Disclaimer: I don't own FMA or the words and their definition. Credit goes to Arakawa and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Like usual.

Secondary disclaimer: I know that Truth, as the equivalent of God in the FMA universe, is omniscient, but just like in "Coat Tails" I added personality for reading entertainment. Please forgive my creative liberties.

Enjoy!

Delay: to stop, detain, or hinder for a time

Truth blinked.

The Gate was open.

Truth blinked again, stepped back, and canting its formless head as though that might fix the problem.

Still open.

It, being Truth, knew all, and as such it knew that this was definitely not supposed to happen.

Truth summoned the Philosopher's Stone with a thought. It appeared in Truth's hand, glowing red with the souls of a thousand humans. If Truth really wanted to fix the Gate the Stone had to leave in one form or another.

Luckily, Truth had a plan.

Edward Elric, the pipsqueak alchemist.

Somewhere in the sprawling streets of Central, Amestris he still had fragments of shadow hands clinging to his ankles, linking him to the faulty equation performed in a grieving husband's basement. Invisible to the mortal eye, the shadow hands stretched between the Gate and Ed's feet, connecting them like a string, or a bungee cord depending on how you looked at it. If Ed could enter Truth's realm with no payment, then Truth could use the Philosopher Stone to pay for his time here before throwing him back out. Little by little, Ed would tug the Gate shut both literally (via shadow hands) and equivalently (fulfilling the exchange by using the Stone).

In all its history of exchanges with mankind, this would easily be the most elaborate. Still, there was no easy way to go about fulfilling an exchange where two factors were unaccounted for.

Now all Truth needed was a way to get Ed into his realm with nothing to exchange. Truth would be kidding itself if it said there was a plethora of options. There was only one.

Death.

But who said Ed had to enter willingly?

Truth leaned its formless head on Ed's flesh hand and gazed below at the streets of Central. In the space of a second, it found Ed helpless in a weathered shed. Just outside the door, his foolish colonel removed a pistol from its holster.

Hmm… Truth could use this.

Truth sat straight and grinned slowly. It prepared a time equation to fit the situation and pinned a reset factor on the weapon.

If Ed died tonight, all would be well, but Truth's plan depended on Mustang's gun.

And that was Truth's greatest mistake.

(The next day…)

Mustang felt his eyes drying from the intensity of his stare, but he couldn't tear his gaze away.

It was just a gun. A weapon for the times his gloves couldn't suffice; a mechanical back up purchased and worn at Hawkeye's insistence; an object of no consequence if he never used it.

It lay on his desk, bullets strewn before him like canisters of death. A gun was no more powerful than the person wielding it, and he doubted this rescue mission would come to that. So why couldn't he pick it up? The very thought of touching it sent a shiver of revolution through him.

"Colonel," Hawkeye was at his side. They needed to leave immediately. He had no time to dawdle over illogical emotion. Ed's life was at risk here, and though Mustang had no doubt Ed would have already punched a hole through his so-called captor's gut, the knowledge did nothing to quell the unease stirring in his latent memory.

Hawkeye waited, and he felt confusion meld into her calculating gaze as his fingers curled with hesitation over the weapon.

"Sir," she lowered her voice so the rest of the team couldn't hear. "Are you alright?"

No. Something was very, very wrong. He felt dizzy – lighter than air yet weighted down with a leaden foreboding that if he chose to pick up his gun now blood was already on his hands.

"Roy?"

This was silly. He was only feeling thrown off because of Ed's attitude this morning. The suspicious banter. The deadpan tone. The golden eyes shooting wide in fear and anger when they rose to meet Mustang's.

"We've got a mission to finish." Finish? What did he mean by that?

Hawkeye reached over and finished slotting the bullets into the magazine, secured it in the gun, and offered Mustang the handle.

"We shouldn't keep them waiting."

Mustang blinked and tears washed in to moisten his eyes. Uck. He couldn't let Hawkeye get the wrong idea. In a not-so-subtle motion, he wiped the wetness from around his eyes and blinked hard. He still didn't want to touch the pistol, but they didn't have time for him to source the reason for his off-balance emotions.

He firmly gripped the handle and took it from Hawkeye.

Déjà vu stole his breath.

"Let's go."

"Again – Delay" was meant to be a bonus one-shot, but I split it into chapters so they're all on the short side. Sorry.

Also…betcha didn't guess that little detail in the first chapter of "Again – Reverse" would be important. Y'know, the one about Ed shaking his feet as though feeling shadow hands still wrapping around his ankles. I'd go back and read that part if I were you. It's in the first section if you're interested.

Updates on Monday.

-Dante