Hello again, and welcome to the second chapter of "Utopian Requiem". My goal with this story is to update it once a month (at least). I'm really busy earning money to go to Germany, and working on the spring play. Also, my favorite barn cat just got squished to death by one of the cows, so I'm in mourning. I apologize if this chapter isn't very good.

Disclaimer: I, SakuraLetters, do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. Hiromu Arakawa does, and although I am half Japanese, I am not a successful mangaka. I do, however, own the wide array of original characters featured in this story.

A bookstore was a haven for the trio, and always had been ever since they had stumbled into one as silly, giggly children. Erika loved sitting in the aisles, her nose stuck in a book, surrounded by shelves upon shelves filled to the brim with books. Reading had been her anchor, a safe haven she could flee to whenever she needed a break from the real world.

Whenever a new bookstore opened up, Erika was one of the first to check it out. Before, it had been amusing watching Erika's face light up like a kid at Christmas, but now Chris knew exactly what his friend saw in book stores. He saw it now because he was in desperate need of an escape as well. The look on Ed's face made Chris's heart clench. If there was anyone on earth who needed a way to escape his worries, it was Ed. Though, somehow, Chris just couldn't believe books would help him forget the state of the world.

"Chris?"

The muscular teen looked over to see Erika standing a foot or two away from him. Her voice had brought him back to reality; the store was close to empty, despite having been crowded mere minutes ago.

"You've been staring at that book for hours. The only reason none of the staff nagged you about it was because Elysia told them not to."

"Elysia?" Elysia Hughes? Didn't she graduate from the academy last spring?

"Don't you know? She works here. It helps her pay for college."

"Hey, Erika? Is everything alright?"

Elysia Hughes had grown into a stunning young woman. She kept her dirty blond hair short, keeping itself length to just past her shoulders, and had a pair of glasses perched on her nose. She had developed generous curves in all the right places. For a moment, Chris had a hard time believing that the young woman in front of them was every the gawky little thirteen-year-old who had once been their playmate.

"Maybe once before, but I doubt anything will be completely alright from now on," Erika said, a bitter sorrow in her voice.

"I know," Elysia said, "I saw the paper this morning. You're acting like Uncle Roy and Aunt Riza have already been sentenced."

"Uncle Roy won't escape the death penalty, Elysia. You know that as well as we do. His role in Ishbal was too big to simply be ignored. As for Aunt Riza, who honestly knows?"

Elysia was silent for a moment. "Do you really think that the courts will be so cruel as to rob three minors of both parents in one fell swoop?"

Erika shrugged. "Who knows? Amestris has already proven it's too stupid to move on."

Silence hung in the air, a multitude of things left unsaid. Chris, the nephew of the current Furher, was just as helpless as his friends and Elysia, if things had played out differently, could have very easily ended up in the same boat as Ed. Erika was the only one who wasn't a risk of losing a parent, but she had been short one to begin with. The fact that soon he'd been the only one left with both of his parents didn't miss Chris at all.

"Anyways, we'd better get going. We do have school tomorrow," Erika remarked, breaking the silence. "See you later, Elysia."

"Remember, if either of you need someone to talk to, I'm here! Tell Ed that, too!"

"Will do! Bye!" The two waved goodbye to their surrogate older sister.

"See you tomorrow, then," Chris said, an awkward twinge to it.

"Bye."

She almost envied Chris; come to think of it, she had always felt a twinge of envy whenever she had gone over to his house, or Ed's, to play. Why was it that they both got to have their dads and she didn't? It was the same with Allison, although Erika had only ever met Mr. Havoc at certain school functions. They always seemed to have a story to tell involving her dad, particularly Mr. Havoc and Uncle Roy. They would tell her about her father's journeys (although she was fairly certain they were heavily edited second-hand accounts) and little incidents around the old Eastern Headquarters. Perhaps her favorite stories were the ones that involved one the explosions of temper her father was famous for.

Back then, she had believed he would come back any day. Every morning she would wake up and think to herself that it was the day her father would walk through the front door and they could be a normal family. She had stopped that silly belief when she was eight. Her father would never come back—could never come back. She had seen it on the faces of Uncle Roy and Aunt Riza, of Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Havoc, of those who once served (and were "in the know", she'd wager) with her father. She had come to accept that. It could no longer be questioned.

Chris had always known that Erika was at least a tiny bit jealous of him and Ed. It wasn't that it was obvious, but he had gotten to know her well enough to see the faint longing in her eyes whenever his dad would walk into the room and carry on with life as normal. It was a slightly watered-down version of the look that haunted Elysia.

"Mom? Dad? I'm home," Chris said as he entered the house.

"Oh, welcome home, Chris," Sabriel Armstrong said absentmindedly to her eldest son. She sat on the couch, elbows on her knees, her chin resting lighting on her laced fingers. Her eyes were eerily unfocused, as if she were looking into another world. Something was off.

"Mom? What's wrong?"

Sabriel let out a small sigh and stood up. "Nothing really, sweetie. Not with me personally, anyway."

"Is this about the war crime trials? Dad hasn't been served, has he?""

Sabriel laughed. "No, sweetheart. He was court marshaled for disobedience in Ishbal, there's no way he'll be brought to trial."

"Then why do you seem so sad?"

"Chris, sweetie, sit down. You know how your father hasn't been…feeling very well lately?"

A cold fear spread through Chris's body like ice. Oh, God, what was wrong with his dad? It was obviously bad, or else his mother wouldn't look so sad, so close to breaking. What had happened?

"Well, he collapsed today in the shop. The doctors don't think it's anything extremely serious, but they're keeping him overnight for observation. It gave me quite a fright, but they say he'll be just fine."

"Why'd he—"

"The doctors said it was a heart attack." Chris almost scoffed at the idea. His dad prided himself on his body and took excellent care of it. There was simply no way that Alex Louis Armstrong could've had a heart attack. "I'm just grateful he'll be alright, but I'm going to spend the night with him in the hospital. I just came home to grab a few things."

"When will you be home?"

"Tomorrow afternoon, if everything checks out good with your father. Good night, sweetheart. I love you." Sabriel kissed Chris's head as she moved to the door.

The sky rumbled as a last-minute thunderstorm decided to make itself known.

Yay! We get to see Elysia! I really see her as kind of a surrogate older sister to Erika, Chris, and Ed. She's going to be pretty important, especially with all of the crap that's going on. Man, I am just not nice to them, am I? ...Random thought: has anyone noticed that there are a lot of anime characters with father issues?

Chapter dedicated to Buttons, the cutest little barn kitty my farm has ever seen! May you rest in peace.

-SakuraLetters