Yessir?" Her baby, her Riza, her little girl…
"I take it you've heard of the Ishvalan War, correct?"
"Excuse my frankness, sir, but I believe you would have to live under a rock not to have heard of the conflict, sir."
The general laughed coldly. Riza stood rigid and formal, her hand still snapped up in a brisk salute. "I believe you are correct, Cadet. You're about to know it even better. You will spend your final year as a sniper on the front lines of Ishval, protecting the state alchemists from any harm. Is that clear, Hawkeye?"
The parade of emotions running across her face broke Elizabeth's heart. When she spoke next, Riza's voice was strained. "Yes… Yes sir."
"Good. You will be shipped out in a week."
Elizabeth stood for a moment, looking as if the tiniest gust of wind could knock her down. Her amber eyes wide, she collapsed to her knees, petrified.
"Elizabeth, it's all right."
The woman shook her head and stared at her hands. "Truth."
The outline's head turned to face the back of Elizabeth Hawkeye. "What is it now?"
Her hands began to shake. "What part of this is equivalent exchange? We have all died, our children have grieved, and now their lives are ones that even hope cannot find."
The Truth's answer rang out through the empty dimension. "Their past shall pay for their future, but only if they are wise enough to accept the exchange."
It was true they were watchers, but was that really so bad? To see the world as the Truth did was both blessing and curse.
Trisha bowed her head. "Sara and Urey. They're coming," she said sadly, wiping away a stray tear.
"It was the Ishvalan that killed them, but Kimblee who was ordered to carry it out."
"Dogs of the military, they've always been that way. I don't know why Roy would join them," fretted Qiu, her eyes never leaving her son's figure.
"He wouldn't have killed them, though. His morals, his dreams, his goals, Ishval is affecting them all, but he wouldn't kill people like that. He always hated guns," pointed out Elizabeth quietly as Trisha stood to greet the incoming couple.
Sara Rockbell was sobbing. "Poor Winry, she's going to be crushed…"
Her husband sighed and rocked her back and forth, the blood still dripping from their wounds but disappearing before it could stain the pure whiteness of the Gate.
"Well, you're here, are you? Cross over and begin a new life, or stay and watch your world through a glass wall, that is your choice. Which one, doctors?" questioned a semi-irate Truth.
Sara pulled out of her husband's embrace to see Trisha. "Urey!" she exclaimed, ignoring the all-powerful Truth. "It's Trisha, look!"
Trisha beamed and waved to her old friend, walking over to stand next to her.
"Yes, I know. You have to decide, Sara, or you'll fade into nonexistence. Quickly."
Urey Rockbell sighed through a smile before kissing his wife one last time. "You want to stay, don't you, Sara? I have faith in Winry – she'll turn out fine, and I would go crazy watching her, but you want to stay."
Sara nodded, smiling sadly up at her husband. "I love you."
He nodded and began to step through the Gate. "I'll love you always."
The Truth watched him go and turned its smile towards the newcomer. "Welcome to hell, Sara Harris."
The young blonde looked up at him. "No. I don't think this is hell."
Truth grinned. "Appearances can be deceiving."
Sara grinned right back. "You wouldn't send Trisha Elric to hell."
Confidence to them was nothing but shadows of hope. In this world, there was nothing to be confident in.
When they performed human transmutation, the Elric brothers did not see their mother.
She saw them.
"EDWARD!" she screamed, scrambling to reach her son.
His head didn't even turn, instead focusing on the Truth in front of him.
"Trisha! You can't!" protested Sara, clasping Trisha's wrist with her hand.
Trisha looked back at her friend and attempted to pry Sara's fingers off. "I have to, I have to! Truth is going to kill him!"
Elizabeth grabbed Trisha's other wrist. "You're only a watcher, Trisha! If Truth was going to kill Edward, he would have heard you!"
Qiu forced Trisha back down. "Calm down, Trisha, Edward and Alphonse will be alive at the end of this, I'm sure."
The Gate slammed shut, a final echoing thud the only sound in their ears for a long time.