Unanswered Pleas..

Chapter.3

A/N: Roy `Stang will be in this Chapter... ^-^ As promised to most of my fans....


Hours had passed since the rescue of Joliet Ashriel Skyrm from the small labatory of Faust Evenscent 'The Red Sand Alchemist', known solely for the destruction of two Ishbalan refugee camps. It ended with the desert's sand being covered in her people's blood. Monsieur Havoc told her the tale as the medical corps wrapped her wounds with fresh gauze. As she lay on the comfortable seat of the cab that was supposed to transport her to Central, her lips stretch to accomidate a yawn that erupted from her body shuddered with want for sleep and the chill leather that stabbed through her clothing. It had hit as soon as the sun receded and the moon arose like a specter in the now blood-red sky. Her lids threatened to fall, but somehow she fought them valiantly. She wished to see the world she once knew roll away...

Soon Monsieur ArmStrong took the second seat in the front, beside the driver whose eyes continued to stare at the girl. His eyes soon followed suit, examining the sadness in her eyes before they closed finally. She had lost the battle. This girl, He thought, recalling the words that the head nurse had spoken.

Lieutenant ArmStrong, this child...I am surprised that she is still living or better yet, able to move as freely as she does. All the injures, whether internal or external would have killed anyother person... Her right side, down to her hip has heavy lacerations. She had trailed off to peer at the girl, whose eyes peeked from under bi-colored tresses which once wet, stretched to her hips. She seemed intrigued by the soap bubbles in her thin drew a smile over her pale face before her emerald eyes fell back onto the blonde. She has been raped, beaten, burned, any type of abuse known to man and some not even thought of have been inflicted upon her, but she has no recollection of any of the events. All she knows is that she woke up one day in the basement of the labatory.

Joliet raised her curled fingers to her lids, rubbing them as she rolled over onto her side, facing the two men. She had been gifted with spare clothes; a uniform jacket that reached to her knees and a pair of shorts that hung off her hips, but covered her gauze well.

"Monsieur ArmStrong, Is something the matter?" Her voice came through his thoughts, her tongue giving off silvery words that made her irises shine even more brighter in the depths of abyss all Alex saw until the lithe woman sat up, allowing the moon's rays to illumate the violet in her mane. In her face, it was apparent that internally like the nurse had said and he quotes: ' Shadows shroud every corner of her mind and hide her from the world'

"No... Nothing. We shall soon be in Central and then you shall see the beauty that is the ArmStrong family home," Joliet blinked as small fragments of light purple radiated off of him, his thumb raised in a gesture that added to her already chronic blinking. He continued. "Where you shall recieve the best food and wine! Maids shall care for you around the clock! Oh, my dearest Joliet, it shall be heaven on earth-"

"Pourquoi?" Alex did not stop his vibrant display, his smile became bright and shown with such elegance that Joliet could only bow her head. He asked her what she meant ans she quickly retorted with a voice that caused him to snap from his reverie amd happiness and take notie to the heart-wrenching expression on her lovely face.

"Why are you being so nice?... We dont know eachother... We've just met today and oui, you've saved my-my life, but I never asked you to do so and nor have I asked for any treatment that deems me as your burden."She whispered these words in an unusual tone that brought her french accent out in the worst way. Alex's sparkling personality deminished and he rose a hand to place onto her frail shoulder, giving it a tentative squeeze.

"You do not have to ask for something that I have willingly given."

"But to be in your home...! Should I not be in a cage with all the rest of Faust's experiments?" She inquired, raising her head only to have one eye visible under the mass of hair. Her hand rose to lay upon his. "Am I not... just like those abominations of man?... Those things that he has made?..." Joliet felt as if her world was crashing down upon her shoulder, knocking her self-awareness to its knees and bring the wrost out of her situation. To have even now a voice of impending trepidation rear its ugly head would crush her into a sham of her former self and, of course, that is when it began to speak over Alex ArmStrong and filled her mind with lies that not only hurt her, but changed her back into what she was when they first found her. Her body shook beneath Alex's grasp, eyes falling open and shut rapidly to see once more, but sight would not come not until the cab screeched to a halt and she was pulled to the sand outside, hands pressing into her chest. She didnt realize how fast her breath had been coming and that tears were spilling out of her eyes and onto the ground below, but they were and it rose something in her.

A lost something. A snippet, really, of black and grey. Black covered the surface of a man's smirking face. Hands reach up, pushing at his face and hands, struggling through the pooling black liquid as loud, insistant screeches of agony filled her ears almost deafening her. Her hand move to her ears to silence the keening, but it only gets louder...

And louder...

A silver sheen catches her eyes through the growing abyss. A knife. It buries itself deep into the flesh of her right arm once more and this time... She felt it. And it brought her to reality. She quickly sat up, faster than needed to which in turn brought about the sudden sickness and ultimately had her figure lurch forward to allow a flow of crimson liquid from her mouth. It burned her throat and sent her tastebuds to register ash and salt, but nothing more. Sitting up, dazed, Joliet saw the world spinning and whirling. Heard voices. Saw obscurred faces, but none beckoned to her. They all laughed and danced about her. Her voice had deserted her and would not or could not come no matter how much she attempted to use it. It distressed her to the point where her fingers reached into her lock and the keening started again..


Within a dream or maybe a nightmare, it was certain that she was a peace. Finally at peace, she let her fancy run across the plains of her mind, running, singing, dancing with shadowed figures that held her close and never wished to let go, but eventually did when it was apparent that she grew tired of the chronic twirling and contact. She lay her head on one particular one that shadowed her ever movement with grace and proud steps that sent her heart a-thud in her chest. She swooned and sighed and allowed her body to be led into temptation and sin as her mother would have said. The gypsy music would not end. It became louder with drums that placed her footsteps just right and soon, like as a child, she had a tambourine in her capable fingers, hitting it against her hip to allow the chiming to fill her ears. And that same figure closed in on her and they stare into eachothers eyes....

"Madmoiselle Joliet!"

"Madmoiselle Joliet!" Yells entered her mind as her body shifted and eventually fell off of the cloud that she had been laying on. It jolted her on contact and she lunged upward into a sitting position like she could've sworn she was in a moment ago. Her eyes looked up to see a shillouete of two men. One was large and the voice was familiar, but the other was smaller and not quite as familiar. A stranger. She reached out both hands to clasp the men by their pants and soon their images were clear.

"Monsieur ArmStrong.... You must warn me for you start to yell my name!" She chided then laid eyes on the second man. He was atleast 6-foot tall with short black hair that framed a stern, but handsome face. His eyes burned with such intensity that they almost seemed red instead of black. Like a flame. He was the handsomest man she had ever seen, but then again.... He seemed familiar. Too familiar like she should know who and what he was."You woke me too suddenly!" She brought her hand from ArmStrong and rose it to her throat. She had just realized how much it hurt for her to speak and even breathe.

"My deepest apologizes, Joliet, but you scared me. You were so upset that you went into a panic attack. And the screaming! You kept screaming over and over how much it hurt and that you did not want to live. Not to mention that you've been spitting up blood ever since you've been in Central." Alex, who seemed shakey even with such a intimidating stature, slumped his shoulder and soon came to one knee, wrapping two large arms around her figure, crushing her into his pillow-like chest. "Do not worry me so much!" All she could muster was a pat on his mostly bald head. The man behind the now-crying Luitentant gave a sigh of...

Annoyance?

Maybe relief?...

"Monsieur ArmStrong, Who is that?..." His crying ended all to fast for her to believe that it was truly real, but she said nothing of it and quieted her thoughts so that she could hear him correctly.

"Oh! My dear this is Lieutentant Colonel Roy Mustang. Colonel, this is Joliet Ashriel Skyrm, the woman that Lieutenant Havoc told you of." He explained, standing up and bringing the girl with him. She stood atleast 2 heads shorter that the large aristocrat and was substantially thinner, but not overly thin. Never emaciated. Never gaunt. She wore a small smile on her lovely features and nodded her head in acknowledgement to the proud Colonel before her.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Mustang..." Her voice rang in his ears and he grew a quaint smile that betrayed his stoic nature. She could see it flash across his counterance and reached out her fingers to touch the smooth surface of warm flesh as her greeting. Roy's expression changed into one of surprise from the sudden contact that was forced upon him, but she never lost her smile. She could read the stress plainly on him. "It is a pleasure to meet you..." And it was... Roy had not expected a girl when he first heard that Havoc and ArmStrong had found someone and for her to be so... polite and young was even stranger, but as he looked upon her face. Even if he had just met her. He seemed to register familiarity.. Just like she did. The name, though, threw him off.

"Yes, it is a pleasure, Miss. Skyrm." He took her petite hand into his gloved one and felt as if he had done this once more.... A long time ago. He leaned forward to brush lips across the fragile flesh of her knuckle then pulled away. A gentleman she noted then receded her hand to hold to her chest. She felt the cloth of the outfit she remembered she was wrapped in. They felt abit wet on her left side and it clung to her flesh, looking downward, she noticed a black stain that travelled to her hip and the same liquid dripped to the ground at her feet. Roy's eyes were on it and now so was Alex's. Joliet felt her head spin and soon lost her equalibrium, troppling over only to be saved by ArmStrong's massive left bicep. She dug her fingernails into the flesh, begging for some stablity to help her head from twirling, contorting Roy's image into something ugly. It was his face, yes... But he was younger and his expression, though grey was twisted with anger. His mouth moved, but no words erupted and when his hands rose a gun, her fingers moved without her asking them too. She moved her left hand to straight to him and something black slithered in his direction, illuminating a symbol on her palm that seemed to be of a different language. The figure wrapped around his ankle, dragging him to his back and that's when the shot rang out and a pang of excruiating pain filled her chest. She looked down. It was the same location she remembered in her earlier dream. Her right side, just below her collar bone. Her hand reached up to it and her knees buckled from her weight. Tears seemed to be falling from her eyes without thought. All that ran through her mind was:

Porquoi, mon amour?....

Porquoi?

And the only answer she got rang through her like that bullet.

"It had to be done..." Then she was back, In Roy Mustang's arms, her eyes looking at her palms in suspicion. Their eyes both widened. They remembered. And then they looked to eachother. Alex had ran for a nurse and left the door open, but they didnt care. They just stared....


A/N: Finally done with this chapter! God, it was excruiating! I mean, I knew what I wanted to say, but mon dieux! Its hard to put it into words.... So, is everyone confused?.... Bon! I wanted that... You'll have to find out what happened like everyone else... and it isnt something crappy like Roy has an evil twin or Joliet is the reincarnation of Roy's lost love.... So, there you go... Thanks to Moriah93Ohio, Yoru-Atemu, and all the rest of my squirrel minons.... I love you all...

4th chapter is going to be a bitch...

Oh and the first one to tell me what actually happened...

Gets an Oc in this story and one of my next ones...

So, think Really hard about the possiblities and review! Also.... Note that I will not update this story until I get 8 more reviews... 8, gods dammit.... I have no patience....

-Shiori-chan.