Hello, thank you for checking this out. So you know, this story is mainly centered around the next generation, not the canon characters, although they do make appearances. I know that not many people are fond of OCs, so I wanted to give everyone fair warning. If you've stuck around, have fun reading!

"I hear they're finally upgrading the tracks in the Eastern Sector," said Mustang, purposefully making his strides a bit too long for Edward to comfortably keep up with.

"Yeah, I guess. It'll be nice for the ride to be shorter, but a pain in the ass in the meantime," he responded. "Though it does mean that we'll all be stuck in Resembool for– I don't know– a month? Probably longer."

His old friend laughed at the irritation in his voice. "You haven't changed at all. Over thirty years old, with two kids, and you still want to go dashing around the country…"

March 17th, 1944

The train ride from Resembool to Central was one that went through long stretches of farmland, idyllic countryside filled with grazing herds and vast wheat fields. Louise was sure it would be a pleasant sight for anyone not too familiar with it; unfortunately, having grown up in the former rather than the latter meant that she didn't find the scenery too interesting. It was lucky for her that she had brought a small part of her father's collection of alchemical literature with her to keep her distracted. With new, higher speed trains recently installed, the trip took them far less time than it had back when her father was young– it was now somewhere around an hour and a half, compared to the two, almost three hours it had taken him– but she had never liked sitting around and doing nothing. There was no point to making small talk with her father either– he, unlike her, seemed to appreciate the scenery, despite the fact that he had lived in Resembool for his whole life, asides from a brief four-year pause in the middle. She had asked him why once, to which he had laughed and responded "You appreciate things a lot more when you get them taken away!" and didn't tell her what he meant by that.

Louise felt the train slowing– not enough that they were actually at their final stop, but enough that she took notice of it. Her father had too, clear from the way he looked up from his window. "The place where we're staying is nice," he said, taking her putting her book back in her bag as an invitation to talk. "You'll like it. And you'll like Central, too."

Before now, Louise had never gone to the capital. She had been to East City plenty of times, both with her father and her whole family, and one time just with her brother when he had turned eighteen. She had even gone to Xing once, but her father's trips to Central to visit some of his old friends had always been a private affair, until this one. Not that she minded being brought along– the exact opposite in fact, especially once her dad had told her that she could go out on her own, so long as she was careful and didn't tell mom. She had eagerly agreed to his conditions, curious to see the city in all of its splendor without being held back by someone else.

Eventually, the train did come to a halt, the vibration of its movement against the tracks stopping with it. Her dad grabbed his bags, and she reached under the table between them to grab hers as well. Asides from the books she brought along, her bag was fairly light, something she had been sure to check. On her first visit to East City, she had packed too heavy, assuming they would get a taxi from the station to their hotel. They hadn't. Her father enjoyed walking, and showed little mercy to his short-limbed daughter. Once, she had complained about it and he had stared at her with a mixture of sympathy and amusement before finally telling her that if he had spent several years keeping up with her previously seven foot tall uncle, she could keep up with him. Another argument lost by her that just opened more questions about her father's past.

As they stepped off of the train, it wasn't surprising to see that many heads turned towards her father as he looked around to try and find an exit. People seemed to part around him too, leaving their path open once he started walking. "Look," she overheard. "There's the Fullmetal Alchemist, right?"

"Yeah, but who's that girl with him?" the person's friend responded with.

She didn't get to hear the end of the conversation, but she didn't need to. It was unlikely they would recognize her, after all– her father, though still a national hero and a well-beloved professor, managed to keep much of his family out of the spotlight. Louise was never sure whether she appreciated it or not– on one hand, she had seen over the years that not all the attention her father received was positive, as he had taken to throwing some letters in their fireplace if they were particularly obnoxious, but a small part of her wished that she would be seen as something worthy of admiring too. Louise wasn't talented at much, and what she was good at, she had worked hard for. Since she didn't have the advantage of being a prodigy, she'd have to take fame where she could get it.

Once they stepped outside of the train station, Louise was immediately struck by the size of the city. Her brother, no doubt, would have loved it, the center of modernity in Amestris, high speed automobiles whizzing past on newly paved road and buildings that seemed to yearn to touch the clouds. As she gaped, staring up at the skyline, her father started beckoning to her. "Come on!" he said, that childish impatient streak not all gone, even in his middle age. "If you want a chance to go out today, we'll have to actually get there before sunset!"

His fears were ill founded, of course, as it hadn't even reached noon yet, and the walk to hotel was far shorter than she had feared when he had warned her about it. Thanks to a generous stipend from the military for being a national hero, and his modest salary from being even a part-time professor, it was, as promised, very nice. Her dad chattered about how decades ago, the hotel had been very popular for visiting officers thanks to its location close to headquarters, but had always been open to the civilian public. She was far too in awe of the sheer size of it to closely listen though, lost in her own mind. They took the elevator up to the sixth floor, a small victory for Louise compared to their normal race up the stairs. Apparently, her dad was just as eager to get settled as she was.

Upon reaching their room, her dad dropped both of his bags and collapsed on the bed. "Stupid middle age," he muttered, almost to himself. "I'm nearly tired as I was as a teenager." Then, he turned to look back at her. "I'm going to sleep for, oh, a couple hours. If you want to go out, I'd just say don't go past 3rd Street in that direction," he pointed to the back of the room, as if that helped. "And 29th in the other. That gives you several blocks to explore."

She placed her backpack down on the ground and fished a smaller bag out of it, placing one of the smaller alchemy books in it along with her wallet, which contained a little over 3000 cenz. Upon much careful consideration, she had decided to take about a third of her savings with her, a hard decision for the normally frugal teen to make. "Yeah, I'll head out for a bit. Thanks Dad, see you in a while."

If he mumbled a reply through the pillow he had his head buried in, she didn't hear it, instead stepping out of the hotel room before taking the stairs back down. On her way out, she picked up a map of the local area, and waved to the receptionist as she exited. A quick glance at the map revealed several coffee shops in the area– she wasn't quite hungry enough to justify actually having a meal, but waking up early to prepare for the trip and not having time to eat breakfast so they could catch their train meant that coffee and something small sounded like a good idea.

The one she decided on was several blocks away from where she was on 10th street. Central was always busy, even during the work week, which wasn't something Louise was used to– East City didn't have the same population density at all, and she had to squeeze her way through the crowd. Still, something about Central appealed to the young woman, and even getting her feet stepped on several times couldn't dampen her spirit.

Eventually, she reached her destination, a cafe with wide window that wasn't quite filled completely, being just out of the range most tourists would walk and being past the morning rush. Still, not filled by Central standard wasn't not filled by Resembool standards– all the tables were taken, even if not all the seats were.

Louise ordered her coffee and a scone, figuring that someone would probably leave in the time it took her to get her order. She was wrong, of course, and was left standing around, scanning for someone who didn't look too intimidating that she could sit next to.

"Hey!" A voice called out, and Louise turned around to see a girl with straight black hair in twin ponytails, about her age, maybe a bit older, sitting a high topped table. "Are you looking for somewhere to sit?"

Deciding that she looked friendly enough and that she probably wasn't going to get a better offer, Louise made her way over and pulled out the other chair. "Thank you," she said earnestly, if a bit delayed. "I'm, uh, new here." She didn't know why she said that. It was probably pretty obvious.

Upon closer inspection, the young woman across from her was wearing some very strange clothes. Louise couldn't tell you if they were actually strange or just very trendy, but they managed to look good on her; the dark coat that she wore looked a bit too heavy for the season, but it looked well made, if well worn, and she even managed to make her odd hairstyle work too. "You do sort of look it," the girl said, a laugh in her voice. "So, what are you visiting for?"

It was also odd for this girl to just start up a conversation with her, someone who was just a random stranger. "Uh, I'm here with my dad. We're from Resembool?" Louise didn't quite know why she was acting so odd herself– normally, she could hold her own in a conversation, even with someone she didn't know, without ending every other sentence with a question mark. A bit aggravated with herself, she tried to bolster her confidence before speaking up. "I'm Louise," she said, extending a hand. "And you are?" Still a question, but at least it was intended to be one this time.

"Alice!" She said, clearly a bit thrown off by the handshake but still accepting it. Her name sounded familiar to Louise for some reason, but she couldn't put her finger on it. As she looked down at Alice's hand though, she was surprised to see an array on one of her gloves. At this, Louise laughed.

"A Flame Alchemist wannabe?" She asked a bit sarcastically, immediately regretting it. "Uh, not that there's anything wrong with tha–"

Alice cut her off with a laugh of her own. "Heh, you could definitely say that. My only defense is that unlike half of them I can actually do alchemy–but, yeah, these are definitely inspired by him." A fellow alchemist then? That was interesting, at least.

"Anything you specialize in?" Louise asked after taking a sip of her coffee. "I study it as well, although outside of theory work I can't claim to be particularly talented." She may as well be upfront about her abilities (or lack thereof). Her worst fear, after all, was someone assuming that her knowledge was equal to her skill.

If she was phased by meeting another alchemist by happenstance, Alice didn't show it. Then again, Louise supposed alchemy was more common in Central. "Oh, no real specialties. Kudos to you for having patience for reading all that dry alchemy text though– I tried studying theory, like, once and couldn't stand it."

Something about the way Alice said that made Louise frown a bit. It wasn't as though the other girl was being dismissive of here– not really, at least. But it still felt like a backhanded compliment. Maybe she was looking too far into what she was saying, but before she could stop herself she opened her mouth to talk. "What, do you not study at all?" She hadn't meant for it to come out so aggressive, but there it was anyways. Before she could take it back, Alice was responding, apparently having not caught onto Louise's tone.

"I mean, not really? I guess the stuff I know has just kind of come naturally to me. I bet I'd be really good if I actually did, like, any work." The last bit she said with a laugh and a smirk, like the fact that she was lazy was a point of pride for her.

Something in Louise snapped at that, and she abruptly stood up. "You know what? I just remembered, I have to leave now."

At that, Alice dropped her relaxed posture and actually looked a bit worried. "Uh, okay! Wait, where are you staying I could drop by–"

"No, don't," Louise said, already walking away. "Seriously have to go now." She finished, placing her scone in her bag and striding towards the door. One glance back revealed that Alice looked a bit distressed at her sudden departure, but Louise pushed her guilt down.

It took her a few blocks of gradually getting angrier before she realized that what she did had probably seemed out of the blue to the other girl, and was completely uncalled for overall. A block after that, she actually felt sort of guilty for it. For a few minutes, she contemplated going back, but decided against it. Alice had probably already forgotten about her, and it wouldn't take to long for the opposite to be true as well.

After about an hour of poking around in shops across the tourist district Louise forgot about her encounter with the girl, and after a couple more she became tired of the activity all together. So began her walk back to the hotel, only having spent 150 cenz from her stop at the cafe. She remembered the incident once more as she entered her hotel and saw someone with a similar coat, causing her to do a double take before realizing that the woman she was looking at was a few decades too old to be the person she was thinking of. It was once again out of her mind by the time she reached her room and opened it up.

It was only about five o'clock, and it looked like her dad had headed out himself at some point. Placing her bag next to her backpack, she reached into it to get her book, and curled up on the bed to read. Once she was about halfway through it, a knock at the door broke her out of her literature-invoked daze. The door clicked open, revealing her father, and a glance at the clock showed her that she had been reading for about three hours. "Hey dad," she said, waving at him.

"Hey Louise, good to see you're back. It's starting to get a little dark out." A quick glance at the window revealed that he was right. "How was your first day in Central? I'm a bit surprised I didn't see you at the library."

The thought of going to the library had occurred to her, but she had decided to save that for when she had little more time. She needed the whole day for something like that. "It was nice. I just looked at things, mostly. Jamie would like all of the tech here." Louise purposefully left out her trip to the cafe. Anger had faded to guilt, which had faded to embarrassment. Honestly, it had been an irrational outburst, even if she still didn't like the girl's study habits.

"Yeah, although I can't blame him for staying behind to help Winry. Not that your poor brother's going to get to touch any of her precious automail." Her dad had a point, she thought as she snorted in response. No matter how desperately her brother pleaded, her mom wouldn't let him tinker with any of her client's automail. It wasn't professional, she said, to let someone who wasn't officially her apprentice work on a commission or repair, nor was it professional to take a family member as her apprentice. Where she had developed this opinion, none of them know, but it didn't stop Jamie from trying to weasel his way into her lab.

"Yeah, that was a hopeless mission. Oh, where are we headed tomorrow?" She asked. "Aren't you planning on seeing Fuhrer Mustang?" Her dad and the leader of the entire country were old frenemies, who met every year or so to catch up. Apparently, at some point her dad had promised that he could meet her, since the Fuhrer had a daughter around her age.

"I was planning to bring you with me," said her dad, getting out his notebook and a pencil. "You'll like his daughter, you two have a lot in common."

Louise smiled and nodded, turning back to her alchemy book. After two more hours, her father had apparently finished whatever he had been writing and told her that he was going to go to sleep, and that she probably should too since they had to wake up at a reasonable time in the morning.

She thought about her day once more before going to bed, but this time it evoked less of an emotional response than it had before. Surely, the girl she had met was thinking the same thing by now, and it had been a one off encounter that wouldn't affect either of their lives.

There was no way they would ever meet again, rendering their ill-fated meeting, in Louise's eyes, completely unimportant.

March 17th, 1944

In another part of the world, far across the desert, there was another young woman waiting for a train, having finished a phone call with her older sister. It was late at night, just past twelve, and cold, the wind blowing through her light jacket. Upon further consideration, she probably should have worn something a bit warmer than her normal outfit, but she had chosen looks over warmth. One more thing sacrificed at the altar of looking good 24/7.

Eventually, the train rolled into the station, and a flood of people came out of it before she could even dream of getting close to boarding. After a few minutes, a man shouted out that they were now allowed to go on, and she scampered forward in hopes of getting a seat. In truth, she didn't think she'd have many issues– Amestris still wasn't a popular destination for most people in Xing, but she had her reasons for wanting to go.

She gave her ticket to the man in front of the entrance, and tooked her seat next to an older woman near the back of the car. The woman looked over to her, seemingly surprised, but to her relief, unrecognizing. "What's a young lady like you doing traveling alone to somewhere so far from home?"

The girl gave her best grin, setting her bag with most of her life savings in it right next to her, away from the aisle. "Visiting family!" She said cheerfully. "My cousins live over in Amestris."

Yes, it would be nice to see her cousin again, she thought as the train began to move, but the people she would be visiting weren't quite that. They were more distant relatives, ones she had only met a few times in her life.

Even if seeing them wasn't her true goal, from what she remembered of them, it would be good to see the Elric-Rockbells again.

Thank you for reading! This is my first long fic, but I already have a few chapters written. Don't hesitate to ask me anything!