Title: So Long Passed

Author: S J Smith

Warnings: 2nd person POV.

Prompt: Queen's Who Wants To Live Forever?; lyric line: This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us. Written for the LJ community, FMA_Fic_Contest, for the challenge: Choose a song lyric line and use it in a fic.

Disclaimer: If I don't own the rights to this song, I certainly don't own the rights to FMA.

It seems strange, being back in this rural farming community again. You tilt your head back, trying not to breathe too deep. Sheep have a pungent odor all their own, one that the spring weather isn't quite enough to dampen. If anything, with the Sheep Shearing Festival coming up soon, there would be an even worse stink in the air, and all the roasted mutton and lamb won't be able to combat it.

Here, though, the wind is blowing, a soft, tender breeze. It's warm, warmer than you expected, though the day is chill enough you're glad of your long sleeved shirt and jacket. Off in the distance, you hear the whistle announcing the train pulling into the station and wonder if anyone new might be stopping off in Rezembool. It would certainly make the old biddies' tongues wag, as if your reappearance wasn't enough.

You straighten, realizing your feet have carried you here. Standing outside the gate to the cemetery, you think, perhaps, you should have brought flowers. You weren't thinking – she would have chuckled at the proof of your absent mindedness – and it seems there are no flowering plants growing anywhere near when you look. You can't smile at that, but instead, think at least Trisha had always been the forgiving sort.

Maybe that's what had attracted you to her in the first place, though you're pretty sure, no, it had been her sweet, slightly shy smile, directed your way. You'd run into an old friend – Pinako, the Panthress of Rezembool – and tried not to evidence shock at the changes wrought in her by time. She had somehow been nonplussed at the lack of new wrinkles on your face, simply sucked the end of her pipe, and introduced you to her son Urey, a young man, his smile a wide reflection of Pinako's own. And he, in turn, had introduced the two young women with them; his fiancée, Sara, and their friend, Trisha Elric.

You hadn't been entranced right then – the matters of the flesh were something you sometimes indulged in, but not in the smaller towns; you needed to keep your anonymity, even then. But Sara invited you to dinner and you found yourself accepting, and, more surprising, looking forward to catching up with your old friend. As it was, fate conspired against you, sending Pinako out the door with her son minutes before you arrived – a freak accident and a surgeon was needed – leaving you with a bottle of wine and two young women.

You don't remember Sara's cooking, only that she was a sweet girl, moving in and out of the kitchen and the living room with an ease that let you know she was a regular visitor – if not a resident – of Pinako Rockbell's home. Trisha, on the other hand, had found a radio program playing that new music, and her feet patted out the time along with the beat. When Sara would enter the room, Trisha would bounce up and the two women would spin around each other, laughing almost breathlessly.

It had made you a bit breathless yourself – when was the last time you'd been treated to such a sight? A pair of young women, kicking up their feet, arms above their heads, catching hold of each other and letting go again? You'd had to rigorously school your thoughts to things far less dangerous to think on, lest your body give you away.

But women are women and you had the feeling they both knew, from the flushes on their faces and their bright, warm laughter – not directed at you, but perhaps, at the circumstances – and you'd suddenly looked up to have a hand open and offered to you. "Dance with us, Mr. Hohenheim!"

The night had seemed to explode then, a flurry of dress hems and cheerful shouts; the lovely scent of dinner cooking in the kitchen; music swinging through on the radio. You remember being coaxed out of that chair despite your protests, and the two women putting you between them to teach you dance steps that mirrored some from centuries past. They didn't mind your lack of grace, making up for it by twirling around you and stomping their heels, and the laughter echoing throughout the house. By the time the night had crept away over the horizon and dawn brightened the sky, you'd decided, perhaps you could take a break before taking that next step on your own quest.

You'd traveled almost the whole of the world, it seemed, only to find your way to Amestris. You knew why – someday, you'd have to face the homunculus in its own lair. How to explain it to this lovely young woman whom you found yourself courting? You could no more marry her than you could give your name to the child that eventually made her dress swell for fear that the homunculus's spies might find your family and make them hostages. And yet, you wished you could. Trisha had offered you that sweet, heartbreaking smile when you'd said those words to her, and gave you her thoughts in return.

Realizing you'd come inside the cemetery, you stand before a white marble stone, carved with the name of the woman you would've wed. You'd thought you'd always have time; that she would be waiting for you when you returned.

The sun hasn't warmed the stone when you touch it and you have to stop yourself from jerking back. "Trisha," you whisper, "this world has only one sweet moment set aside for us."

And that moment had passed, so long ago.