Enigma

By TeriyakiPrinces

Rating: Teen+ Audiences, but whatever.

Warnings for the chapter: Medical talk, realism in an unrealistic situation, swearing, mortality.

Disclaimer: Not mine. To see original content, look up Hiromu Arakawa

Reviews welcome, as well as any plot suggestions or help- especially if something seems really hard to believe!

Edited and formatting fixed 1/28/17

General Brannen opened the door to the interrogation room, and stood in the corner to inspect the room's sole occupant. There was a young woman in the purposefully uncomfortable metal chair, strapped to the desk with handcuffs. She had longish hair which was tangled and mussed as if she had been rough-housed before being chucked into the sterile room. She had looked up at his entrance, and he could see that she had not gotten any sleep in a long time, judging by the dark smudges under her eyes and the dull way her eyes lazed over his form. She had tried to sit up, but her exhaustion showed even in her posture. She wore only a strange, casual sort of shirt with short sleeves and tight uncomfortable-looking pants from a material he couldn't recognize.

Strange clothes for a strange case, he mused.

He checked over her file once again. Her physical examination was completed before he got there, and the file was fleshed out as best as the investigators and physicians could manage- even so, it consisted of a measly two forms.

The woman claimed to be sixteen years old, which he could attest was possible- if only on a slim margin. She seemed older, but without proper documentation no one could really be sure. She wasn't Amestrian- that was a point highly underscored in her medical file. Her bone structure and coloring was similar to someone of Aerugan or Cretan or even Drachman descent, but some of her features were similar enough to Eastern Amestrian to leave a healthy speculative tone to her origins. She spoke the language well enough, though some grammar and accent marks were confusing. She didn't act like the usual teenagers anyone had seen, and her psyche-eval showed she had a healthy enough cynicism to put her in the bitter adolescent category, and a sarcasm complex usual to radicals and military personnel. She had apparently held herself with enough dignity and poise to warrant the thought of being the daughter of a wealthy businessman or merchant who was rebelling against the status-quo, backed by the expensive leather trench coat on her person, but her lack of any public records stymied that thought.

That was where the theory concerning wealth were led even further astray.

She was missing a lung- completely gone, with no scar outside her body to account for the expensive surgery. It was noted as well that it did not seem as if the adolescent was much hindered by the lack of half the breathing capacity, indicating that she must have been born with the defect, or been used to having problems breathing. This pointed to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, common in high-poverty towns on the outskirts of Amestris, or Black Lung, encountered in polluted cities and coal-mining towns.

In short, most things about this strange supposedly-sixteen year old were an enigma.

"You are aware that lying about your age will not limit the severity of any prospective charges we may or may not bring upon you?"

A small grunt of affirmation.

"I will now ask you questions about yourself. You must answer to the best of your abilities." Another grunt came from her lips.

"You are 16 years of age."

Hmm

"Your name is Gaia Maurer."

Nod

"You come from Aerugo."

Her eyes sparked at that. "I never said that."

Her voice was rough with exhaustion, so he couldn't tell what she normally sounded like. It was probably safe to assume her voice was deeper than the average woman's.

"Just making sure you're listening. Where are you from, then?"

"I don't know?" That sounded a lot like the infamous 'amnesia excuse'.

"Was that a question? Do you not remember?"

"Um, no? No. I just don't really know what it's called here."

"As in this language?"

"Uh, yeah." That was another strange thing about the girl. She seemed to have an immaculate grasp on the language- not as good as a native Amestrian in Central, but that could have been down to the area she came from, a dialect, if you will. Yet, she missed some words entirely, like names of places and titles.

"I could have a map brought in?" He raised an eyebrow in askance, and she contemplated her answer before nodding with a sigh. He knew his comrades would have heard behind the one-sided mirror.

"Alright, Gaia. While we wait, why don't you answer me this question: How did you get past all of our defenses, and why did you let yourself get captured so easily?" Using her supposed first name was for both investigative purposes and to extract more information by getting more personal. A sound tactic when interrogating a sensitive case.

Her eyes were confused for only a split second before they narrowed.

"I don't know. One minute I was on a train, and the next I found myself standing in that huge office place staring at a man with an eye patch. I have absolutely no idea what happened between one point and the other."

There it was again- an incomplete story that proved more and more that she wasn't a trained spy or assassin- if she were a professional, she wouldn't have gotten caught. She would have had a story that checked out in every way- including (forged) documents with proof of identity and residence, the kind of things you looked for when trying to incarcerate an illegal alien or terrorist.

A click of the door latch announced the map being brought in. The man spread it out on the metal table between them, facing 'Gaia'. She scanned the document before tilting her head and squinting at it. Brannen wondered if she needed glasses. Her eyes widened when her eyes briefly skimmed the document, as if she had just realized what she was looking at.

Then she nodded her head to show she had found her answer.

"It's that big blue one to the right, on that body of water. You don't have a name for it, looks like. It's called Thrace. My mother was from there, but my father was from another country west of Amestris called Lendia. It looks like you've got very little on most countries, huh?"

All of a sudden, he was embarrassed by the incomplete map- most of the countries Amestris had never even tried to contact, as they were on the other side of the desert, and most were Xing's trade partners that they were given from informants.

On the other side, her story quite honestly could check out- and then again the fact she came from such far away lands, lands they had no connection to or ways to communicate with, could be a ploy to mask her presence. Either way, Brannen thought, she was here with no documentation, which made her an illegal alien. An illegal alien apprehended inside the Fuhrer's private study.

"Glad we've cleared that up, then. Now. You know the language well for a foreigner, don't you think?"

"Ah, yes, well, my dad taught me. His mother was from here- small southern town called Dublin, I think?" There she went again with the strange pronunciations. He checked the map again, and found that only the five main cities were labeled. She had no way of picking up that name, unless she had studied another map previously. That theory seemed to be quickly getting shot down, as well. Her confusion could be attributed to being told a long time ago, though, so her story could yet check out. If her grandmother was actually from Dublith, she would simply be reinstated as a citizen of Amestris.

He flipped to a blank page attached to her file and wrote down his findings in shorthand- partly to make sure it was added to her file, and partly just to make her nervous. He found that writing anything down in a manila folder in front of a prisoner made them sweat.

"Anything to add to that?"

"U-uh, no? I mean, yes! My grandma- she had a close friend here- she's hopefully still alive! You could ring her up, maybe?"

"Do you know her address? Any personal information such as a name?" She gave a quick nod of affirmation.

"My father's mother always said she had moved to live in the east, a town called Resembull or something, after she got married."

The name rung a bell- he thought he might have stopped by there with his company during the Ishvalan conflict.

"A name?"

"Uh, Pinako. Pinako Rockbell."

She prayed to God- or whatever she should call it now that she had met it, face to uhh... face?- that the gamble would pay off. It was a testament to her desperation that she was praying, as she had probably never prayed before in her life- at least not seriously. When she was younger she slept over at her religious friends' house and had been kinda-forced to pray before bedtime with them.

But, that was off-topic.

She hoped that this world was the one from the books- that she was in the right time, and that the same people that she had read about were in it.

To be honest, she was expecting to be thrown in some dank cell or outright assassinated- Soviet Union Prisoner of War style.

And, come on, what the hell was Truth playing at when it dropped her in front of the fucking Fuhrer?! That bastard was the most terrifying person-thing she had ever had the displeasure of meeting- a baddy so nefarious that his presence even on a fictional plane of existence was fucking frightening even to contemplate. And then she had to have been dropped smack dab in the middle of what looked like his personal study.

Argh!

So yeah, she damn well prayed her gamble about the Rockbells would pull through.

If it didn't, she didn't even want to contemplate what the military would do with her. She knew oftentimes execution wasn't the only other choice to release. The second world war could attest to that. Honestly, Joseph Stalin could attest to that single-mandedly.

Hah. Single-mandedly.

She was so fucking hilarious when she was about to die.

Gaia found herself staring at a tiny lady who couldn't be taller than four feet. Her eyes were obscured by her round glasses, glinting in the sunlight of the bright day somewhere in the east of Amestris.

She had barely comprehended being pushed through the system, handed a large manila folder filled with files, and herded onto a steam train by military personnel. It had finally clicked three hours into the train ride that she, Gaia Maurer, had managed to con a military government into forging documents for her, and gotten off Scott-free for what had first seemed to them as an infiltration mission.

She was ridiculously tempted to burst into tears and fall on her knees in front of this woman. This tiny, scary woman.

But, she gulped down her joy. She knew she still hadn't escaped the heat of the situation. She was tempted to use the old metaphor 'out of the frying pan and into the fire'.

No, instead she bowed succinctly to the petite granny, and intoned her gratitude in a way that Pinako Rockbell would know she'd get a full (highly edited for her own good) explanation once they were out of the train station and the guards who had escorted her to what the entire military state believed to be her grandmother's closest friend.

"Mrs. Rockbell! I've heard so much about you from my grandmother. Thank you so much for getting me out of that little... situation I got myself into he he!" she smiled widely, and raised a hand to her tousled hair- trains were a surprisingly comfortable place to nap, she found- in an attempt to seem bashful about the 'little situation' Pinako had pulled her out of. The bashfulness wasn't hard to fake, she just enhanced the already existent feelings of relief and anxiety she had already been feeling deep in her gut.

"Yes, well, couldn't have Katrin's granddaughter in such a rut, now could I? And why didn't you phone that you were coming, anyway! Could have avoided this entire fuss."

"I didn't seem to have time to get myself a phone-book, and then this whole mess started, you see. Thank you, again, for doing this for me- you were under absolutely no obligation to do so, and I am in your debt." She bowed again.

"I don't mind, I don't mind. You can repay that debt by helping out around the house and letting me know how your grandma's doing. Now, let's get going! Our ride's waiting outside, I don't want him to wait up."

And so, the two women made their way out, Gaia waving cheekily at her guards, wishing them luck on their way back to the capital. Their ride, it turned out, was a hay cart owned by a neighboring farmer to the Rockbell property. The sixteen year old was glad for the ride, as even with her short nap and predominantly staying seated for the past few days, she was exhausted. Her brain was still trying to comprehend what the hell was happening, and all she had dreamed of was ways to tell the Rockbell matriarch of her dilemma.

She would have liked to say she had plans A-Z fully developed depending on every minute factor she could encounter, but the truth was that she had barely come up with half an idea before she had to scrap it, before going on to the verge of a panic attack at her incapability to find a way to get in the old lady's good graces.

The ride was peaceful, and even the musty smell of the cart from the tons of hay it had transported every harvest season, as well as the smells of the country proved to calm the young woman's nerves.

One thing she had cleared up by grabbing a local newspaper was the date. February 2nd, 1913. Which meant she was a year early to the party, by what she could tell. It also meant she had some time to adjust before all the shit went down- two years or so before the final battle.

They reached the tall house in the middle of the fields, and both jumped from the tall cart- Gaia was surprised at the old woman's agility as she dropped from the back of the bumpy ride. They thanked Otto, the farmer, and made their way into the house and subsequently the kitchen.

In the hallway, she only briefly skimmed the pin board of photos, relieved at least a little to see familiar faces. That meant she wasn't too far back and could use her final story.

"Alright, spill. I have no idea how you picked me to get you out of trouble, but there better be a good explanation for it."

She flinched, but acquiesced that she deserved the harsh tone.

"Mrs. Rockbell, I will be eternally grateful for your help. I am who I say I am- that is, Gaia Maurer. I'm not some spy from another country. I am not from Amestris, that's at least true, but the fact stands that I have very little left to my name, seeing as my, my home is no longer accessible to me."

"And why were you locked up by the military in the first place?"

"That's something I don't understand either, actually. I was apprehended in the F- um, I was on a train somewhere in the north-east quarter, and then BAM! I'm in a cell being questioned."

Pinako was skeptical- that was clear as day. She had no problem helping out a sixteen year old in trouble- she had to raise four kids by herself, after all, and no one who did such a thing was untouched by even the smallest hint of compassion for any youths, no matter if they were related to you or not. Her problem, in all honesty, was that she had no idea if this girl was hostile. If she would do anything to hurt her family.

And yet, the girl had gambled her life- whatever garbage the military spewed at her she knew was complete bullshit, a bit of trouble her ass- on her, an old small-town surgeon.

"Doesn't explain how you knew my name." If you mean me or my family any harm, you've got another thing coming.

Her mouth opened for her to start digging herself out of her hole, but instead foreign words left her mouth, a buzzing noise in the back of her head.

"I was in Ishval five years ago." Recognition sparked behind the old woman's glasses, and her arms slowly loosened in her crossed position across the table.

"I was ten in 1907, stranded after my parents had decided to travel around the world with my brother and I. I got caught in the thick of the war, and the only people who had any compassion to the little orphan girl were ones with white hair and red eyes- they weren't nearly as bitter and murderous as everyone makes them out to be.. They took me in and taught me the language, before they too were taken from me. I got injured in one of the attacks, but was saved by a couple of surgeons. They patched me up, and I helped them as much as possible with an injured leg- bringing water to the patients and such."

She couldn't stop, and tears of frustration as she battled for some damn control spilled from her eyes. She conceded that it wasn't as if anyone would believe her if she had told them the truth- that an entity by the name of Truth had sucked her from one world and spit her out in another that she had only read about- and obsessed about- in book format, and yet she felt guilt well up in her as her own not-voice damned her. There was no way of escaping this world, and this story, if she, or whatever it was speaking for her, dug her her own grave, and chained her coffin to the people most involved in the mess about to be made of this god-forsaken country.

"I was, there, when the Ishvalan warrior they had treated woke up." Imagining the event, bile was easily conjured into her throat. Now that she knew this world was real, all the violence she read about, every death was that much more horrid.

"Even in their last moments, they only thought of their little girl. They wanted you and Winry to know that they were sorry that they wouldn't see you again." She had always been able to cry on demand, a factor of her chronically dry eyes, but she found she didn't need to try very hard as she glanced at the near-heartbroken look the old woman in front of her had on her face.

She dreamt of a vivid landscape riddled by craters, with a huge wall roughly transmuted to one side and flames spreading as far as the eye could see. Ruins towered above her, and she felt her bare feet make routine slapping sounds against the decimated road, gravel and glass alike piercing her soft soles. She screamed a name, but couldn't seem to hear over the laughter of someone behind her. She turned, terrified eyes hitting their mark as she scrambled backwards, away from the man whose long black hair whipped around him as his red eyes gleamed, a red light as if a splinter of a back-lit ruby passing through his silhouetted body, settling near where his heart would be.

But this man was not human. He was a monster. He had no heart for the shard to corrupt. Not anymore.

Gaia awoke screaming in a jumble of blankets, the furrowed brows of old woman Pinako above her. She had a cold compress on her forehead, and she could see the sleepy form of a girl she vaguely recognized as Winry in the light of the doorway.

She stayed in a highly fevered state for three days, tossing and turning and sweating through the worst of it. She vaguely registered having trouble breathing and the world spinning too much for her to even lift a hand as she was tended to by the two females in the house. She was grateful that one was a surgeon and another well-enough versed in anatomy to be able to construct limbs that hooked into nerves.

As it was, she found out what her Sacrifice was two days after the first dream- nightmare, memory.

Half of her lungs, as it turned out, were nowhere to be found.

She had stared at the tiny woman as she told her of her newest problem, not comprehending the words 'why didn't you tell me you only had one lung, you stupid girl?!'

She had both her lungs in her before the little trip the Universe had booted her on.

Her hesitance was telling, though, and Pinako Rockbell, ever the sharp woman she was, stared hard at her, before leaving the room and her patient to recuperate in peace.

Peace, she thought vaguely, would not come for a long time.

After three days of nightmares, Gaia had to acknowledge they were no mere constructs of her imagination. They were memories of the life she had apparently lived here- it seemed Truth had awaited her to make herself a place in this new world, nestle herself tentatively into the lives of the people around her, and had accordingly changed it so his lies were now facts.

Because that was what must have happened, Gaia reasoned. It was Truth speaking through her, ingraining her with memories and knowledge she would need to live here. Why, she had no idea why it was helping her in any way.

She wasn't so sure a lung was equivalent enough exchange for the changes taking place around her, a world being shifted to accommodate her existence.

The fact still stood, though, that she could remember the Rockbell's faces, remember the relief she felt as her forehead was caressed by Sarah's cold hands, and when they let her out of the cast which had immobilized her for neigh-on two weeks. Her knee injury and her scar which had previously been from crappy genetics and the subsequent surgery were now from her brush with death in the Ishvalan quarter after becoming orphaned by a blunder from an inexperienced alchemist.

She remembered her parents- mother from Thrace to the east, father half-Amestrian and half Lendian- and her brother who looked more like their mother than anything, where she looked like her grandmother, swallowed by the rubble and viscous ground.

She learned they didn't scream. They hadn't the time.