Sin

I'm going back and re-doing the first chapters before I go into Chapter 10 because I know they're very rushed and crappy. I like this version of Chapter 1 much, much better. Hopefully this way, I'll get more readers! Now to move on and re-write everything else (yay...).

FullMetal Alchemist and all the characters don't belong to me! If they did, the story probably wouldn't have been so interesting, and Hughes would have been the main character. And oh, the slash...

No, there is no slash in Sin... somehow.

Chapter 1

It was a day of many things. It was her daughter's birthday, as well as that of the man called Edward Elric. As Gracia slipped down the stairs to the kitchen in the fresh chill breath of morning, she wished him well - wherever he was.

Four years had gone by since Ed disappeared, leaving Al in a fresh and new body in his wake, somehow. The little blonde boy had sworn to become strong and to find his brother. He didn't even remember what had happened. His body and his mind had come back in their original form, nine years old. Now thirteen, Al was planning on becoming a State Alchemist to better follow in Ed's footsteps - to discover where he'd gone. Gracia sighed her despair at the thought as she put Alicia's favorite breakfast - buttermilk waffles - to cook.

So much had changed, and she was so involved in such an inadvertant way - the wife of a man who had died in the series of events that led to a revolution. The daughter of a girl turning to Alchemy. So many people had influenced their lives - and so many of them were gone to never be seen again. It was hard to raise a child alone.

She came up the stairs, slowly and quietly as snow flittered down outside the window. It had become a routine that every birthday, she would awake Alicia up early and have a big breakfast. After that, they would go to the stores in town as they opened, and spend the rest of the day doing whatever it was they felt like doing.

This year, she didn't even take a breath before opening the door, purposely hitting it against the back wall in order to surprise the girl. "Happy Birth-"

Alicia wasn't in her bed. In fact, it was still made from the day before when Gracia had done everything that had needed to be done while Alicia was off being babysat by 'Uncle Roy'.

"Alicia?" Gracia quickly spun to check behind the door to make sure she hadn't hit the girl in the face by mistake. But no, she wasn't there, either.

Everything in the room was exactly the way it had been when Alicia had gone to bed. The blankets were in place, as were her toys and her books. Not a thing had been taken, not a thing had been moved. The window was barely open, but that wasn't unusual - Alicia always slept with her window open.

Gracia, growing concerned, began to scan the house. She searched her bedroom, her closet, the bathroom, the linen closet and the attic before moving downstairs, turning the stove off and searching the kitchen, the family room, the dining room and all the cubby holes in between. After that was over, she went back and did it again - this time scanning under beds and between hanging coats and dresses.

Alicia Hughes was gone.

Gracia was begging to panic. She couldn't leave to look for Alicia, what if she was home? What if she came home? But what if she was out there? What if she ran away? Caught in a frenzy of maternal worry, Gracia did the only thing she could think to do.

She called Roy.

Brigandier-General Roy Mustang was still passively appeased with how he had managed to avoid the Hughes family. He saw enough of them to keep himself from feeling too guilty, and he didn't see enough to bring back his grief. It was a difficult battle to fight with himself, regardless. Six years were gone and he still looked to the air next to him time to time to wonder where that chunk of his life had gone.

He made it up to Maes. When Gracia went to spend time with her friends, even if for half an hour, she would drop Alicia off to spend time with 'Uncle Roy'. What started off with a personal reminder became a lesson in alchemy. Alicia wanted to come see him more and more after that, but Roy only allowed himself a few hours a week to spend with the girl, else she would leave him standing alone in the doorway wondering where time had gone, but he did teach her alchemy. He refused to teach her how to make fire - it was too dangerous to allow a five-year-old girl to toy in that kind of thing. But he taught her all the basics until she began to learn herself. Roy even heard stories of her bombarding questions upon Alphonse Elric during his recent stopovers in the Hughes residence. When she was seven, she had begun to calculate what she could turn this or that into, and what emblem she could use.

He had only just emerged into his office when he heard the phone ring at his desk. Walking briskly, he crossed the room as quickly as possible and draped his jacket across the table before picking up the phone, and throwing his hat on top of it.

"Hello?" He said, his voice low and tired from his lack of coffee.

"Roy!" The Brigandier-General hadn't expected to hear Gracia on the other end, sounding somewhat erratic. He turned where he was standing to beckon in Havoc, who came bearing his morning coffee. "Alicia is missing!"

"Missing?" Roy echoed quietly. It's not that he didn't believe her, he was just Roy. That, and he hadn't had his caffeine. He held the phone a short distance from his ear as he took his mug from Havoc to sip at as the woman continued.

She ran on a long stream of descriptions for him about how she was nowhere in the house to be found, her voice getting higher as her throat constricted in panic like what usually happened to women when they cried.

"Calm down, Gracia," Roy consoled, handing his coffee back to Havoc - who was standing there and listening - instead of logically putting it on the desk. "Even if she isn't home, she may have just gone out for a walk."

"She never gets up that early!" Gracia argued. "It's like she never slept in her bed last night at all! I can't even go to look, because... what if she comes back when I leave? Roy, I need your help!"

It didn't take Roy very long to consider the decision, seeing as he didn't really have anything better to do anyway. After the war and everything, it seemed that his position in the military had simply become a place on the mantle - it was just for show. He didn't actually do anything but be an eyesore to those who knew him, and a frustrating head officer for his underlings that did just about as much as he did. But they didn't mind. To them, he was still their Colonel.

"Lieutenant-Colonel."

"Yes, sir?"

"Gather everyone right away. Our mission today is to find Alicia Hughes."

All bearing old and older pictures of Alicia that were once-upon-a-time given to them by Hughes, they embarked on a journey to find his daughter. They left Armstrong and Gracia at home to wait for their return as they looked everywhere. The military building. The barracks. The park. The library. The candy store. Anywhere on a long list Gracia had come up with of places the girl liked to go. Eventually, they arrived at Hughes' grave. The entire party scanned the entire graveyard, through tree limbs and behind tombstones until they came to a conclusion that Alicia was nowhere to be found. At 6pm after searching for the whole day away under the pounding sun, everyone regrouped back at the Hughes household.

Once there, they discovered they had been joined in number by Alphonse Elric. The boy spent most of his time in Central at the Hughes home, running on a new friendship he had adopted after losing his memories of their family amoung a long list in a gap of seven years. He welcomed their return warmly, and was just as crushed as everyone to discover that they had come up with nothing.

"It's been close to twelve hours since we were sent out to search for the girl, and we've come up with absolutely nothing," Hawkeye informed. "However, we're still twelve hours away from being legally able to declare her missing."

"As far as we know, she could be on her way home right now," Havoc muttered around his cigarette. "Kids do stupid things sometimes, Colonel."

"She is a ten-year-old girl, Lieutenant-Colonel," Roy replied sharply. "She shouldn't remind you of your years in high school."

"He may have a point, though," Gracia said from where she sat next to Al and Armstrong on the couch. "Maybe I should just wait... She might make her way home eventually."

"It's not whether or not she can get home that I'm thinking about," Roy said, "it's how she left. She must have been kidnapped. And by now, he must be very far from here."

This proposition provided a whole new wave of dread over Gracia, and she leaned over with a hand over her mouth. Al held her arm supportively as Armstrong patted her on the back.

"But why would they kidnap the deceased Brigandier-General's daughter?" Fury pouted. "That's just creul."

"It's quite possible it was simply a random act," Hawkeye suggested. "They are very rare, but they do happen."

"Under the classification of a kidnapping, there is little more that I can do about it now," Roy pointed out. "It's not that I don't trust the military operations in other cities, it's simply that I feel uncomfortable being unable to keep an eye on it myself."

"I could find her," Al spoke up from his position on the couch, recieving blank stares from all over the room. "Sensei told me she refused to train me so long as I was a Nationally Certified Alchemist, so it might be a while before she gets over that. Gracia's been so nice to me while doing my research in Central. The least I could do is help look for Alicia."

"It would be much more reassuring to have a personal contact on the field into the situation." After a moment, Roy nodded firmly. "Hawkeye, get me details on any kidnapping case in the area. Alphonse, we're counting on you."

Wrath was biding his time.

He wasn't sure who or what he was waiting for, he just knew it would come to him eventually. He prayed it would be his chance to kill that Edward boy for what he did to mommy...

So he lived. He lived his life in the alleys, probing through garbage cans when he couldn't catch and kill food for himself. He lived at the edges of desperation as best he could while clutching his greatest treasure.

A Nationally Certified Alchemist watch. He found it when he crossed the desert, complete with bits of red stones within it. He saved them for himself, and for the day when he would come into contact with the Edward boy. He would take their energy and use it to kill him for what he had done to mommy...

...But that all changed the day he found the human sin.

He watched it in disgust as it squelched hideously in it's pathetic attempt at movement. It was a giant trembling mass of flesh and blood and limbs. From the stories he'd been told, he knew what it was. It was like him.

"How far have you come to get here?" He asked it quietly as he knelt next to it. Wrath found it disgusting, but he felt a rhythm inside of it that matched him somehow. He knew that they were the same, and that kept him from being completely repulsed. "No one pities you. No one loves you. You're just like me."

He watched it for a long time as it lurched barely half an inch. He almost chose to destroy it before he had begun thinking of the possibilities... He could have a companion. He could have a partner. Imagine the things he could do!

Reaching for his watch, Wrath popped it open and stared at the red stones for a very long time as he slid them onto his palm, the thin smoky light dancing against their ends. Nothing could survive in a form like that... It needed these. Besides, two would be better than one... They could team up together on the Edward boy...

He was creating life.

"I know what you are," Wrath said quietly as he rolled the stones around on his palm, savouring the sound for the last time. "You belong to me now. Now eat... We have long, long lives ahead of us."